Visual Computing Systems

Over the past two decades, computer architecture research has moved from general-purpose computing to domain-specific architectures. The field is on the cusp of a new revolution, driven by emerging platforms such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and autonomous machines. These platforms, while are of a computing nature, intimately interact with both the environment and humans: they continuously capture and interpret visual data from the environment through imaging systems and generate visual data for humans to consume. They must be built, from the ground up, with principled considerations of three main components: imaging, computer systems, and human perception.

Through computing-imaging-humans co-designs, our goals are to 1) better decode physical attributes of the real world, 2) understand the neural and cognitive bases of human visual perception, 3) build efficient and sustainable computing/imaging systems, and 4) build computing/imaging systems to augment human perception and cognition.