Peter Corcoran

Browser-style interfaces to a home automation network

The design and implementation of a browser-style interface to a home automation network is described. The interface supports browsing and navigation of network devices and context structures and the user can interact with individual devices on the network and access and control content and object structures within these devices. The interface can be used to access a local home automation network from a standard desktop PC, or from a TV/set-top box system with built-in interface hardware. Furthermore, as the interface is implemented using conventional Internet and home network technology it can provide access and control services to the home network from any computer with an Internet connection.

Separating Directional Lighting Variability in Statistical Face Modelling Based on Texture Space Decomposition

In this paper we propose a simple method for decomposing the linear texture space of a facial appearance model into two linear subspaces, one for inter-individual variability and another for variations caused by directional changes of the lighting conditions. The approach used is to create one linear subspace from individuals with uniform illumination conditions and then filter a set of images with various directional lighting conditions by projecting corresponding textures on the previously built space; the residues are further used to build a second subspace for directional lighting. The resulted subspaces are orthogonal, so the overall texture model can be obtained by a simple concatenation of the two subspaces. The main advantage of this representation is that two sets of parameters are used to control inter-individual variation and separately intra-individual variation due to changes in illumination conditions.

CEBus Network Access via the World-Wide-Web

Several methods of providing access to CEBus networks using the World Wide Web are described. Details of a working demonstration system are given. The system software incorporates CGI-Bin scripts and Java applets to support remote access to CEBus networks. To illustrate the potential of this technology an application to allow remote trouble-shooting and fault diagnosis on a CEBus network is described.

Real-time eye gaze tracking for gaming design and consumer electronics systems

Real time face detection combined with eyegaze tracking can provide a means of user input into a gaming environment. Game and CE system designers can use facial and eye-gaze information in various ways to enhance UI design providing smarter modes of gameplay interaction and UI modalities that are sensitive to a users behaviors and mood. Here we review earlier approaches, using wearable sensors, or enhanced IR illumination. Our technique only requires video feed from a low-resolution user-facing camera. The algorithm is described and some comparative results on a range of embedded hardware are provided. The potential for using eye-gaze as a means of direct user input and improving the accuracy of estimation accordingly is also discussed.

Statistical models of appearance for eye tracking and eye-blink detection and measurement

A statistical active appearance model (AAM) is developed to track and detect eye blinking. The model has been designed to be robust to variations of head pose or gaze. In particular we analyze and determine the model parameters which encode the variations caused by blinking. This global model is further extended using a series of sub-models to enable independent modeling and tracking of the two eye regions. Several methods to enable measurement and detection of eye-blink are proposed and evaluated. The results of various tests on different image databases are presented to validate each model.

Mapping home-network appliances to TCP/IP sockets using a three-tiered home gateway architecture

A three-tier gateway architecture for internetworking between home automation networks and a TCP/IP based wide area network, such as the Internet, is described. The architecture abstracts the functionality of any home network into a driver layer (tier one), and provides a common access layer (tier two) from any TCP/IP network application (tier three) to a local home automation network. Clients and application programs may transparently access services and resources on the home network and appliances connected to the home network may access resources and services on the TCP/IP network.

User interface technologies for home appliances and networks

The design and implementation of portable, lightweight user-interfaces to provide access to remote embedded home-systems and home-networks is described. This paper is focussed on emerging standards in the consumer electronics field, including embedded-Java, the handheld device markup language (HDML) and remote frame buffer (RFB) protocol technology as implemented in the public-domain virtual network computer (VNC) software. A key goal of the present paper is to provide an objective technical assessment of the applicability of each of these technologies to the development of practical consumer appliances and handheld terminals providing enhanced user access to the home environment.

Image processing techniques to detect and filter objectionable images based on skin tone and shape recognition

In this paper we describe image-processing techniques to detect and categorize potentially objectionable images based solely on the image content. The techniques include a novel method of matching skin tones based on a fuzzy classification scheme and shape recognition techniques to match faces and other elements of the human anatomy. In particular the color matching technique is significantly more accurate than existing methods documented in literature. These techniques offer a means of filtering images, based solely on graphical content, for a new generation of home Internet appliances.

In-camera person-indexing of digital images

A prototype implementation of an automatic in-camera cataloging tool is presented. An external infrastructure to store and analyze images and support the in-camera cataloging tool is also described.

Automatic indexing of consumer image collections using person recognition techniques

An evaluation of person recognition technologies for use in an automatic cataloging tool for consumer image collections is presented. Prototype implementations of the automatic cataloging tool and user search tools are described. A preliminary statistical analysis of the success rate of these tools is given.