De Werkgemeenschap voor Informatie- en Communicatietheorie in de Benelux

organizes an Introduction to

OBJECT-ORIENTED AUDIO-VISUAL COMMUNICATION

Tuesday, January 19, 1999

Auditorium of the Technical University of Eindhoven, "Blauwe Zaal," Eindhoven

Are you curious about multimedia communication in the next millennium? The consumer electronics industry, cable operators, telcos, broadcasters, and computer firms are heavily investing in the information super highway. The current generation of digital audio-visual communication is enabled by the MPEG-2 and ITU-T H.263 compression standards in which visual and audio information are independently processed and multiplexed together as bitstreams. In the upcoming MPEG-4 standard, an audiovisual signal is thought of as a dynamic "scene" which is "composed" of audio/visual objects that can be natural or synthetic and 2D or 3D. The visual aspect of an object (e.g. a person, or a background) can manifest itself as a kind of non-rectangular window in a computer. Objects can carry sound or consist of sound only. Scenes can refer to each other by means of hyperlinks and a scene can have a JAVA interface. This will have a tremendous impact on the way information is organized, processed, efficiently coded and accessed. It is believed that Object Orientation will lead to completely new forms of interactivity. A user may access arbitrarily shaped objects in the scene and manipulate them: "content based interactivity." This midwinter meeting offers an introduction to this exciting new research area by keynote speakers in the field. The presentations will be given in English.

REVISED PROGRAM

09.30 Registration

10.00 Welcome address

10.10 Dr. Inald Lagendijk (Technische Universiteit Delft)

Introduction Object Oriented Multimedia

11.00 Coffee break

11.30 Ir. Rob Koenen (KPN Research, Chairman MPEG Requirements Group)

MPEG-4, Overview and Operational Environments

12.20 Lunch

13.20 Dr. Isabelle Corset (Philips)

MPEG-4 Video and Applications

14.10 Dr. Stef Desmet (K.U. Leuven/E.S.A.T.)

Segmentation into Visual Objects

15.00 Tea break

15.30 Drs. Paul ten Hage (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica)

Facial Analysis and Animation

16.20 Closing

REGISTRATION

Participants should register in order to be admitted to the "Blauwe Zaal" where the midwinter meeting will be held. This can be done by sending a message by electronic or postal mail before January 8, 1998 to Dr. A.P. Hekstra, KPN Research, P.O. Box 421, 2260 AK Leidschendam, Netherlands A.P.Hekstra@research.kpn.com, tel. +31-70-3325787, fax +31-70-3326477.

The number of participants is limited. All registrations will be acknowledged. The admission fee including lunch is Dfl. 50,- (or BEF 900) per person and must be paid in cash upon entering the "Blauwe Zaal". Students pay 50%.

ORGANIZERS

Prof. Jan Biemond (Technische Universiteit Delft), Dr. Andries Hekstra (KPN Research), Prof. Peter de With (University Mannheim)

LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS

Dr. Frans Willems (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven)

COSPONSORS

This event is co-sponsored by the IEEE Benelux Chapter on Signal Processing, the IEEE Benelux Chapter on Communications and Vehicular techn., and the IEEE Benelux Chapter on Information Theory.