MICROSOFT - DCU MICRO CAMERA PROJECT SHOOTS A MILLION PICTURES
Friday 9 November 2007

From front to back - Dr. Cathal Gurrin, Professor Alan Smeaton, Dr. Noel O'Connor

DCU scientists are working with the Research Department of US Multinational Microsoft using a wearable miniature camera – a SensCam - to provide a searchable digital picture diary of a person's entire day.

These cameras are so small they can be designed into jewellery, buttons or broaches to be unobtrusive or hidden.

This project in the Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) at DCU is part of a larger programme at Microsoft Research to record people's “life logs”, and with the success of the research at Dublin City University so far, Microsoft is now expanding the Irish programme.

There are many applications that could be developed for this technology. For example, the SenseCam could provide the solution for people trying to carefully monitor their diet by reminding them of what they ate and when they had those sneaky “snacks”. It could be used to record a whole weekend break away from home, or it could be used those days when you just cannot remember where you left your car keys, glasses or wallet!

A key medical application may be to record the day of Alzheimer's patients, who have difficulty recalling where they have been or what they have done.

As part of the project, one of the DCU researchers, Dr. Cathal Gurrin, has been wearing the Microsoft SensCam for the last 17 months. Cathal has taken over I,000,000 pictures of his everyday life, his work, recreation, holidays and much more.

The micro camera takes up to 3000 digital pictures a day and is activated by the movement and activity of the wearer as well as the changing surroundings. DCU's image and video search technology can then be used to analyse the 3000 pictures taken each day. “We use fairly sophisticated image processing techniques in order to be able to detect the “highlights” of a person's day”, said Dr. Noel O'Connor of the Adaptive Information Cluster in DCU, where the work has been based.

The work being carried out by DCU involves examining each of the micro camera's images and recognising people present as well as recognising where the images have been taken. These are then grouped together to give an image-based diary of the wearer's whole day, with images from the same activity like taking the bus to work, going shopping, eating, or watching TV all grouped together.

DCU's Professor Alan Smeaton says: “by grouping images from the same activity together we find that people are easily able to browse through thousands of their own SenseCam images and thus are easily able to find past events. Microsoft is very happy with the progress being made in the research and has now supplied DCU with more equipment to expand and accelerate our programme.”

The Adaptive Information Cluster is an SFI-funded research centre, which brings together researchers from both DCU and UCD.