RL Labs Company News, 2003

 

15-Dec-2003. RL Labs JSC report on the first stage of RFBR project.

RL Labs JSC reports on the results of the first stage of the research project made under grant of Russian Foundation of Basic Research. During this work, there have been developed methods for selection and tracking of feature points and linear objects in image series and video. These methods are based on analysis of local characteristics of optical flow between consequent images as well as on the a priori knowledge with respect to the structure of the selected elements. Obtained results will be utilized during next staged of the project. More information is available at the project page.

 

15-Nov-2003. UniTap ergonomic tests prove its advantage.

RL Group has performed ergonomic and usability tests of the prototype device that was built in order to evaluate the UniTap technology. One of the primary purposes of these tests was making comparison between UniTap and the most relevant technologies available on the market or in prototypes. Obtained results demonstrate that UniTap interface performs better then other technologies that have been tested in most cases and, which is more important, its performance is comparatively stable for different types of sentences and all categories of users (novice as well as expert). UniTap principle has also been reported less demanding on the average with respect to workload, which was measured by NASA Task Load Index technique. Considering the fact that the prototype device used for testing was built for evaluation purposes, commercial products featuring UniTap technology are estimated to perform even better. Complete report is available at www.unitap.net.

 

10-Sep-2003. RL Labs JSC co-organizes GraphiCon'2003.

RL Labs JSC cooperated with Moscow State University for organization of GraphiCon'2003 - International Conference on Computer Graphics and Vision annually organized in Russian Federation. The 13th event was hosted by Moscow State University and took place on September 5-10, 2003. The conference program included Computer Graphics Tutorials, Technical Papers, State-of-the-Art Reports, Multimedia and Industrial Presentations, Round Table on Scientific Visualization and other sections. Invited talks were given by Dr. Philip Torr, computer vision expert from Microsoft Research Ltd., United Kingdom, and Prof. Martin Reiser, Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Mediacommunication, Germany. This year GraphiCon welcomed more then 100 scientists and developers from 11 countries, including United States, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Finland, Russia, Japan, Singapore, and South Africa. The event was organized in cooperation with European Association for Computer Graphics and co-sponsored by Microsoft Research Ltd. and Intel Corp. More information is available at www.graphicon.ru/2003.

 

15-Jul-2003. RL Labs JSC participates in organizing GraphiCon'2003.

GraphiCon is the largest international conference on Computer Graphics between Europe and Asia annually organized in Russian Federation. RL Labs JSC, being co-organizer of the conference, among many other responsibilities is in charge of organizing reviewing process of the submitted technical materials. To support this process it developed online review tracking and monitoring system that took care of the major part of the routine work. "The developed system maid it a pleasure to process and monitor about 50 papers and 150 reviews submitted by the 33 top experts serving on the International Program Committee. The result is a great technical program that we believe will be of real value to the conference participants", said Dr. Yevgeniy P. Kuzmin, Chairman of the Board of RL Labs and IPC Co-Chair of GraphiCon'2003. Following well-established traditions, the 13th event will be hosted in Moscow State University on September 5-10, 2003. GraphiCon'2003 is co-sponsored by Microsoft Research Ltd. and Intel Corp. More information is available at www.graphicon.ru/2003.

 

15-Jun-2003. First prototype of UniTap keypad is produced.

RL Technologies B.V. has demonstrated a first prototype device featuring UniTap technology. The device is developed to prove the new patent pending concept of keypad design for small mobile devices (e.g. cellular phones). The prototype keypad is only 36x44 mm in size; however, it features 48 separate uniformly spaced symbols (numbers from 0 to 9, complete Latin alphabet and 12 additional characters) all of which are activated by a single stroke of a finger. Ergonomic study has demonstrated that operating with such keypad is as comfortable as typing with the regular size keyboard in spite of the fact that it is about 9 times smaller. More information on UniTap technology can be obtained at www.unitap.net.

 

15-Apr-2003. RL Software Technologies Inc. completes the project of True OrthoPhoto Imaging.

RL Software Technologies, Inc. completed the project for reconstruction of True OrthoPhoto Images for Z/I Imaging Corporation. Obscured areas are serious defects in large-scale and urban orthophotos. A new polygon-based approach for detection and recovery of such areas was developed by RL Software Technologies Inc. Proposed method allows easy integration of true ortho image reconstruction techniques with existing commercial image processing software from Z/I Imaging and spatial analysis tools from Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions. Get more details on the project...

 

13-Mar-2003. RL Labs JSC receives research grant from Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

RL Labs JSC has received 3-year research grant from Russian Foundation for Basic Research in the field of computer graphics and computer vision. The goal of this grant is development of a computing system for automatic reconstruction of 3D objects from video or digital image series. Methods and algorithms that will be developed can be utilized in a large variety of applications, such as, for example, reconstruction of a personalized 3D model of a human head and body from a video stream, building a terrain model from aerial images, creating virtual duplicates of the real worlds and many others. The research will be carried out by a joint team of scientists and developers from RL Labs JSC and Computer Graphics Group of Moscow State University. Students and Ph.D. students are very welcome to participate in the program.

 

03-Jan-2003. UniTap - technology for the most compact alphanumeric keypad.

RL Technologies B.V. applied for patents on UniTap technology. This original technology allows for developing compact full-functional alphanumeric keypads which will naturally fit in smart phones, 2-way pagers, personal information managers and other small devices requiring efficient and easy-to-use alphanumeric input. UniTap allows for size reduction of a conventional computer keyboard up to 16 times still preserving its ergonomic and usage properties. Use of the UniTap keypad is no different from operating with regular single-tap keyboards - no special learning is required. This technology can be easily integrated into existing input devices (e.g. 12-button phone keypads) providing their users more efficient means of alphanumeric input. Additional information can be found at www.UniTap.net.