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MoVi: A Large Multipurpose Motion and Video Dataset

Large high-quality datasets of human body shape and kinematics lay the foundation for modelling and simulation approaches in computer vision, computer graphics, and biomechanics. Creating datasets that combine naturalistic recordings with high-accuracy data about ground truth body shape and pose is challenging because different motion recording systems are either optimized for one or the other. […]

Auto-Labelling of Markers in Optical Motion Capture

Saeed Ghorbani is an EECS PhD student in the BioMotionLab directed by VISTA Core Researcher Niko Troje and hosted by the Department of Biology. His current project involves the development of new software to automatically label body position and motion in 3D space. Improvements to 'Marker Labelling' like this will save time and money for industries […]

Neuroimaging to Understand Action and Coordination

Modulation of large-scale brain systems using network-based neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation to understand and improve goal-directed cognition and action. The relationship between what our eyes see and the brain heavily influences our understanding and ability to physically react to our world. While hand-eye coordination has been studied for thousands of years little is understood […]

Neural Processes in Motor Adaptation

The Neural Processes in Visually Driven, Explicit Motor Adaptation. "It wasn’t me: External source attribution effects on hand-position estimates." People constantly adapt movements to dynamic conditions within both the environment and our own body, while taking the source of errors into account. In Denise Henriques’ lab, we investigate adaptation of reaching movements by altering visual […]

Kinesthetic Creativity in Virtual Reality

VISTA Master’s Scholarship winner, Sarah Vollmer, is the first digital arts and computer science trainee in the VISTA program. Her project supervisor is VISTA Core Member Graham Wakefield. She explains: “If I could define my program and desired outcome of academically inclined intellectual pursuits it would be from the perspective of the journey, and not […]

Video - Rick Wildes & Helping Surgeons Live in the Moment

Surgical plans are imperfect guides, but new technological tools could help lighten the load for surgeons doing complex, delicate work. Every day in the operating room, surgeons make complex visual transformations in their minds. Any pre-operative information that they have based on medical imaging is usually static; however, during surgery there are many moving parts. […]

Distributed Functional Cell Assemblies

Dynamic spike-field signatures of distributed functional cell assemblies. VISTA Travel Awards are available not only for Project Investigators to travel abroad but also for Project Investigators to bring international scholars to York University. The first incoming VISTA scholar, Dr. Ryan Canolty, is a Research Scientist in Computational Science at Vanderbilt University in the USA. His […]

Video - How 'Double Vision' Can Be a Good Thing

A pair of York University collaborators are showing how a cross-disciplinary approach can help solve some tough vision-related challenges. In the quest to keep improving on cutting-edge technologies, it’s important not to lose sight of opportunities to use technological innovations to improve people’s lives. Collaborators Doug Crawford and Richard Wildes are both researchers at York University’s Vision: Science to Applications […]

The German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders

Dr. Denise Henriques, VISTA Training Committee Lead and Core Researcher, received a VISTA Travel Award to collaborate with German researchers in the field of sensorimotor functions. Her visit, to the German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders in Munich, allowed her to continue collaborations with Thomas Brandt (Director) in their investigation of multisensory integration and […]

VISTA's First Start-Up - DropletLab

Two of the most important properties of droplet surfaces are contact angle and surface tension. The traditional means for measuring these properties require expensive, bulky, and complex technology. VISTA Associate, Professor Alidad Amirfazli, and his team at the Surface Engineering and Instrumentation Lab (SEiL), are breaking this 30-year-old design mold. Using a VISTA Prototyping fund, […]

Vision-Based Diver Robot Interactions at Depth

Lassonde School of Engineering graduate student Robert Codd-Downey received a VISTA Doctoral Scholarship in early 2017. His research is supervised by VISTA Core Member Michael Jenkin and focuses on ‘Vision based diver robot interactions at depth’, a project funded by NSERC’s Canadian Field Robotics Network (NCFRN). More specifically, Codd-Downey’s project explores how communication can be […]

Video - Matthew Kyan & Deciphering Health and History

Machine learning tools can sift through huge databases of photos and video, helping archive historical objects and interpret medical images. Cameras are everywhere these days: capturing everyday moments, recording exceptional events and objects, and helping doctors take a closer look at our bodies when we’re sick. But while we’re very good at collecting this information, it […]

Vection and the International Space Station

The Vection team is led by Core Researcher, Laurence Harris, and includes Core Researchers Michael Jenkin and Robert Allison from the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. VISTA Postdoctoral Fellow Nils-Alexander Bury and graduate student Meaghan McManus are also contributors to the project. The team aims to find out how visual information creates the […]

Visual-Conceptual Processing Interactions

Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Visual-Conceptual Processing Interactions Dr. Caitlin Mullin is the recipient of the first VISTA Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship and is the Trainee Representative on the VISTA Leadership Committee. In 2018, she joined the lab of VISTA Core Member, Dale Stevens, with a research focus on “Characterizing the Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Visual-Conceptual Processing Interactions”. Mullin […]

High Sensitivity Roadside Cannabis Screening

VISTA Associate Member Nima Tabatabaei has received a $50,000 Prototyping Fund to develop a non-invasive roadside test for cannabis use detection. Dr. Tabatabaei is a researcher in York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering and is an expert in the design and development of thermal and optical imaging technologies for early disease diagnosis and screening. He […]

Video - Rick Wildes & Processing Images

What does it mean to "see"? The answer might help us train artificial systems to analyze the staggering volume of videos online. “We’re trying to understand, from a fundamental principles point of view, what it means to see.” Computational vision scientist Richard Wildes, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at York University, studies computer systems as […]

Mobility Assessment Technology Tool (MATT)

Dr. Lauren Sergio, a VISTA Core Member, and her team have recently developed a tool that assesses decline in mobility in aging patients. The Mobility Assessment Technology Tool (MATT) is a user-friendly, low-cost, non-invasive, computerized vision system that objectively and reproducibly measures gait or balance mobility of a patient based on the standard Tinetti kinesiology […]