The Digital Media Technology Lab at Birmingham City University are looking to recruit two outstanding PhD applicants for research into Mixed reality interaction and Medical Image analysis.
The PhD positions are part of BCU’s STEAM scholarships (
http://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/research-students/opportunities). The successful candidate will receive a tax-free research stipend that tracks UK Research Council rates (currently £14,296 PA) alongside a full fee waiver to the value of Home / EU student PhD fees (currently £4,121).
Applicants are requested to read over the project brief (below) and send a formal application including covering letter detailing your interest in the position alongside a full CV detailing your qualifications and suitability for the role. Applications should be made by email directly to Dr Ian Williams (ian.williams@bcu.ac.uk)
The closing date for applications is June 20th
Project 1:
Title: Assessing human motion disparity in mixed reality interactions
Research supervisory team: Director of Studies: Dr Ian Williams
Contact details: DMT Lab, Birmingham City University, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment (CEBE), Millennium Point, Birmingham, B4 7XG
Tel: +44 (0)121 331 5458; Email: ian.williams@bcu.ac.uk
Broad research aims: To analyse and develop methods for quantifying the ability of human motion and interaction within mixed or augmented reality.
Background/ context: DMT Lab are currently evaluating the extent to which human users can directly interact with virtual objects that coexist within a mixed reality (MR) space. At present, our research has found discrepancies in both human spatial location and temporal accuracy for an MR environment when users aim to grasp and interact with a virtual object. Current research has presented an analysis into the grasp accuracy accuracy and the problems of grasping in mixed reality (MR) with the results showing how user grasp aperture varies less than expected when compared to real object interaction. Furthermore depth estimation is often mismatched due to over judgement the z position and common error patterns are found in the x and y spatial hand placements.
This project will aim to further this work. It will focus on the level of direct manual interaction which is possible, not only within spatial MR environments, but also within see through augmented reality systems. The project will look to assess the optical mismatch that exists between a user’s view of a virtual object and the “real” location of any virtual object based on spatial understanding. It will therefore aim to deliver an improved interaction potential for both mixed and augmented reality.
Project 2:
Title: Improving Segmentation of Paediatric Brain Tumours in MRI data
Research supervisory team: Director of Studies: Dr Ian Williams
Contact details: DMT Lab, Birmingham City University, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment (CEBE), Millennium Point, Birmingham, B4 7XG
Tel: +44 (0)121 331 5458; Email: ian.williams@bcu.ac.uk
Background/ context: This project will aims to develop methods for improving the segmentation of MRI data via texture analysis. Texture descriptors will be developed to allow for a classification and delimitation of MRI data. The project will be part of both the DMT Lab and Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital.
This project therefore aims to expand the work currently underway between DMT Lab and Birmingham’s Children’s hospital, notably in further developing the three dimensional statistical surface segmentation of Smith and Williams (2015) and build on the results of Williams et al (2014).
S. Smith and I. Williams, "A Statistical Method for Improved 3D Surface Detection," in IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol. 22, no. 8, pp. 1045-1049, Aug. 2015.
I Williams, N Bowring, D Svoboda. “A performance evaluation of statistical tests for edge detection in textured images” Computer Vision and Image Understanding 122, 115-130, 2014
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