Section: Research Program

Introduction

The Biovision team has started on January 1st, 2016. It aims at developing fundamental research as well as technological developments along two axes.

Axis 1: High tech vision aid systems for low vision patients

The most popular class of vision aid systems for low vision patients is based on the idea of magnification. These aids are helpful for tasks such as reading but of course are not useful in other common daily tasks such as navigation.

Video goggles (Video goggles are marketed by several companies such as, e.g., eSight , Enhanced Vision and Lumus ) are another kind of device where visual information is captured by a head-mounted camera, processed and then displayed on a near-the-eye display screen. So far, this technology did not encountered a big success essentially due to their narrow field of view. This situation could evolve with the fast progression of technology around virtual reality and augmented reality.

In BIOVISION we mainly focus on this technology to develop new vision aid systems that could take into account the pathologies of low vision patients but also on the tasks performed by the patients. We have three main goals:

1. We plan to focus on three tasks: reading, watching movies and navigating (indoor or outdoor), which are all important daily life activities for patients.

2. We aim at proposing new scene enhancements depending on pathologies.

3. We want to test them in immersive environments with low vision patients, taking into consideration ergonomics.

Axis 2: Human vision understanding through joint experimental and modeling studies, for normal and distrophic retinas

A holistic point of view is emerging in neuroscience where one can observe simultaneously how vision works at different levels of the hierarchy in the visual system. Multiple scales functional analysis and connectomics are also exploding in brain science, and studies of visual systems are upfront on this fast move. These integrated studies call for new classes of theoretical and integrated models where the goal is the modeling of visual functions such as motion integration.

In BIOVISION we contribute to a better understanding of the visual system with three main goals:

1. We aim at proposing simplified mathematical models characterizing how the retina converts a visual scene into spike population coding, in normal and under specific pathological conditions.

2. We want to design an integrated numerical model of the visual stream, with a focus on motion integration, from retina to visual cortex area (e.g., the motion stream V1-MT-MST).

3. We plan to develop a simulation platform emulating the retinal spike-response to visual and prosthetic simulations, in normal and pathological conditions.

Finally, although this is not the main goal of our team, another natural avenue of our research will be to develop novel synergistic solutions to solve computer vision tasks based on bio-inspired mechanisms.