Professor Oliver (Ollie) Cossairt

Research

Publications

Patents

Teaching

Lisa Wissner-Slivka and Benjamin Slivka
Junior Professor of Computer Science
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Nortwestern University
Ford Design Center
2133 Sheridan Road
Evanston IL 60208

Office: 3-337
Telephone: 847-491-0895
Cell: 646-620-6400
Email: ollie AT eecs.northwestern.edu

I am an Assistant Professor in the EECS Department at Northwestern University. My research interests lie at the intersection of optics, computer vision, and computer graphics. Before joining Northwestern, I spent one year (Oct. 2011 - Aug. 2012) as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Columbia University, under the supervision of Professor Prof. Shree Nayar. I earned my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University. In September 2011, I completed my dissertation on The Limits and Tradeoffs in Computational Imaging. From September 2006-2011, I was a doctoral candidate at Columbia University under the advisement Prof. Shree Nayar and Prof. Peter Belhumeur. I received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship from 2008-2011. From 2003-2006, I worked as an Optical and Software Engineer, managing a NIST ATP research initiative to develop next generation 3D displays for a Actuality Systems. In 2003, I recieved an M.S. from the MIT Media Lab, where I worked with the Spatial Imaging Group and wrote my thesis on View-Sequential 3D Displays.

Research Interests

My research is in the emerging field of computational imaging, which combines expertise in optics, image processing, computer vision, and computer graphics. I design, model and build systems that combine sensors, displays, and novel optical elements. These cameras have applications in medical, astronomical, and scientific imaging. I am building a new breed of cameras with increased functionality and performance. I believe that my research will impact the way cameras are built in coming decades, from low-end consumer cameras to high-end scientific instruments.

I am fascinated with the idea that cameras can be very finely tuned towards specific purposes, and that doing so can be an excellent way to capture specific visual information. We can place the camera at the center of a larger visual processing system whose purpose is to analyze and interpret visual information. As such, the camera cannot be designed without keeping the entire system in mind.

I am particularly interested in developing imaging and display systems that combine a creative use of optical devices and sensor technology to enable new functionality in cameras and displays. My research is focused in the following areas:

Computational Imaging for leveraging novel optical designs and image processing together to enable new capabilities in conventional cameras, such as extended depth-of-field, digital refocusing, super-resolution, and measuring high dimensional appearance.
Computer Vision for measuring depth or spectral characteristics that inform a higher-level understanding about a scene, such as geometry or material properties.
Computational Displays for displaying images with an unprecedented sense of realism by allowing viewers to observe the appearance of objects in a natural and intuitive manner.

Awards and Honors

Best Paper Award, "Spectral Focal Sweep: Extended Depth of Field from Chromatic Aberrations", ICCP 2011.
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Sep. 2008 through Sep. 2011.

Recent Research

Focal Sweep Videography with Deformable Optics
[project page] [pdf]

with Daniel Miau and Shree Nayar, in IEEE ICCP 2013.

When Does Computational Imaging Improve Performance?
[project page] [pdf]

with Mohit Gupta and Shree Nayar, in IEEE Transaction on Image Processing, Aug 2012.

Tradeoffs and Limits in Computational Imaging
[pdf]

PhD Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, Sep. 2011

A Scaling Law for Computational Imaging with Spherical Optics
[project page] [pdf]

with Daniel Miau and Shree Nayar, in JOSA, Nov. 2011.

Gigapixel Computational Imaging
[project page] [pdf]

with Daniel Miau and Shree Nayar, IEEE ICCP 2011.

Draw the curtains: Gigapixel images create highly revealing snapshots,
Scientific American article (Jan 6, 2011),

Spectral Focal Sweep
[project page] [pdf] [supplementary images]

with Shree Nayar, IEEE ICCP 2010.

ICCP 2010 Best Paper Award

Diffusion Coded Photography for Extended Depth of Field
[project page] [pdf] [supplementary images] [derivations]

with Changyin Zhou and Shree Nayar, SIGGRAPH 2010.

Depth from Diffusion
[project page] [pdf]

with Changyin Zhou and Shree Nayar, CVPR 2010 (Oral Paper).

Light Field Transfer
[project page] [pdf]

with Shree Nayar and Ravi Ramamoorthi, SIGGRAPH 2008.

Previous Research

Occlusion Capable Volumetric 3D Display
[project page] [pdf]

with J. Napoli, S.L. Hill, R.K. Dorval, G.E. Favalora, Applied Optics 2007.

3D Display Design
[project page]

3D Displays I designed as an engineer and manager for a NIST ATP research initiative developing next generation 3D displays. Actuality System 2003-06.

View Sequential Displays
[project page] [pdf]

Master's Thesis, MIT Media Lab, 2003

Publications

Graphics and Vision

D. Miau, O. Cossairt, and S.K. Nayar. "Focal Sweep Videography with Deformable Optics", International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP), Apr. 2013.
O. Cossairt, M. Gupta, and S.K. Nayar. "When Does Computational Imaging Improve Performance?", IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (TIP), Aug. 2012.
O. Cossairt, "Tradeoffs and Limits in Computational Imaging", PhD Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, Sep. 2011
O. Cossairt, D. Miau, and S.K. Nayar. "A Scaling Law for Computational Imaging with Spherical Optics", OSA Journal of the Optical Society of America (JOSA), Nov. 2011.
O. Cossairt, D. Miau, and S.K. Nayar. "Gigapixel Computational Imaging". IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP), Mar. 2011.
O. Cossairt, C. Zhou, and S. K. Nayar. "Diffusion Coded Photography for Extended Depth of Field". ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH), Jul. 2010.
O. Cossairt and S. K. Nayar. "Spectral Focal Sweep: Extended Depth of Field from Chromatic Aberrations". IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP), Mar. 2010.
C. Zhou, O. Cossairt, and S. K. Nayar. "Depth from Diffusion". Proceedings of IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun. 2010.
O. Cossairt, S. K. Nayar, and R. Ramamoorthi. "Light Field Transfer: Global Illumination Between Real and Synthetic Objects". ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH), Aug. 2008.

3D Displays

O. Cossairt, J. Napoli, S.L. Hill, R.K. Dorval, G.E. Favalora, "Occlusion Capable Volumetric Three-Dimensional Display". Applied Optics, Mar. 2007, vol. 46, pp 1244-1250.
J. Napoli, S.R. Dey, S. Stutsman, O. Cossairt, T.J. Purtell, S.L. Hill, "Imaging Artifact Precompensation for Spatially-Multiplexed 3D Displays". SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems XIX Proceedings, Jan. 2008.
W.S. Chun, J. Napoli, O. Cossairt, R.K. Dorval, D.M. Hall, T.J. Purtell II, J.F. Schooler, Y. Banker, G.E. Favalora, "Spatial 3D infrastructure: display-independent software framework, high-speed rendering electronics, and several new displays". SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems XVI Proceedings, Jan. 2005.
O. Cossairt. "View-Sequential Displays", Master's Thesis, MIT Media Lab, Aug. 2004.
O. Cossairt, C. Moller, S.A. Benton, and A.R.L. Travis. "Novel view sequential display based on DMD technology". SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems XV Proceedings, Jan. 2004.
C. Moller, O. Cossairt, S. A. Benton, A. Travis. "Investigation into Screenless 3-D TV". SPIE Stereoscopic Displays and Virtual Reality Systems XIV Proceedings, January 2003.

Patents

Granted

W. Chun, O. Cossairt. "Data processing for three-dimensional displays". US Patent 7,525,541, Dec. 2009.
G. Favalora, O. Cossairt. "Theta-parallax-only (TPO) Displays". US Patent 7364300, Apr. 2008.
O. Cossairt, G. Favalora, M Thomas, and R. Dorval. "Optical systems for generating three-dimensional images" US Patent 7,283,308; Oct. 2007.
O. Cossairt, J. Napoli. "Radial multiview three-dimensional displays". US Patent 7,277,226; Oct. 2007.

Pending

S.K. Nayar, O. Cossairt, C. Zhou, "Systems, Methods, and Media for Recording an Image Using and Optical Diffuser", US Patent app. 2011091358, Jan 2011.
O. Cossairt. "Image Enhancement for Three-dimensional Displays". US Patent app. 20070201133, Aug. 2007.
G. Favalora, W. Chun, O. Cossairt, R. Dorval, M. Halle, J. Napoli, M. Thomas. "Scanning Optical Devices and Systems" (pending). US Patent app. 20050285027, Dec. 2005.
O.Cossairt, G. Favalora. "Minimized-thickness Angular Scanner of Electromagnetic Radiation". US Patent app. 20060244918, Nov. 2005.
O. Cossairt, M Thomas, RK Dorval. "Optical Acanning Assembly". US Patent app. 20050270645, Jun. 2005
O. Cossairt, T.J. Purtell, and S.L. Hill. "Optically Enhanced Image Sequences". US Patent app. 2006048984. May 2005.

Teaching

EECS 395/495 Computer Vision on Programmable Cameras (Winter 2013).

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