Given the strong impact of standardization in the sector of networked multimedia, TEMICS, in partnership with industrial companies, seeks to promote its results in standardization (IETF, JPEG, MPEG). While aiming at generic approaches, some of the solutions developed are applied to practical problems in partnership with industry (Thomson, France Télécom) or in the framework of national projects (RNRT COSOCATI, DIPHONET, EIRE, VIP, RNTL DOMUS-VIDEUM) and European projects (IST-BUSMAN and IST-OZONE). The application domains addressed by the project are networked multimedia applications (on wired or wireless Internet) via their various requirements and needs in terms of compression, of resilience to channel noise, or of advanced functionalities such as navigation, protection and authentication.

Contracts and Grants involving industry

Industrial contracts

TEMICS has five Cifre contracts with industrial partners:

• Cifre contract with France Telecom RD
  Cifre contract with France Telecom RD in the context of the Ph.D of Nathalie Cammas in the area of video coding using active meshes and 3D wavelets. Active meshes are used in order to model the deformation of objects in a scene.
• Cifre contract with France Telecom RD
  Cifre contract with France Telecom RD in the context of the Ph.D of Raphaele Balter in the area of 3D-model based coding of video sequences.
• CRE contract with France Telecom RD
  CRE contract with France Telecom RD in the context of the Ph.D of Gael Sourimant on the area of 3D reconstruction of urban scenes by fusion GPS, GIS and video data.
• CRE contract with France Telecom RD
  On the problem of distributed source coding. The objective is to investigate this new coding paradigm and assess its potential for compression with mobile light-weight encoding systems.
• Cifre contract with Thomson Multimedia R&D
  Cifre contract with Thomson Multimedia R&D in the context of the Ph.D of Guillaume Boisson in the area of scalable video coding based on motion-compensated spatiotemporal wavelets. The focus in 2004 has been on adaptive motion-compensated temporal filtering and on efficient and scalable coding of corresponding motion fields.

TEMICS also supervises DRT projects in collaborations with industrial partners:

• H. Nicolas supervises the Degree of Technological Research ("Diplome de Recherche Technologique" (DRT)) of Fabrice Templon realized at NEXTREAM on the subject "Development of graphic representations of MPEG-4 bitstreams and application to the optimization of the choice of the coding modes and parameters".
• H. Nicolas supervises the Degree of Technological Research ("Diplome de Recherche Technologique" (DRT)) of Lila Huguenel realized at Thomson on the subject "MPEG-4 AVC video compression based on regions of interest".

National contracts

• RNRT VIP
  Contributed by: Christine Guillemot, Thomas Guionnet
  Convention number: 2 01 A 0650 00 000MC 01 1
  Title: Video over wireless IP
  Partners: Comsys, ENSEA, France Telecom R&D, Irisa/Inria-Rennes, INRIA-Sophia, ENST-Paris, Universite Paris-6, Thales Communication.
  Funding: Ministry of industry
  Period: Nov.01-Apr.04
  

  The project objective is to design error resilient video coding solutions and joint sourcechannel coding techniques for robust transmission of video signals over wireless IP networks. TEMICS contributes to VIP by designing estimation algorithms for robust decoding of arithmetic codes in presence of channel noise, and by integrating these techniques in a fine grain scalable video coder and decoder. TEMICS also studies redundant wavelet transforms for erasure-resilient coding and decoding of video signals.

• RNRT DIPHONET
  Contributed by: Gaetan Le Guelvouit, Sophie Le Delliou, Teddy Furon
  Convention number: 2 01 A 0704 00 000MC 01 1
  Title: Picture broadcasting over the Internet
  Partners: Canon, CNRS (L2S), INRIA, Andia Press
  Funding: Ministry of industry
  Period: Jan.02-Jun.04
  

  The aim of the Diphonet project is to develop protection and tracing tools for applications of professional images delivery over the Internet.The watermarking technique is used to insert copyright information as well as meta-data in order to trace the origin of a picture. The watermarking technique based on game theory reported in sub-section tatouage has been evaluated and optimized against intentional attacks and potential de-synchronizations.

• RNRT DOMUS-VIDEUM
  Contributed by: Anne Manoury, Henri Nicolas
  Convention number: 2 02 C 0100 00 00 MPR 01 1
  Title: Indexation, advanced visualisation and video content-based access.
  Partners: Inria (METISS, TEMICS, VISTA project teams), Thomson Multimedia, Ecole polytechnique de Nantes, INA, SFRS.
  Funding: Ministry of industry
  Period: Dec.01-Jul.04
  

  The aim of the project is to develop tools for indexing, content-based access and for advanced visualization of videos. We designed a technique for structuring a video sequence in a set of hyper-scenes, where each hyper-scene gathers similar scenes. This method is based on an initial scene shot decomposition assumed to be available. The criteria used to merge the initial shots are based on the use of 1-D mosaic representations (each initial shot is represented using two 1-D mosaic images). The similarity between two scenes is therefore evaluated by comparing their mosaic images. Such comparisons are done here using global statistical similarities, and a region-based matching criterion. These different criteria are embedded in a decision process. The tool has been applied to MPEG-2 compressed content. The 1-D mosaic images are thus computed using the MPEG-2 motion vectors. Then they are approximated by a polygonal representation in order to simplify the comparison process. The video structure is therefore obtained using a clustering algorithm. Experiments show that satisfactory hyper-scene structuration can be obtained.

• RNRT EIRE
  Contributed by: Christine Guillemot, Henri Nicolas
  Convention number: 2 02 C 0099 00 31324 01 1
  Title: Optimization of image compression algorithms based on JPEG-2000.
  Partners: Inria, Thales, I3S, CRIL Technology, ENSTA, IRCOM
  Funding: Ministry of industry
  Period: Nov.01-Feb.04
  

  The project objectives are to develop image and video compression algorithms with optimized rate-allocation algorithms and supporting fine grain scalability. TEMICS focuses on the scalable video compression aspects. The algorithm setting the basis for our contributions is based on a 3-D spatio-temporal decomposition of each Group Of Frames (GOF). A motion estimation based on a quadtree decomposition is incorporated in the temporal filtering in order to obtain a more efficient temporal de-correlation. The spatial decomposition is similar to the technique used in JPEG-2000. The obtained quantized coefficients are therefore coded using a 3-D EBCOT coding method. Furthermore, two GOF coding modes (Intra and Inter) are introduced to take into account the correlation between two successive GOF. The GOF length is chosen in function of the temporal variations between the successive GOF.

European contracts

• IST BUSMAN
  Contributed by: Vincent Bottreau, Jonathan Delhumeau, Teddy Furon, Christine Guillemot
  Convention number: 1 02 C 0186 00 00MPR 00 5
  Title: Bringing user satisfaction to media access networks.
  Partners: Bristish Telecom, Framepool, HHI, INRIA, Motorola, QMUL, Telefonica, University of Munich.
  Funding: CEE
  Period: Apr.02-Sep.04
  

  BUSMAN develops and integrates indexing and watermarking techniques to ease the search and use of video content. TEMICS contribution is focused on watermarking techniques to enrich video content by hiding meta-data. Different levels of robustness to a range of attacks such as transcoding required for transmission in heterogeneous networks, and compression at various rates must be provided. A first version of the software based on state-of-the-art techniques has been delivered for integration in the BUSMAN demonstrator comprising an authoring tool as well as a client-server delivery architecture over fixed and mobile networks. The technique should evolve to incorporate side-informed embedding solutions in order to improve the performance.

• IST OZONE
  Contributed by: Christine Guillemot, Henri Nicolas
  Convention number: 1 01 A0672 00 000MC 00 5
  Title: New technologies and services for emerging nomadic societies.
  Partners: Inria, Thomson Multimedia, Philips, IMEC, Epictoid.
  Funding: CEE
  Period: Nov.01-May.04
  

  The goal of the OZONE project is to develop a pervasive computing and communication framework which will bring relevant information and services to the individual, anywhere and at anytime. The OZONE project can be viewed as the first step towards concrete ambient intelligence applications. Our contributions to the OZONE project is related to the transmission of the video data throughout the OZONE network. High quality performance of the video transmission system is essential to guarantee the quality of service required by users needs in the context of such applications. Our contribution is related to the study and development of a video transmission platform incorporating mechanisms in support of end-to-end QoS such as congestion control and loss control. The software corresponding to the video transmission loss and network congestion control has been delivered to the project's partners.

• FP6 IST NoE SIMILAR
  Contributed by: Christine Guillemot, Luce Morin, Henri Nicolas
  Convention number: 104C05310031324005
  Title: European research taskforce creating human-machine interfaces SIMILAR to human-human communication.
  Partners: around 40 partners from 16 countries.
  Funding: CEE
  Period: Jan.04-Dec.07
  The TEMICS team is involved in the network of excellence SIMILAR federating European fundamental research on multimodal human-machine interfaces and contributes on the following aspects:
  • In the context of 3D modelling of video sequences we have focused on an hybrid representation mixing 2D and 3D representations of video data. Cylindrical and spherical mosaics are used for unified coding and visualization of 2D and 3D data. Such an approach allows to make no assumption on the camera acquisition path, and still provides the benefits of 3D functionalities for virtual reality applications.
  • Shadow and light source detection and analysis techniques have been developed. They are used to artificially create cast shadows of natural objects inserted in a video sequence. These methods will be applied to the mixing of 2D (original and mosaic images, video objects) and 3 D (synthetic objects and 3D model) video data.
  • TEMICS is contributing on a distributed coding framework in a context of multimodality and coordinating with EPFL a working group dealing with the development of an information theoretic for analysis and representation of multimodalities.
• FP6 IST STREP DANAE
  Contributed by: Vincent Bottreau, Christine Guillemot, Herve Jegou, Gagan Rath.
  Convention number: 104C045731324005
  Title: Dynamic and distributed Adaptation of scalable multimedia content in a context-Aware Environment.
  Partners: ENST, France Telecom, Imperial College London (ICL), Inria, Museon, Siemens, T-systems, University of Aachen, University of Geneva, University of Klagenfurt.
  Funding: CEE
  Period: Jan.04-Jun.06
  

  The TEMICS team is involved in the STREP DANAE addressing issues of dynamic and distributed adaptation of scalable multimedia content in a context-aware environment. Its objectives are to specify, develop, integrate and validate in a testbed a complete framework able to provide end-to-end quality of (multimedia) service at a minimal cost to the end-user. TEMICS contributes on the aspects of fine grain scalable video coding and on the study of new source codes for increasing the error resiliency of the scalable video coder while preserving its compression and scalable properties. In collaboration with other DANAE partners, TEMICS contributes to different core experiments defined in the context of MPEG-21/SVC: a core experiment on spatial transforms, on error resilience and on coding with multi-rate adaptability.

Other grants

National Initiatives

• ARC Telegeo
  Contributed by: Ralphaèle Balter, Luce Morin, Stéphane Morin
  Title: Telegeo: Geometry and Telecommunications.
  Partners: Creatis-Insa de Lyon, ENST Paris, INRIA (ISA, TEMICS, PRISME).
  Funding: INRIA
  Period: Jun.02-Jun.04
  

  This ARC (Action de Recherche Coopérative) aims at creating a synergy in the area of geometric objects transmission over networks, and more specifically to study the representation of geometric objects for their transmission over heterogeneous networks. TEMICS contributes by providing compression algorithms for unstructured surface meshes, and techniques for progressive and scalable compression taking into account visual quality criteria.

• ACI Fabriano Contributed by: François Cayre, Teddy Furon
  Title: Fabriano
  Partners: CERDI, INRIA (TEMICS), LIS, LSS.
  Funding: Ministry of research, CNRS, INRIA.
  Period: Dec.03-Dec.06
  

  Fabriano is an ACI (Action Concert«ee Incitative) dedicated to the study of technical solutions to the problem of security based on watermarking and steganography. In particular, this action aims at developing a theoretical framework for stegano-analysis to be applied for the design of algorithms that will allow to detect the presence of a message within a signal in the respect of rights and ethical issues.

Bi-lateral international co-operation

Project reviewing

• C. Guillemot has been appointed by the European commission to review project submissions within the IST programme of the 6th framework programme.
• C. Guillemot has been appointed by the Ministry of Research of the Wallonnie region in Belgium to review research project submissions.
• C. Guillemot expertised two company projects for ANVAR.
• C. Guillemot is member of the commission 2 of the french RNRT national programme and as such serves as an evaluator of project proposal submissions.
• H. Nicolas has been appointed by the Rhônes-Alpes region to evaluate a research project.
• H. Nicolas expertised one company project for ANVAR.