CEIS Tech Showcase celebrates professors

The annual Center For Electronic Imagining Systems University Technology Showcase offered a dinner award ceremony which honored three inventors, David Williams and Mark Bocko of UR and Mark Fairchild of the Rochester Institute of Technology. This was in addition to the usual university faculty and industry-supported research presentations and demonstrations. The showcase, which was held in the Rochester Hyatt on Feb. 4, hosted approximately twenty-nine different presentations in two different rooms. Presentations, such as Andreas Savakis’s Image Annotation Environment for Object Recognition research, were allowed approximately ten to fifteen minutes for explanation.According to CEIS representative Helen Thomas, the awards were the most significant new element of this year’s showcase. “They were presented by Dr. Russell Bessette, Executive Director of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic research,” she said. “The award ceremony recognized the work of academic scientists whose research projects had a positive economic impact on companies in New York State. The three researchers with the highest number of dollars of impact received trophies.”Director of Center for Visual Science and showcase trophy-winner David Williams was recognized for a technique called Adaptive Optics which aids in visual correction. “Bausch and Lomb developed Zyoptix, a system for laser refractive surgery based on technology developed in my laboratory,” Williams said. “[Zyoptix] is for measuring and correcting more aberrations in eyes than had previously been possible.”As his first showcase, Williams said that he believed the event to be an efficient way to expose potential corporate partners to the valuable technology under development in university laboratories. “I wasn’t able to get to more than a handful of presentations due to scheduling constraints. However, I am familiar with Geunyoung Yoon’s work on high dynamic range wavefront sensing for the eye,” Williams said. “I believe his technology will increase the value of wavefront sensors in measuring the optical defects of the eye, especially for those patients who need these measurements the most,” Williams said.The second of the three showcase trophy winners, Director of the Munsell Color Science Laboratory Mark Fairchild, made several significant advancements to Xerox’s color printing technology, which are, according to a university press release, the drive behind Xerox’s recent rise in sales.”I have worked for many years on projects with Xerox that examine various aspects of color perception in images,” Fairchild said. “The results of this research are used to build algorithms and systems to produce improved quality in color images.” “The award was based on Xerox’s statements that the results of this research had a significant economic impact on Xerox’s business in the previous fiscal year,” he also said. “I believe they stated that the improvement in color image quality attributable to our joint research had a positive impact of about $7.5 million in the fiscal year.”According to Fairchild, this year’s CEIS technology showcase was similar to previous year’s which he has attended in that they have allowed an opportunity for researchers to share interests and meet potential collaborators.”No particular presentation stood out in my mind,” he said.”However, I did learn of another project going on at Rochester Insittue of Technology that could be of significant help in one of our lab’s projects. Also, it was very nice to have the director of NYSTAR to present the awards.”CEIS, which include Xerox Corporation and Eastman Kodak Company as members, conducts research in electronic imaging systems, specifically image processing algorithms, image devices and materials, image quality and optoelectronics. It is a smaller branch of the Center for Advanced Technology in Electronic Imaging Systems.Welzer can be reached at bwelzer@campustimes.org.