ICVSS ’11 in Sicily

Last week was the International Computer Vision Summer School in Sicily, Italy. Summer schools are relatively common in the UK/Europe postgrad world, where academic-year classroom work often isn’t part of the PhD course. Summer schools like the ICVSS serve as a combination review, survey, and conference, connecting the dots between basic principles and current research through lectures and workshops, as well as giving students the chance to compare notes on their own projects through posters and discussion.

ICVSS ’11 included some fantastic talks by academics and industry researchers on a wide range of computer vision topics. Some of my personal favorites included:

Steve Seitz of the University of Washington and Google Corp on the history and current research in 3-D reconstruction, stereo imaging, etc.
Shmuel Peleg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on methods for image and video rearrangement and re-composition.
Steve Zucker of Yale University on mammalian vision processing, visual cortex mapping, and comparison of human vs computer vision.
Bill Freeman of MIT on photographic aims and techniques to picosecond-long to year-long timescales.
Andrew Fitzgibbon of Microsoft Research Cambridge on optimization, development of the Kinect, and generally how to be an awe-inspiring person.

Of course, like most conferences, ICVSS puts a lot of thought into its location. ICVSS is held at Baia Samuele, Sicily, Italy. A fantastic little resort, Baia Samuele has Mediterranean beach, sparkling pools, delicious food, and sun in plenty in addition to full conference facilities. We also got the chance to explore Ragusa Ibla, a stunning city built on a limestone hill, on Wednesday evening.

A few pictures of Baia Samuele, including a 150-year celebration of the Unification of Italy: