How do humans interact with a changing visual world?

A new £1.4 million research project led by the University of Bristol will use engineering and science in the design of radically new approaches and solutions to vision-based technology. Researchers from the University's Bristol Vision Institute (BVI) have been awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Platform Grant for their project ' Vision for the future '. The grant will focus on developing a better understanding of the visual mechanisms and processes evolved in humans and other animals, and relating these to similar technology challenges. Vision is central to the way animals interact with the world. A deeper understanding of the fundamental aspects of perception and visual processing in humans and animals, across the areas of immersion, movement and visual search, together with innovation in engineering solutions, is essential in delivering future consumer technology for internet, robotic and environmental monitoring applications. The project will carry out research across three themes: Visual immersion - investigating, developing and characterising future consumer and professional video formats that will enable increased viewer engagement with the content; Finding and hiding things - understanding visual search processes and translating these into machine solutions for detecting, hiding, classifying, describing and making decisions about complex visual information; Vision in motion - a better understanding of how motion facilitates scene understanding will inform the design of autonomous systems, provide new healthcare solutions and underpin new camera technologies.