Heidelberg Mathematician Receives Generous Grant From European Research Council
16 August 2013
Heidelberg mathematician Dr. Bastian Goldlücke is receiving an ERC Starting Grant for excellent young researchers from the European Research Council (ERC). The 5-year endowment will fund a Heidelberg University research project to investigate the acquisition and image processing of light fields. Dr. Goldlücke will receive approximately 1.5 million euros to fund the "Light Field Imaging and Analysis" project of the Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing (HCI) at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing. Research is scheduled to begin next year.
"A light field of a scene is best described as a collection of views gathered from different perspectives," explains Dr. Goldlücke. These light fields can be directly acquired thanks to modern camera technology. Unlike conventional images, these images acquire directional information in the process. "Our goal is to develop robust and innovative processes for reconstructing the geometric structure of a scene, the surface properties of the objects, and the lighting. Much more data can be derived from light fields than images," explains the Heidelberg mathematician. Possible applications include generating three-dimensional multimedia content for industrial quality control, driver assistance systems, robot navigation, and well as in the biological and environmental sciences," continues Dr. Goldlücke.
Bastian Goldlücke (b. 1974) studied mathematics and informatics at the Ilmenau University of Technology and completed his degree in mathematics at the University of Marburg. He received his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken. Dr. Goldlücke was a software engineer in the field of industrial image processing from 2006 to 2008 prior to his postdoctoral work at the University of Bonn 2008/2009. He was a lecturer at the Munich Technical University in 2010/2011. After an interim professorship at the HCI, Goldlücke has led the "Light Field Analysis" working group there since March of last year. The Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing is one of the "Industry on Campus" projects at Heidelberg University. The HCI conducts basic and applied research in image processing in partnership with well-known businesses such as Bosch, Sony Deutschland, Zeiss, Heidelberg Engineering, Silicon Software and PCO.
The ERC Starting Grant is awarded to outstanding up-and-coming researchers in Europe. Funding is awarded based on the scientific excellence of the young researchers and the innovative potential of their research ideas.
