Conference report by Dr Vien Cheung, University of Leeds, UK
The fourteenth IS&T/SID Color Imaging Conference was held in Scottsdale (Arizona, USA), 6-10 November 2006. The conference committee had put together a strong technical program, with 57 papers presenting advances in both scientific and engineering disciplines, and other stimulating topics including medical imaging, multispectral imaging, high-dynamic-range imaging, etc.
The conference began with an extensive tutorial program. Professor Robert W G Hunt gave a two-day course on Basic Color Science and Imaging. A one-day course was also featured on the Practical Application of Measurement Systems. In addition, a day-long program of tutorials was given on a wide range of topics in the area of color management, color appearance, color systems, and color devices and technology.
The technical-paper program was a single-track oral-presentation format, complemented by an interactive-paper session where the interactive papers were previewed during the spotlight sessions and followed by the traditional conference-wide poster display session where participants explored topics in-depth with authors. The conference concluded with a Late-Breaking-News session with three presentations featuring recent breakthroughs in color imaging.
This year keynote presentations by three highly distinguished individuals were invited:
- David Williams, director of the Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester (USA), spoke on "Color and the Cone Mosaic".
- Jeffrey Sampsell, vice president of technology development at Qualcomm (USA), gave the talk "Causes of Color, Especially Interference Colors".
- Adrianus de Vaan of Philips Consumer Electronics (The Netherlands) told us about "Competing Display Technologies for the Best Image Performance".
In addition, an evening-lecture speaker Barbara Berrie, senior conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, was invited to discuss "The Alchemy of Artists: from Pigments to Paintings." These speakers were all coming to CIC for the first time, thus lending a fresh and exciting dimension to the conference.
An ice-breaker welcome reception and a conference reception took place respectively on the second and third evenings of the conference enabling the attendees ample time for informal interactions and networking amongst colleagues in the field.
The best interactive paper was awarded the Cactus award and this year the winner was "A camera-based method for calibrating projection color displays" by Raja Bala and Karen Braun at Xerox Corporation (USA). This paper described a novel method for color-management of projection systems that can easily be carried out with little technical equipment.
IS&T also took the opportunity to present a special award to Donald Rimai as shown below:
Chester F. Carlson Award
The Chester F. Carlson Award, sponsored by Xerox Corporation, Wilson Center for Research and Technology, was established to recognize outstanding work in the science or technology of electrophotography.
Donald S. Rimai
for his outstanding contributions to the science and technology of high-quality electrophotography
Mike Kriss (left) and Donald Rimai (right) at CIC14
Donald S. Rimai received his BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1971) and his MS (1973) and PhD (1977) from the University of Chicago. From 1977 to 1979 he worked at Purdue University, where he conducted research on the mechanical properties of crystals and glasses. In 1979 he joined the Eastman Kodak Company Research Labs, where he remained until joining NexPress in 1999. Because of its acquisition of NexPress, Dr. Rimai expects to be rejoining Eastman Kodak within the next few months.
Dr. Rimai is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Adhesion Society, as well as a member of the American Chemical Society and Sigma Xi. He is a recipient of the Charles E. Ives Award (1996) and an Eastman Kodak Distinguished Inventor (1993). He presently holds 55 US patents and has published 125 scientific papers (mostly in the area of particle adhesion) and five books.
Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the Imaging Science Group of the Royal Photographic Society for their travel-grant scheme and support in enabling good representation from the Leeds University Colour Imaging researchers at this international conference.
