Paula Carrillo : Weblog

Last days in Tsinghua University, Beijing.

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:58:00 GMT

It rest for me only one week more in China, the results of my research and experience here were extremely good. I made a great advance in the implementation of my Low complexity H.264 encoder (based on Intel IPP) using machine learning. The core of the low complexity solution is already merged in the Intel H.264 code. Metrics for the Intra an Inter frames and trees for mode decisions are implemented in the code. The metrics and trees are used in order to avoid the cumbersome calculations that the H.264 standard do. Now it rest to make some improvements, side implementations and tests but the core of the research is already working.

In other hand, researching in Beijing, specifically in Tsinghua University, starts to me as a dream, then as a reality and in few days it will be part of my special memories. I learnt too much here, especially about hard work and humankind communication. The latest one could be so different and difficult sometimes. But at the same time, people show me how a simple gestures, such as a smile or a hug could be so powerful and universal.

Finally, I really want to add the good impression that I will take with me about China and its people. China wants to grow up in the concert of the nations; and with hard work, education and research they are going in the right way.

Tsinghua University - Multimedia team research

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:04:03 GMT

Every week we have the opportunity to present our research and advances to the Tsinghua multimedia team; of course they also present us their work. In these workshops we interchange ideas, and constructive critiques. This weekly meeting has been the most important contribution, in this abroad program, to my research. Explain our techniques and approach to the problems; Learning about how this team is proposing solutions for similar problems in different ways; It helps me to abroad my knowledge horizon. The methodology that we use in the meetings is the following; Every week someone is in charge of a presentation of his/her work. This person send the corresponding papers in advance for being studied, then after a simple and nice presentation everybody ask question and make suggestion. During the week we implement the modifications or make the tests suggested in the meeting for a later report in front of the group.

Tsinghua University gave us a perfect teamwork environment for our researches. Tshinghua multimedia lab is a well known group with several publications and ongoing works. I’m so proud of have the opportunity of share with them not only in an academic but also in a friendship way.

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:42:44 GMT

A month in Beijing. In this first month we got a good glance of the Chinese culture and people, walking through the Hutongs, cooking in a real Chinese kitchen and trying to communicate with people without any English is a really enrichment experience. Beijing also has a lot of gardens, parks and temples which give us a perfect relaxing moment. The Tsinghua University and labs have given us a really good working atmosphere, and ideas of how to improve my research has been proposed for the Tsinghua advisor and Multimedia lab students. Many positive things have happened to me in this trip, I’m so grateful for that.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:19:31 GMT

In Beijing there are many places for visiting, this is an incredible city in which the legendary past and the future are together. In the same day we visit the Forbidden City and the Egg. The first one is an spectacular construction with the beauty and the majestic of the former emperors. In the night we went to the National centre for the performing arts (called also as "The egg"), this teather is extremely beautiful and modern. It looks like an egg floating over water. The water actually is part of the roof when you are inside of the the theater. The performance that we attend was a clasical opera based on a Chinese tale, with acrobats and orchestra!!

Another place that we had the pleasure to visit was the National Stadium, we were in some of the qualifiers for the Olimpics. Athletics for me is so exiting, the environment of fair competition, the adrenaline that the contestant has in these moments is indescribable.

So as the saying said, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Let”s go for my pictures

A week in Beijing

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:12:22 GMT

One Week ago I start my trip to Beijing. In the airport some students from Tsinghua University were waiting for us, Thanks god!. Later, In the university we start our registrations for living in the campus. Our rooms are small but with everything that we can need.

The next three days we were trying to fix the jet lag and to know a little bit the close neighborhoods. We were in the Summer Palace and took pictures of the beautiful marble Boat. The majestic architecture of the Buddhists temples combined with the huge Buddha sculptures was something really beautiful to see. We walk like for four hours!! Of course after that, we deserve a reward; we were in one of the most famous Beijing’s Duck restaurants. The food was extremely good and cheap.

The next day we adventure to the Tianamen Square, and chairman Mao memorial hall. These days the China flag is half mast as a memorial of the victims for the resent earthquake.

Both in-city trips were one by bus and the other by metro, we are so proud of ourselves for this achievement!

On Monday we was presented with the research people in the Tsinghua multimedia laboratory and after present ours projects we were locate inside of one of the labs for working.

At the moment everything is ok we are planning to go to the Track and field olimpics clasifiers and also to the theather so soon more pictures!!1

Data Mining for Video Transcoding and Encoding

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:03:06 GMT

Problem Statement: This project aims to exploit structure in video to enable low complexity encoding. The proposed methods use data mining to reduce the complexity. The goal is to develop data mining tools to predict complex coding modes in videos. The tools exploit structural similarity in video. One of the objectives is to develop a minimum set of attributes to make optimal decisions. The methodology developed will be useful in other data mining problems.

Motivation and Impact: Data mining has been applied in video analysis and understanding but there has been little work in improving encoding performance using data mining. The proposed approach of exploiting structure in video allows more efficient encoders. The proposed solution improves encoder parallelization. The proposed work will enable better utilization of multi-core and upcoming many-core systems. The proposed project will have applications in high-density video processing systems.

Current Status: This work is part of ongoing research in the Multimedia Lab at FAU. Dr. Yang’s group at Tshingua is also working on advanced video encoding algorithms. We expect to explore the complexity vs. quality tradeoffs. Preliminary results confirm the potential of data mining in video coding applications.

Research Roadmap: Jan 15 to May 15 2008 – Continuing work on applying data mining for H.264 encoding and transcodingMar 15 to May 15 2008 – Exchange of ideas with Prof. Yang and developing a research plan for the students’ stay in BeijingMay 15 – Jul 15 2008 – Research plan execution. Development of data mining techniques for video coding.Aug 15 – Dec 15 2008 – Completion of simulation, analysis, and paper preparationPaper Submission: Early July submission to IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE 2009)December submission to IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2009)