Ian Williams
Associate Professor and Head of the Centre for Digital Media Technology
School of Computing and Digital Technology
- Email:
- Ian.williams@bcu.ac.uk
- Phone:
- 0121 331 5458
Ian is an Associate Professor and head of the Centre of Digital Media Technology (DMT). He earned his PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2008 in low level feature analysis in biomedical images. He leads research in Computer Vision and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) with a key emphasis on creating novel methods for improving the Quality of Experience for users of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
Dr Williams’ has authored many publications in leading international journals and global events and he currently sits on the scientific and technical committee for the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), the IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) and acts as a reviewer for many conferences, journals and funding organisations including, IEEE Transactions on Visualisation and Computer Graphics (TVCG), IEEE Signal Processing Letters (SPL), the Elsevier Journal of Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU) and the EPSRC.
Current Activity
Ian teaches on the following courses:
- MSc Digital Broadcast Technology
- BSc (Hons) Digital Media Technology
- BSc (Hons) Sound Engineering and Production
- BSc (Hons) Music Technology
Dr Williams’ supervises PhD research in the fields of computer vision and HCI and welcomes applicants wising to undertake for research programmes in HCI for Augmented Reality.
Areas of Expertise
- Digital Image Processing
- Mixed and Augmented Reality
- User Interaction
- Image Feature Extraction
- 2D and 3D Image Segmentation
- Digital Video Processing
- Image Filtering
- Pattern Recognition
- Multimedia
Qualifications
PhD in Image Processing
BSc (Hons) Media Technology
Research
Dr Williams is internationally recognised in Mixed Reality, HCI and Computer Vision research. Some of his projects include:
- KTP, Emerging and Enabling Technologies, Partner, Glaxo Smith Kline, “GSK interactive Augmented Reality Platform (iARP)” Award size £166,696 – Role: Lead Academic
- KTP, Emerging and Enabling Technologies, Partner, Murray Uniforms “AR Design Tools for the Workwear Fashion Industry” Award size £155,113 – Role: Lead Academic
- AHRC UK-China Creative Industries Partnership Development Grant (https://ahrc.ukri.org/funding/apply-for-funding/archived-opportunities/uk-china-creative-industries-partnership-development-grants/)
- Immersive Experiences for Live Production - award size £50000 – Role: CI
- Horizon 2020 - RED-Alert – Real-Time Early Detection and Alert System for online Terrorist Content. (http://redalertproject.eu/) European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 740688. Award size £250,000, Role: CI
- Innovate UK – Emerging and Enabling Technologies – Augmented Reality Car Configurator (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/15-million-investment-in-new-technologies-of-the-future) – Partners, Holosphere, JLR. Award size £50,000, Role: CI
- Birmingham Children’s Hospital Research Foundation – MIRROR A Clinical Decision Support System., Award Size £50,000, Role: CI
- Innovate UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk)
- MS Kinect v2 for rehabilitation - award size £5000 – Role: PI
- Sultanate of Omani Ministry of Higher Education (http://mohe.gov.om/?&culture=en)
- Universities for The Thousand Scholarship – award size £46,500 – Role: CI
- UKRAE Research Travel Award (http://www.raeng.org.uk/)
- Funded travel to international events in image and video processing – award size £1000 – Role: PI
- ERDF (http://www.creativedigitalhealth.org.uk/)
- Creative Digital Health Solutions – Enabling the UK NHS within the west midlands region access to creative solutions to healthcare problems – award size £165,407 for BCU (50% matched funding) - Role: CI
Postgraduate Supervision
PhD completions
- Dr. Gregory Phillip Hough “Towards Achieving Convincing Live Interaction in a Mixed Reality Environment for Television Studios” Successful defense, July 2015
- Dr. Ryan Ian Stables “Probabilistic Methods for Humanisation in Digital Music” Successful defense, May 2013
Current PhD supervision and Director of Studies
Ian currently supervises three PhD students as director of studies:
- Mr. Samuel David Smith “Improved Surface Segmentation in 3D Data”.
- Mr. Muadh Al-Kalbani “Hand-object Interaction in Mixed Reality”.
- Mr. Alan Josef Dolhasz “Illumination and Colour Matching in Interior Scene Compositing”.
Ian is continually seeking to recruit and support future PhD students, both on a part-time and full-time basis, and has successfully been awarded 7 Erasmus international research exchanges. For more information please contact him directly.
Publications
Evaluation of Drop Shadows for Virtual Object Grasping in Augmented Reality. M Al-Kalbani, M Frutos-Pascual, I Williams, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. 2020
Too Hot to Handle: An Evaluation of the Effect of Thermal Visual Representation on User Grasping Interaction in Virtual Reality. AD Blaga, M Frutos-Pascual, C Creed, I Williams, Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2020
Multimodal Gaze Interaction for Creative Design. C Creed, M Frutos-Pascual, I Williams. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2020
Efficient One-to-One Pair Matching for 2-D and 3-D Edge Detection Evaluation. Smith, S and Williams I. 15th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications VISAPP. 2020
Towards Unsupervised Image Harmonisation. A Dolhasz, C Harvey, I Williams. 15th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications VISAPP. 2020
Learning to Observe: Approximating Human Perceptual Thresholds for Detection of Suprathreshold Image Transformations. A Dolhasz, C Harvey, I Williams. IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition CVPR. 2020.
Evaluation of Ultrasound Haptics as a Supplementary Feedback Cue for Grasping in Virtual Environments. M Frutos-Pascual, JM Harrison, C Creed, I Williams. International Conference on Multimodal Interaction ICMI. 2019
Virtual Object Grasping in Augmented Reality: Drop Shadows for Improved Interaction. M Al-Kalbani, M Frutos-Pascual, I Williams. International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications VSGames. 2019
Head Mounted Display Interaction Evaluation: Manipulating Virtual Objects in Augmented Reality. M Frutos-Pascual, C Creed, I Williams. IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction INTERACT. 2019
Privacy-Preserving Social Media Forensic Analysis for Preventive Policing of Online Activities. S Naqvi, S Enderby, I Williams, W Asif, M Rajarajan, C Potlog, M Florea. 10th IFIP International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and Security (NTMS). 2019
Towards Fully Integrated Real-time Detection Framework for Online Contents Analysis-RED-Alert Approach S Naqvi, I Williams, S Enderby, P Pollner, D Abel, B Biescas, O Garcia, ... 2019 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW). 2019
Freehand grasping in mixed reality: analysing variation during transition phase of interaction. M Al-Kalbani, M Frutos-Pascual, I Williams. Proceedings of the 19th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI). 2017
A Predictive Approach to On-line Time Warping of Motion. M Randall, I Williams, C Athwal. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). 2017
Usability Analysis of an Off-the-Shelf Hand Posture Estimation Sensor for Freehand Physical Interaction in Egocentric Mixed Reality. AD Blaga, M Frutos-Pascual, M Al-Kalbani, I Williams. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2017
Composite Realism: Effects of Object Knowledge and Mismatched Feature Type on Observer Gaze and Subjective Quality. A Dolhasz, M Frutos-Pascual, I Williams. 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). 2017
Improving freehand placement for grasping virtual objects via dual view visual feedback in mixed reality. M Al-Kalbani, I Williams, M Frutos-Pascual. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Virtual Reality Software and Technology VRST. 2016
Analysis of medium wrap freehand virtual object grasping in exocentric mixed reality. M Al-Kalbani, I Williams, M Frutos-Pascual. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality. ISMAR. 2016
Measuring observer response to object-scene disparity in composites. A Dolhasz, I Williams, M Frutos-Pascual. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). 2016
Measuring Perception of Realism in Mixed and Augmented Reality Summary. I Williams, A Dolhasz, N Monnoyer. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Workshops. 2015
Fidelity and plausibility of bimanual interaction in mixed reality. G Hough, I Williams, C Athwal. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics. 2015
Accuracy assessment of free hand grasping interaction in mixed reality. M Al Kalbani, I Williams. Proceedings of the Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine. 2015
A statistical method for surface detection. S Smith, I Williams. Proceedings of the Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine. 2015
A statistical method for improved 3D surface detection. S Smith, I William. IEEE Signal Processing Letters. 2014
A performance evaluation of statistical tests for edge detection in textured images. I Williams, N Bowring, D Svoboda. Computer Vision and Image Understanding. 2014
Measurement of Perceptual Tolerance for Inconsistencies within Mixed Reality Scenes. Hough, G., Williams, I., Athwal C. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality ISMAR. 2014
Measurements of Live Actor Motion in Mixed Reality Interaction. Hough, G., Williams, I., Athwal C. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality ISMAR. 2014
Quantifying timbral variations in traditional Irish flute playing. I Ali-MacLachlan, M Köküer, P Jancovic, I Williams, C Athwal. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Folk Music Analysis FMA. 2013
Advanced occlusion handling for virtual studios. G Hough, C Athwal, I Williams. International Conference on Hybrid Information Technology, 2012.
ScaMP: A head guided projection system. G Hough, C Athwal, I Williams. ACM Designing Interactive Systems DIS. 2012
Perceptually relevant models for articulation in synthesised drum patterns. R Stables, J Bullock, I Williams. Audio Engineering Society Convention. 2011
Perceptually relevant models for drum pattern humanisation. RI Stables, J Bullock, I Williams. Proceedings of 131st Audio Engineering Society Convention. 2011
Developing Real-time Virtual Environments from Video Data. I Williams, C Athwal, J Foss. 2011
Measurement of Critical dimensions of cold roll formed sections using digital image processing. I Williams, B Shirvani, JM Mourier. Key Engineering Materials. 2011
A Novel Performance Metric for Grey-scale Edge Detection. I Williams, D Svoboda, N Bowring. International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications VISAPP 2010
Statistical edge detection of concealed weapons using artificial neural networks. I Williams, D Svoboda, N Bowring, E Guest. Image Processing: Algorithms and Systems VI. 2008
Fatigue crack, squat and wheel burn detection by a multi-scale statistical image processing technique. N Bowring, I Williams, C Johnson, J Jaiswal. 2008
Statistical edge detection of concealed weapons using artificial neural networks. I Williams, D Svoboda, N Bowring, E Guest. Proceedings of the SPIE. 2008
Ultra wideband positioning for intelligent security systems. D Gadsby, P Twigg, N Bowring, I Williams. Measurement and control. 2006
Statistical techniques for edge detection in histological images. D Svoboda, I Williams, N Bowring, E Guest. International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications VISAPP. 2006
Improved statistical edge detection through neural networks. I Williams, D Svoboda, N Bowring, E Guest. In 10th Conference on Medical Image Understanding and Analysis. 2006
Weapons detection system for airport baggage screening. D Gadsby, P Twigg, N Bowring, JB Allwork. Measurement and control. 2005
A combined statistical/neural network multi-scale edge detector. I Williams, N Bowring, E Guest, P Twigg, Y Fan, D Gadsby. Visualization, Imaging, And Image Processing: Fifth International Conference on Imaging and Image Processing. 2005