Early Stage Researchers

Waqas Ellahi is from Islamabad, Pakistan. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad campus and Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.

Besides educational qualification, he has acquired more than seven years of professional experience in a different roles in public and private organizations. He worked on various research projects during his academic and professional career primarily involving Biometric based Identification System, Image & Video processing, and Data compression.

Waqas joined the University of Nantes, France, in February 2019 as a PhD student under Prof. Patrick Le Callet at the School of Polytech. His research work is for the major part about algorithm that predicts perceptual effects of light field processing on Quality of Experience (QoE) which is a part of the ITN RealVision project.

Ali is from Turkey and he received his B.Sc. in Mathematics from Bilkent University in 2014. He co-founded a start-up company, Verosis, to develop an immersive virtual reality platform. The company was designing a hemi-spherical projector screen, a wide angle lens (165+) for the projector and appropriate wide angle computer-generated video content.

Prototypes were designed and produced in two years, afterwards the company ran out of funds and he moved to industry to work temporarily. He worked at KaTron where they developed simulation devices for airport and emergency vehicles. Later, to have a research-oriented career, he studied for one year in Visual Computing at University of Nantes for his Master degree. During his Master’s he worked on JND-based image quality assessment models with deep learning.

As from September 2018, he has joined LS2N in University of Nantes within the framework of RealVision Innovative Training Network. He is focusing on developing perceptual tools that will be used for processing, compression and quality evaluation of light-field and volumetric imaging.

Milan is from Elemir, Serbia. In 2012, he received a Bachelor with Honors degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering with specialization in Communications Technologies and Signal Processing at Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad. In 2014, he earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He spent the second year of his Master's studies at Agfa, Antwerp, Belgium, working on a framework for semi-automatic image enhancement as a part of a 6-month internship and his thesis.

Following his graduation, Milan worked in industry as a Software Engineer. He was actively involved in various projects and contributed in computer vision solutions for object detection, classification and tracking. Finally, he decided to advance his career and pursue a research career. As a part of the Realvision Innovative Training Network project, in December 2018, he joined the Telecoms and Networks division at Laboratory for Signals and Systems (L2S), to conduct his PhD with main objective of proposing compression schemes for light field data, utilizing joint optimization of view extraction and coding.

Hanxue Liang is from China. He received his Bachelor degree in Energy and Automation Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2017. After that, he moved to ETH, Zurich to pursue his Master degree in Robotics, System and Control. During that time, he developed his interests in Robotics, Computer vision and Machine learning. .

After graduation in 2021, he joined the Department of Computer Science and Technology at University of Cambridge as an ESR within the framework of RealVision Innovative Training Network, under the supervision of Cengiz Oztireli and Rafal Mantiuk. His focus is in 3D representation learning, novel view synthesis and modeling. Related topics include neural rendering (NeRF), visual perception in neural rendering, quality assessment of novel view synthesis.

Research interests: Neural rendering; Video quality; 3D representations

Fangcheng Zhong comes from China. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Economics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and his master’s degree in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He then spent a year in the department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University where he collaborated with Prof. Jack Tumblin’s Graphics group working on light fields and real-time rendering. After that, he decided to leave Northwestern and Mathematics to pursue a career in Graphics.

He joined the Graphics & Interaction Group at the University of Cambridge in 2018 as a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Rafal Mantiuk. His work mainly focuses on visual perception and computational displays. As part of the European RealVision ITN Project, he studies the integration of perceptual cues that contribute to the impression that perceived scenes look highly realistic.

This involves series of experiments on a novel hyper-realistic display, proposing a model explaining the data (possibly with some machine learning component) and applying the model to address practical problems, such as how to optimally capture and display hyper-realistic video, or optimize algorithms for hyper-realistic displays.

Allie comes from Birmingham, UK, but spent the last five years living and studying in Boston, MA, USA. She completed her undergraduate studies at MIT in Physics and Brain & Cognitive Sciences. During this time Allie visited the Paris Diderot University, Fermilab, and Caltech for summer internships. She then spent a year as a graduate student at Harvard studying Neuroscience using fiber photometry methods to study cataplexy and narcolepsy in mice.

She joined the RealVision project as an ESR at the University of Oxford in October 2018, working under the supervision of Professor Hannah Smithson in the Perception Lab. Allie’s work focuses on the intra- and inter-individual differences in colour perception, and exploiting those differences to maximize the effect of displays. Allie is particularly interested in individual differences in cone ratios and the cone mosaic, and will investigate this through indirect methods such as heterochromatic modulation photometry and direct methods such as retinal imaging using an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO).

Krzysztof is from Poland. He completed his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, in the year 2015. He had his Master’s degree in Computer Graphics and Multimedia from the same institution in 2016. His studies were focused on designing custom, high speed eye tracker and evaluation of the eye trackers’ accuracy. Meanwhile he had internships in two companies where he could collect an experience in gamedev and programming. He also assisted a professor in conducting lectures which helped him in developing his professional and soft skills.

In January 2018, he joined the Computer Graphics group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbruecken, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Karol Myszkowski, to conduct his PhD in the framework of the Realvision project. He is focusing on image metrics, image quality, lightfield technology and material appearance.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan Gul is from Karachi, Pakistan. He obtained his Bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering from PAF-Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology in Dec 2014. He moved to Istanbul, Turkey after working for one and a half year as a System Design Engineer at a local engineering firm. He pursued his Master in Image processing and Machine learning from Istanbul Medipol University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bahadir K. Gunturk and graduated in May 2018. His master thesis entitled “Super-resolution of light field using deep learning” dealt with the spatial and angular resolution enhancement of commercially available light field cameras using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). During last 6 months of his master studies, he worked as a Digital Design and Verification Engineer focusing on hardware implementation of H264 video encoder and decoder on Cyclone V FPGA board.

In order to further explore his research areas and interest, Shahzeb joined Fraunhofer IIS for his PhD. He is working under the guidance of Group Leader Dr. Ing. Joachim Keinert. At Fraunhofer, his main focus will be to design and improve the current image processing algorithms that transform the source content into a high-quality light field or 3D mesh. He will also explore the application of booming deep learning architectures and studies for 3D reconstruction and view rendering.

Jingyu Liu is from China. She received her Bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2014.

She then moved to the United States to pursue her Master degree in Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. During that time she has developed interests in Virtual Reality(VR)/Augmented Reality(AR) experience design and high-performance visual computing. After graduation in 2016, she joined Advanced Micro Devices, Inc in California US as a software development engineer, where she gained experience with power management and automation infrastructure design for graphics cards and VR systems.

As from December 2018, she has joined the Department of Photonics Engineering at Technical University of Denmark as an ESR within the framework of RealVision Innovative Training Network, under the supervision of Professor Søren Forchhammer. She is focusing on plenoptic modeling of novel displays. Especially head-mounted displays with innovative form-factor. Related topics include physical characterization of displays and viewing set-up based on the light-field description, light projection experiments based on holographic optical elements/waveguide, quality assessment of displays and user experience design.

Sarvesh R. Agrawal is a Research Fellow at the luxury lifestyle company, Bang & Olufsen, in Denmark. Born and raised in Mumbai, Sarvesh moved to the United States in 2014 to pursue a B.S. in audio production at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). During his time in Tennessee, Sarvesh developed a keen interest in psychoacoustics and sound reproduction. He received a master's degree in acoustics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2018.

As a part of the RealVision project, Sarvesh is enrolled as a PhD student at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in the Department of Photonics Engineering. He is investigating the impact of audio rendering systems on the experience of audiovisual immersiveness for domestic applications under the supervision of Dr. Søren Forchhammer and Dr. Søren Bech. The primary goal of the project is to understand how different audio systems (stereo, surround sound, ambisonics, binaural, etc.) influence the experience of immersion in audiovisual environments. This study will incorporate UHD, 4K, and HDR displays along with sophisticated audio systems in participatory and non-participatory applications to understand, assess, and quantify audiovisual immersion. Sarvesh's work could be applied to augment immersion and deliver convincing audiovisual experiences.