14
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 9 JULY, 2017
CAMPUS NEWS
VB
Digital Image Sequence Processing, Motion
Estimation, Content Based Image Retrieval and
Motion Picture Restoration are some of the areas
of your expertise. Apart from the engineering
science it involves, it speaks to a particular
interest in film and movies. Was it a passion for
cinema that drew you into this field? How did you
get to this specialty?
AK
Well spotted. These areas are linked by the study
of information extraction from signals or Digital
Signal Processing. I got inspired to get into that
area when I sat in an undergraduate class in
second year in Cambridge and the guest speaker
spoke about restoring old gramophone recordings
using DSP. Combined with my habit of going
to the cinema any chance I got growing up and
in University ... when I was offered a sponsored
studentship to develop similar techniques for
restoring old movies, I jumped at the chance.
VB
Some of the online articles on your career mention
an interest also in cricket-related technology, what
has been the nature of your work in this area?
AK
I started this back around 2002. I wanted to
generate automated summaries of cricket matches
from recorded broadcasts. So I had a couple of
postdocs and PhD students work on extracting
motion information from the broadcasts that let
us figure out how to spot when the bowler was
running up and which side of the wicket the ball
Engineer
of the
Stars
Anil Kokaram makes movies better
B Y V A N E I S A B A K S H
was hit on. Then I started getting interested in
making it easier to use video in cricket coaching
sessions. So we developed some techniques using
motion again to spot each bowler/batsman action
in a net so the coach could review it automatically
without having to rewind manually ... I called it
“Last Action Replay.” The reason for all of this
interest is because my family all follow cricket and
I was running the staff team at Trinity for some
time. So it made sense to combine work with
more personal interests. I was not that keen on
using video for biomechanics analysis of cricketers
because I figured that there was enough work
about that going on. What was missing and what
is still missing is a way to make it easy to use video
for the non-expert during a net session.
VB
How did winning an Academy Award for Science
and Technology in 2006 change your life?
AK
I guess people take me more seriously now. It was a
fantastic experience and on the back of that I have
been able to meet with many very accomplished
technologists in cinema and video technology.
Google became interested in my small company on
the back of that award and eventually acquired it in
2011. That changed my life a huge amount: giving
me a much wider vision about video technology
and its impact on people.
VB
The subject you chose for the Rudranath Capildeo
Lecture was Understanding the Technology of
Digital Video and Its Impact on Everyday Life,
can you share some elements of that talk?
AK
It’s about how movies are made, how they are
distributed and how information can be extracted
from video. I mention how Capildeo’s work is
part of a huge body of literature which informed
the creation of the spectacular special effects in
the movie “Interstellar.” I’ll show a bit about how
movie production now uses both 3D and 2D
ideas to make productions and how that same
information can lead to the ability to extract
information from video ... e.g. cricket.
VB
Your parents are both well-known educators in
Trinidad, how would you describe your childhood
years in such an environment?
AK
I guess I was always focussed on school and
academics. It seemed natural to me to consider a
career in research as a thing to do. It was great fun
looking back on it. I made many good friends at
Hillview College and I am in touch with a couple
even today.
VB
You are still very young, on the cusp of fifty, what
next for you? If you could freely choose your ideal
lifestyle, what would it entail?
AK
Tough question. I am just figuring that out now. I’ll
let you know when I get to 51.
Nearly 20 years ago,
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
UWI St. Augustine, struck up an informal collaboration with Dr. Anil Kokaram,
who was then a Senior Lecturer and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. The initial
project was to establish a research collaboration on Video Retrieval for Distance
Education and Broadcast, which took off in 2001.
Since then there have been a number of exchanges between the groups.
It was natural then for DECE’s Dr. Akash Pooransingh, who did his PhD
under the supervision of Professor Kokaram and Dr. Cathy-Ann Radix, to
circulate a notice that Professor Kokaram would be delivering the Rudranath
Capildeo Lecture at the Central Bank Auditorium on July 7. His topic was
“Understanding the Technology of Digital Video and its Impact on Everyday Life.”
“In his talk he shall make mention of some applications that may be of
benefit to the country and region,” wrote Dr. Pooransingh.
Looking at the online links to Professor Kokaram, I realized he was the
person who had won an Oscar ten years ago. He was only 39 and not yet a
professor when he jointly won the Scientific and Engineering award from
Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for work on the
design and development of Furnace, an integrated suite of software plug-ins
used to enhance visual effects in movie sequences. Apparently, these are now
widely used in the industry for motion-based effects and quality improvement
(The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, etc.).
He was obviously very interested in cricket, and was working on cricket-
related software, so although I knewwe would not be able to have coverage of the
lecture in this issue of the paper for deadline reasons, I sent him a few questions
out of curiosity about this Sangre Grande boy who had become a rock star.
