ARSLAN BASHARAT

Phone: (407) 823 4733, Email: arslan@cs.ucf.edu, Website: www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan

Education

In progress: PhD in Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL,

Research Area: Computer Vision,

Research Advisor: Dr. Mubarak Shah, Agere Chair Professor, University of Central Florida.

2006: MS in Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL.

2001: BS in Computer System Engineering, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, Pakistan.

Research Interests

I am interested in various areas in computer vision research, including:

·   Dynamic Texture Modeling & Synthesis

·   Human Action Tracking, Recognition, & Synthesis

·   Nonlinear Dynamical Systems & Chaos Theory

·   3D Scene Understanding

·   Video Surveillance

·   Content Based Video Matching

Publications

·         Geometric Constraints on 2D Action Models for Tracking Human Body, Alexei Gritai, Arslan Basharat, Mubarak Shah, Accepted for oral presentation at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), Dec 2008.

·         Learning Object Motion Patterns for Anomaly Detection and Improved Object Detection, Arslan Basharat, Alexei Gritai, Mubarak Shah, IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), June 2008.

·         Content Based Video Matching Using Spatiotemporal Volumes, Arslan Basharat, Yun Zhai, Mubarak Shah, Journal of Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 2008.

·         Chaotic Invariants for Human Action Recognition, Saad Ali, Arslan Basharat, Mubarak Shah, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 2007.

·         Person and Vehicle Tracking in Surveillance Video, Andrew Miller, Arslan Basharat, Brandyn White, Jingen Liu, Mubarak Shah, CLEAR Evaluation Campaign and Workshop, 2007.

·         Detection and Tracking of Objects from Multiple Airborne Cameras, Mubarak Shah, Asaad Hakeem, Arslan Basharat, Publication of SPIE, March 2006.

·         University of Central Florida at TRECVID 2006 High-Level Feature Extraction and Video Search, Jingen Liu, Yun Zhai, Arslan Basharat, Bilal Orhan, Saad M. Khan, Humera Noor, Phillip Berkowitz, Mubarak Shah, TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation Forum (TRECVID) 2006.

·         Looking for Targets, Arslan Basharat, Asaad Hakeem, Mubarak Shah, and Abhijit Mahalanobis, OE Magazine, Member Publication of SPIE, November 2005.

·         Video Understanding and Content-Based Retrieval, Yun Zhai, Jingen Liu, Xiaochun Cao, Arslan Basharat, Asaad Hakeem, Saad Ali, Mubarak Shah, Costantino Grana, Rita Cucchiarra, TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation Forum (TRECVID), 2005.

·         A Framework for Intelligent Sensor Network with Video Camera for Structural Health Monitoring of Bridges, Arslan Basharat, Necati Catbas, Mubarak Shah, Workshop on Sensor Networks and Systems for Pervasive Computing (PerSeNS), in conjunction with PerCom 2005.

·         Challenges in Structural Health Monitoring, Necati Catbas, Mubarak Shah, Jason Burkett, Arslan Basharat, International Workshop on Structural Control (IWSC), 2004. ­

Research Projects

·         VACE Phase III, Disruptive Technology Office 

o   Prediction in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems for Video Synthesis, 2008

We use concepts from chaotic systems theory to forecast time series. This approach has been applied to texture and human action synthesis. We demonstrate that our approach outperforms previous popular approaches for dynamic texture synthesis.

o   Scene Understanding in Video Surveillance, 2008

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan/surveillance]

We investigate new methods to integrate a higher-level layer to the traditional surveillance pipeline to perform anomalous event detection and scene model feedback. A novel framework for learning patterns of motion and size of objects in static surveillance cameras has been developed.

o   Human Body Parts Tracking using Geometrical Constraints, 2008

We investigate the important problem of detection, and tracking body joints during unusual actions. The tracking phase is guided by the joint predictions that are computed through the geometric transformation of the model action onto the test action.

o   Chaotic Invariants for Human Action Recognition, 2007

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~sali/Projects/ChaoticInvariants]

We have used chaotic systems to model and analyze nonlinear dynamics of human actions, where trajectories of body joints are used as the representation of the nonlinear dynamical system generating the action.

·         VACE Phase II, Disruptive Technology Office

o   Content Based Video Matching Using Spatiotemporal Volumes, 2007

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan/vidmatching]

This project focused on matching telecast videos based on a new method of object level matching. We extract the foreground and background spatiotemporal volumes from the video through motion segmentation. Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) is used as cost measure between volume features and a graphical model is used for volume correspondence.

·         ICCV 2005 Computer Vision Contest: Where Am I?

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan/whereami.htm]

I actively participated in a team of four members. Given a set of images taken at known GPS locations, the task was to find GPS locations of test images taken at unknown locations. Our approach is based on triangulation from image triplets. Fundamental matrices are computed through SIFT matches. Then Kruppa’s equations are used to determine camera parameters. In addition, degenerate cases are also handled. Our algorithm received an honorable mention at ICCV 2005.

·         COCOA: Alignment, Object Detection and Tracking in Aerial Videos, 2007

[http://server.cs.ucf.edu/~vision/projects/COCOAWebsite/CocoaWebsite/featured_project.html]

I helped in this project by implementing a blob tracker module for COCOA in Java. The tracker worked on the output of frame registration and object detection modules.

·         Visual Inspection of Railroad Tracks, Florida DOT, 2005-08

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan/fdot2.htm]

Led a team of three members for this project where state of art visual defect detection system is being developed. A remotely controlled hi-rail vehicle has been developed which successfully runs the inspection system under challenging illumination and track conditions.

·         CLEAR Evaluation Campaign, CHIL&NIST, 2007

I was responsible for person and vehicle tracking tasks in ground surveillance videos. KNIGHT surveillance engine was modified for this task.

·         TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation Forum (TRECVID), NIST, 2005-6

I developed an approach for high-level feature extraction and video retrieval. During 2006, our performance on high-level feature task is top 5 of 35 teams, and for interactive search our run was ranked top 4 of 36 total runs from all over the world.

·         Visual Monitoring of Railroad Grade Crossing, Florida DOT, 2004

[http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~arslan/fdot1.htm]

This included design and testing of a surveillance system with self sustained solar power and wireless communication. I successfully led a team of three members to take this surveillance project through final stages of development, testing, and delivery.

Honors and Professional Activities

·         Honorable mention for ICCV 2005 Computer Vision Contest: Where Am I?

[http://research.microsoft.com/iccv2005/Contest]

·         Reviewer for: TPAMI, TCSVT, MVA, PR Letters, CVPR, ICCV, and ICPR.

·         Mentored Student Projects:

o  2008: Vision Guided Urban Area Navigation for Unmanned Ground Vehicles, BS Senior Year Design Project, GIK Institute, Pakistan.

o  2006: Abandoned Baggage Detection in Surveillance Videos, Lake Brantley High School, 3rd place at Florida State Science & Engineering Fair, Intel International Science & Engineering. Fair (ISEF).

·         Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Central Florida, 2006.

·         Dean’s honor list at GIK Institute, Pakistan.

·         Silver medal and merit scholarship from AJK Board of Intermediate Education, Pakistan.

Work Experience

2003-present: University of Central Florida

·         Research Assistant, Computer Vision Laboratory

·         Teaching Assistant, Department of Computer Science

2001-2003: Advanced Engineering Research Organization, Pakistan

·         Software Design Engineer

o   Radar Data Extractor: Worked on a real-time application for data acquisition and analysis. This involved development in C++ and live testing of the system.

o   Radar Display Scope:  Designed & developed a QT GUI application to display live radar picture including raw video and synthetic track information.

2000: Vroom Technologies, Pakistan

·         Summer Intern

o  Developed Oracle and Visual C++ based DBMS.

Preferred Platforms

Programming/Scripting Languages and Libraries: C/C++, Matlab, and Java

Operating System: Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.

References

Available upon request.