Kingston University London

Digital Imaging Research Centre

Introduction

The Digital Imaging Research Centre (DIRC) at Kingston University is one of the largest computer vision groups in the UK, with internationally recognised expertise in visual surveillance, medical imaging and intelligent environments.  Launched in 2000, DIRC was created to integrate and enhance research excellence.  By applying high quality academic research to the solution of real industrial problems, the centre aims to strengthen its external links with industry and other medical and academic institutions.  In the past, DIRC has worked with the Home Office, the Police and transport operators across the UK and Europe. 

DIRC members are involved in a number of EPSRC funded crime related research projects, including:

• PerSec: Image Processing Techniques as a Means of Improving Personal Security in Public Transport;
• Traffic Simulation and Optimisation on an Intelligent Video Surveillance Network;
• REVEAL: Recovering Evidence from Video by fusing Video Evidence Thesaurus and Video Meta-Data
• REASON: Robust Methods for Monitoring and Understanding People in Public Spaces
• IMCaSM: Intelligent Multi-Camera Surveillance and Monitoring; and
• MEDUSA: Multi Environment Deployable Universal Software Application

In addition to UK funding, DIRC has also collaborated with a large number of European partners on the EU projects including: ADVISOR: Annotated Digital Video for Surveillance and Optimised Retrieval and CARETAKER: Content Analysis and Retrieval Technologies to Apply Knowledge Extraction to massive Recording.

Research Groups

DIRC’s Visual Surveillance Research Group has become recognised as one of the leasing centres for intelligent visual surveillance research in the UK.  Research activity and industrial consultancy has focused on the development of robust, plug and play surveillance components, integrated wide-area multi-camera systems and behavioural analysis, with a particular emphasis on the public transport sector. 

Staff

Centre Director
Prof Sergio Velastin

Dr Vasilis Argyriou
Dr Sarah Barman
Prof Jamshid Dehmeshki
Dr Olga Duran
Prof Tim Ellis
Dr Fatima Felisberti
Dr Francisco Florez Revuelta
Dr Darrel Greenhill
Dr Andreas Hoppe
Prof Graeme Jones
Dr Dimitrios Makris
Dr Sabira Mannan
Dr Maria Martini
Dr Jean-Christophe Nebel
Dr James Orwell
Prof. Barbara Pierscionek
Dr Paolo Remagnino
Dr A Shihab
Prof Sergio Velastin

Research Staff

Dr Zezhi Chen
Dr Jesús Martínez del Rincón
Dr Maria Valera Espina
Dr Ronald Grau
Dr Michal Lewandowski

Research Students

Mr Reza Aghayan
Emilio Javier Almazán Manzanares
Mr Bashir Bagheri Nakhjavanlo
Mr Spyridon Bakas
Mr Sameer Bhandari
Mr Ezequiel Bianco Martinez
Miss Victoria Bloom
Mr James Cope
Mr Deon de Jager
Mr Saeid Dorodian
Mr Yousef Ebrahim Doost Kanafi
Miss Filipa Ferreira
Mr Mohsen Firoozbakht
Mr Muhammad Moazam Fraz
Mr Raphael Grech
Miss Maryam Hajiesmaeili
Miss Edita Hamzic
Mr Raúl Antonio Herrera-Acuña
Mrs Rahil Hosseini
Ms Adina Ion
Mr Charles Mallah
Mr Mahdi Mazinani
Mr Anthony McLay
Mr Alexandros Moutzouris
Mr Md Junaedur Rahman
Mr Damien Simonnet
Mr Panagiotis Sourtzinos
Ms Myo Thida
Mr Simi Wang
Mr Roshan Welikala

Visiting Staff

Dr James Black
Prof Tony Davies
Dr Dorothy Monekosso
Prof Hugo Simpson
Mr David Vallejo

Research Groups

Bioimaging Group (BIG)

Using light microscopy and image analysis to understand cell function and dynamic processes in cells.

Human Body Motion Group (HBM)

Extraction, analysis and synthesis of human motion using video footage and motion capture data.

Robot Vision Team (RoViT)

Distributed intelligence using robotic platforms

Visual Surveillance Research Group (VSRG)

Monitoring, classifying and reasoning about people and vehicles in public environments.