Author Archives: andrea

MICC will be at ACM Multimedia 2015

MICC will be at ACM Multimedia 2015

MICC will be at ACM Multimedia 2015

MICC will be at ACM Multimedia 2015:

  • we organize the tutorial on Image Tag Assignment, Refinement and Retrieval: this tutorial focuses on challenges and solutions for content-based image annotation and retrieval in the context of online image sharing and tagging. We present a unified review on three closely linked problems, i.e., tag assignment, tag refinement, and tag-based image retrieval;
  • we present a short paper in the poster session: Image Popularity Prediction in Social Media Using Sentiment and Context Features Francesco Gelli, Tiberio Uricchio, Marco Bertini, Alberto Del Bimbo (University of Florence, Italy), Shih-Fu Chang (Columbia University, USA)
  • we present four demos:
    • Movie’s Affect Communication Using Multisensory Modalities Joël Dumoulin, Diana Affi, Elena Mugellini, Omar Abou Khaled (HumanTech Institute, University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland) Marco Bertini, Alberto Del Bimbo (MICC, University of Florence, Italy)
    • PITAGORA: Recommending Users and Local Experts in an Airport Social Network Andrea Ferracani, Daniele Pezzatini, Andrea Benericetti, Marco Guiducci, Alberto Del Bimbo (Università degli Studi di Firenze – MICC, Italy) – Read More
    • A System for Video Recommendation using Visual Saliency, Crowdsourced and Automatic Annotations Andrea Ferracani, Daniele Pezzatini, Marco Bertini, Saverio Meucci, Alberto Del Bimbo (Università degli Studi di Firenze – MICC, Italy) – Read More
    • smArt: Open and Interactive Indoor Cultural Data Andrea Ferracani, Daniele Pezzatini, Alberto Del Bimbo, Riccardo Del Chiaro, Franco Yang, Maurizio Sanesi (Università degli Studi di Firenze – MICC, Italy) – Read More

NEMECH – New Media for Cultural Heritage

On Wednesday July 22, 2015 in Florence, at the glazed hall of Le Murate, Piazza Madonna della Neve, will be launched the activities of the Competence Centre NEMECH – New Media for Cultural Heritage, established by the Region of Tuscany in the program of actions aimed at strengthening the regional system of technology transfer.

NEMECH, New Media for Cultural Heritage

NEMECH, New Media for Cultural Heritage

NEMECH activities are synergic with the Culture Plan of the Region of Tuscany, Tuscan PRS 2011-2015 and have as goals the study and application of multimedia and information technologies to the documentation and promotion of cultural heritage and landscape, the experimenting of new and improved ways of using, and the promotion and qualification of cultural heritage and related activities.

The Centre features scientific and technological expertise of researchers from the Departments of the Humanistic and Technological areas of the University of Florence and of international experts and develop innovative projects with institutions and companies.

During the event on July 22, there will be presentations by representatives of institutions and professionals in the field and will be shown systems and projects already implemented by the Centre.

PROGRAM

Glazed Hall at Le MURATE Piazza Madonna della Neve, FIRENZE

9.30-10.00 Introductory remarks

  • The Nemech centre – Prof. Alberto Del Bimbo, Prof. Grazia Tucci, Univ. Firenze
  • Institutional Greeting – Prof. Alberto Tesi, Rettore Univ. Firenze, Dott. Eugenio Giani, Presidente Consiglio Regione Toscana

10.00-11.00 Invited Relations

  • New Media for Cultural Heritage – Dott. Carlo Francini Ufficio UNESCO Comune Firenze
  • Cultural Heritage Economy – Prof. Marco Bellandi, Univ. di Firenze
  • Communication for Cultural Heritage – Dott. Eugenia Romanelli, Journalist

Coffee break

11.15-12.35 Invited Relations

  • Lifelong learning and active experience – Dott. Margherita Sani, Istituto Beni Culturali Bologna, Executive Board NEMO – Network of European Museum Organisations
  • Virtual museums and repositories – Prof. Herbert Maschner, Idaho State University, USA
  • Advanced ICT projects in Cultural Heritage – Prof. Rita Cucchiara, Univ. Modena e Reggio Emilia
  • The Social Museum and Smart Tourism MIUR Cluster project – Dott. Francesca Giappicucci VITROCISET SpA

Short break

12.40 -14.30 Session Demo

Buffet lunch, meeting with speakers and session demos

For more info: http://morpheus.micc.unifi.it/nemech/evento-nemech/

3D Modeling and Animation

A new course in 3D Modeling and Animation will be held at the new Nemech Center – New Media for Cultural Heritage (Le Murate – Piazza Madonna della Neve 1 Firenze) with the following calendar: July 6-9, 13-16 – 2015 from 4.00PM to 8.00PM.

3D Modeling and Animation course at Nemech

NEMECH Competence Centre on cultural heritage was established by Regione Toscana and activated by MICC – University of Florence in 2014.

The course will guide the students in understanding the software Autodesk Maya, the leading software for creating special effects and three-dimensional animation for commercials, film and video. Most of the time will be dedicated to laboratory exercises. Will be discussed: presentation of Autodesk Maya, primitives, polygon meshes and NURBS, editing tools, materials and lighting base, paint effects.

Basics of Adobe Photoshop are a pre-requisite.

2,5D Motion Graphic Workshop at NEMECH

A free Workshop in 2,5D Motion Graphic will be held at the new NEMECH Center (Le Murate – Piazza Madonna della Neve 1 Firenze) on July 1 2015 from 4pm to 8pm.

2,5D Motion Graphic Workshop at NEMECH

During the workshop it will be presented the new Nemech Center – New Media for Cultural Heritage.

NEMECH Competence Centre on cultural heritage was established by Regione Toscana and activated by MICC – University of Florence in 2014.

The Workshop will introduce students to 2.5D animation and to the latest generation techniques to produce videos based on motion graphics. Basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop is a pre-requisite.

Combining Social Media with Sensor Data for Situation Awareness and Photography

With the spread of physical sensors and social sensors, we are living in a world of big sensor data. Though they generate heterogeneous data, they often provide complementary information. Combining these two types of sensors together enables sensor-enhanced social media analysis, which can lead to a better understanding of dynamically occurring situations.

Mohan Kankanhalli

Mohan Kankanhalli

We present two works that illustrate this general theme. In the first work, we utilize event related information detected from physical sensors to filter and then mine the geo-located social media data, to obtain high-level semantic information. Specifically, we apply a suite of visual concept detectors on video cameras to generate “camera tweets” and develop a novel multi-layer tweeting cameras framework. We fuse “camera tweets” and social media tweets via a “Concept Image” (Cmage).

Cmages are 2-D maps of concept signals, which serve as common data representation to facilitate event detection. We define a set of operators and analytic functions that can be applied on Cmages by the user not only to discover occurrences of events but also to analyze patterns of evolving situations. The feasibility and effectiveness of our framework is demonstrated with a large-scale dataset containing feeds from 150 CCTV cameras in New York City and Twitter data.

We also describe our preliminary “Tweeting Camera” prototype in which a smart camera can tweet semantic information through Twitter such that people can follow and get updated about events around the camera location. Our second work combines photography knowledge learned from social media with the camera sensors data to provide real-time photography assistance.

Professional photographers use their knowledge and exploit the current context to take high quality photographs. However, it is often challenging for an amateur user to do that. Social media and physical sensors provide us an opportunity to improve the photo-taking experience for such users. We have developed a photography model based on machine learning which is augmented with contextual information such as time, geo-location, environmental conditions and type of image, that influence the quality of photo capture.

The sensors available in a camera system are utilized to infer the current scene context. As scene composition and camera parameters play a vital role in the aesthetics of a captured image, our method addresses the problem of learning photographic composition and camera parameters. We also propose the idea of computing the photographic composition bases, eigenrules and baserules, to illustrate the proposed composition learning. Thus, the proposed system can be used to provide real-time feedback to the user regarding scene composition and camera parameters while the scene is being captured.

Presentation of “Vivit – Live Italian” the Italian portal in the world

Vivit – Live Italian, the Italian portal in the world, has been presented on March 11, 2015, 11:00am in the Council Room of the Department of Law, Roma Tre University – Language Centre Via Ostiense 159 – Rome.

Vivit - Live Italian presentation

Vivit – Live Italian presentation

VIVIT is a repository of information materials and tools for Italians abroad, in particular for those of second and third generation. The media database is representative of the Italian language and culture and it aims to become a point of reference for those who want to establish a strong cultural contact remotely with our country.

The project VIVIT was created by the Accademia della Crusca in collaboration with CLIEO and MICC (centers of excellence of the University of Florence), University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and University of Padova and is funded by the FIRB (Fund for Investments of Basic Research of the Ministry of University and Research). The program of the presentation is available in the following agenda.

Vivit - Live Italian presentation

Vivit – Live Italian: Mario Panizza, Rector of the Roma Tre University

Introductory remarks:

  • Mario Panizza, Rector of the Roma Tre University
  • Paolo Benvenuti, Director of the Department of Law of the University Roma Tre
  • Claudio Marazzini, President of the Accademia della Crusca

Introduction of Elizabeth Bonvino, Director of the University Language Centre – Roma Tre

Coordinated by Paul D’Achille, Accademia della Crusca and Roma Tre University

Presentation of the project and demo of the portal: Francesco Sabatini, General Coordinator

Remarks by Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, Rector of the University of International Studies Roma (Unint)

Insights by the Research Unit:

  • Nicoletta Maraschio, Unit University of Florence
  • Cecilia Robustelli, Unit University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
  • Maria Elena Duso, Unit University of Padua
  • Andrea Ferracani, Media Integration and Communcation Center – MICC – University of Florence
  • Marco Biffi, Centre for Historical and Theoretical Italian Linguistics, European Languages, Oriental Languages ​​- CLIEO – University of Florence

Large-Scale Person Re-Identification

In this talk Svebor Karaman introduce a proposal to Person re-identification. Person re-identification is usually defined as the task of retrieving images of one individual in a network of cameras given one or more gallery images.

Large-scale person re-identification

Large-scale person re-identification

Standard scenarios from the literature are analyzed and the limitations pointed out with regards to the real world application they attempt to model e.g. in a video surveillance context.

The author introduce a proposal that can leverage the large amount of detections that can be obtained in real world application thanks to our semi-supervised approach.

Building a Personalized Multimedia Museum Experience

In this talk Svebor Karaman has presented the MNEMOSYNE system that has been developed at the MICC to propose a personalized multimedia museum experience thanks to a passive profiling of the visitors.

Svebor Karaman

Svebor Karaman

The lecturer detailed all the components of the system that include system administration, databases, computer vision and natural interaction. The MNEMOSYNE system is installed at the Bargello Museum.