Bill Kapralos, Ph.D
Adjunct Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Faculty of Graduate Studies
York University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. M3J 1P3.

Bio

Bill Kapralos received his BSc (first class, with distinction), MSc and Ph.D from York University (Department of Computer Science and Engineering). His MSc research was concerned with the development of a video teleconferencing system combining both audio and video cues to automatically detect and track multiple speakers in teleconferencing and remote learning applications. His Ph.D dissertation investigated the development of sound synthesis techniques inspired by image synthesis and optics-based methods to model the acoustics of an environment in an efficient manner for dynamic virtual environment/reality applications. Bill Kapralos' current research interests include: acoustical modeling and 3D (spatial) sound generation for virtual environments and games, multi-modal virtual environments/reality and the perception of auditory events. He has held various teaching appointments at several institutions including York University (Department of Computer Science and Engineering) and the University of Toronto (Department of Computer Science). He is also an adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (Computer Science and Engineering), York University. Bill is a reviewer for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Image and Vision Computing, Autonomous Robots, and the United States National Science Foundation. He is also an Adjunct Professor at York University (Faculty of Graduate Studies, Department of Computer Science and Engineering). Bill Kapralos is also chairing ACM FuturePlay 2007 Academic Games Conference (November 15-17 2007 in Toronto, Canada), an international conference that addresses academic research and emerging industry trends in the area of game technology and game design and the design of games for learning, for gender, for serious purposes, and to impact society

News

Microsoft's DevelopMENTAL Game Camp coming to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Saturday, January 26 2008

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology will be hosting Microsoft's DevelopMENTAL Game Camp. The event will be open to all UOIT, Durham College students, and the general public. Greater details will follow.

ACM FuturePlay 2007. Research. Play. Share. November 15-17 2007, Toronto

The ACM FuturePlay 2007 conference focuses on three main themes. The first theme, future game development, addresses academic research and emerging industry trends in the area of game technology and game design. The second theme, future game impacts and applications, includes academic research and emerging industry trends focused on designing games for learning, for gender, for serious purposes, and to impact society. Finally, the third theme, future game talent, is designed to provide a number of industry and academic perspectives on the knowledge, skills, and attitude it takes to excel in the games industry. FuturePlay addresses these issues through exciting and thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper sessions, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), workshops (including design, technology, and career workshops), and exhibitions of posters, games, and the latest game technologies and supports from industry-leading vendors. Continuing with the tradition established by CGT and improved upon by last year's conference, the highlight of the games exhibition is a peer-reviewed competition of games in three categories: Future (experimental) Games, Serious Games, and Student Games.

Current Research

Here is my Ph.D Dissertation.

Here is a copy of the Ph.D oral exam presentation.

Friday, July 14 2006 I will be giving a talk during the weekly scheduled Centre for Vision Research (CVR) seminars in preparation for my upcoming Ph.D oral defense. The talk is titled "The Sonel Mapping Acoustical Modeling Method" and will be held in CSE 3033 at 2:00pm.

Sonel Mapping - Acoustical Modeling Using an Approach Inspired by Photon Mapping: Ph.D Research topic

Talk given at HAVE 2004.

Auditory Motion Perception: A series of experiments were carried out with Dan Zikovitz over the summer of 2003 investigating self-motion perception using auditory and vestibular cues:

Poster presented at the 116th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society: Auditory Cues in the Perception of Self-Motion

Talk given to the CVR (October 17 2003) Auditory Cues in the Perception of Self-Motion

Video of Experimental Procedure

Extensive Audio and Three-Dimensional Sound Links by Bill Kapralos can be found here. Please let me know if any of these links are no longer valid or if you want new ones added!

Some Past Research

For two summers, I have worked on a project with Professor E. Milios involving the Perception of 3-D Space by the Visually Impaired. Further details may be found here.

Real Time Systems COSC 4080 Project I worked on for two semesters under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Ostroff. This project involved setting up, a Marklin digital train set. In addition, a software controller including collision avoidance, were designed and implemented. Further info. may be found here.

Publications .

Thesis

B. Kapralos. The Sonel Mapping Acoustical Modeling Method. Ph.D Dissertation. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Canada, September 2006.
B. Kapralos. Eyes' n Ears: Face Detection Utilizing Audio and Video Cues. Master's Thesis. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Canada, April 2001.

Refereed Journal Articles

E. Milios, B. Kapralos, A. Kopinska and S. Stergiopoulos. Sonification of range information for 3D space perception. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 11(4):416-421, 2003.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios (2003). Audio-visual localization of multiple speakers in a video teleconferencing setting. International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, Vol. 13(1):95-105, 2003.

Refereed Conference and Workshop Articles

B. Kapralos, S. Khattak, and D. Zikovitz. Auditory motion perception threshold. In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and their Applications (HAVE 2007), Ottawa, Canada, October 12-14, 2007 (to appear).

H. Sabri, S. Khattak, B. Kapralos, K. El-Khatib, and M. Guennoun. Virtual reality-based interface for the control of multiple surveillance cameras. In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and their Applications (HAVE 2007), Ottawa, Canada, October 12-14, 2007 (to appear).

L. Qi, M. Vargas Martin, B. Kapralos, M. Garcia-Ruiz, M. Green. Toward sound-assisted intrusion detection systems. 2^nd International Symposium on Information Security (IS '07), Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, November 26-27, 2007 (to appear).

M. Hogan, H. Sabri, and B. Kapralos. Interactive community simulation environment for community health nursing. ACM FuturePlay 2007 Academic Games Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 15-17, 2007 (to appear).

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Acoustical modeling with sonel mapping. In Proceedings of the 19^th International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2007), Madrid, Spain, September 2-7, 2007 (to appear). Invited talk and paper - special session on Computational Methods for Room-Acoustics Modeling.

D. C. Zikovitz and B. Kapralos. Decruitment of the perception of changing sound Intensity for simulated self-motion. Proceedings of the 13^th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD 2007). Montreal, Canada, June 26-29, 2007 (to appear).

B. Kapralos, and N. Mekuz. Application of dimensionality reduction techniques to HRTFs for interactive virtual environments. Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2007). Salzburg, Austria, June 13-15, 2007 (to appear).

B. Kapralos, A. Hogue, and H. Sabri. Recognition of Hand Raising Gestures for a Remote Learning Application. 8^th International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS 2007). Santorini, Greece, June 6-8, 2007 (to appear).

M. A. Garcia-Ruiz, M. Vargas Martin and B. Kapralos. Toward multimodal human-computer interfaces for network intrusion detection: A sonification prototype. Proceedings of the 122^nd Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Vienna, Austria. May 5-8 2007.

A. Shupo, B. Kapralos and M. Vargas Martin. Statistical-based skin classifier for omni-directional images. In Proceedings of the 2^nd International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP 2007). Barcelona, Spain, March 8-11 2007.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Acoustical diffraction modeling for interactive virtual environments. In Proceedings of the 2^nd International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (GRAPP 2007). Barcelona, Spain, March 8-11 2007.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Sonel mapping: A stochastic acoustical modeling system. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2006), V421-V424, Toulouse, France, May 14-19, 2006.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Acoustical diffraction modeling utilizing the Huygens-Fresnel principle. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and their Applications (HAVE 2005), pages 39-44, Ottawa, Canada, October 1-2, 2005.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Acoustical modeling using a Russian roulette strategy. 118^th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Barcelona, Spain, May 28 - 31, 2005 (preprint 6497).

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Sonel mapping: Acoustical modeling with an acoustical version of photon mapping. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and their Applications (HAVE 2004), pages 1-6, Ottawa, Canada, October 2-3, 2004.

B. Kapralos, D. Zikovitz, M. Jenkin and L. R. Harris. Auditory cues in the perception of self-motion. In Proceedings of the 116^th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Berlin, Germany, May 8 - 11, 2004.(preprint 6078).

B. Kapralos, A. Barth, J. Ma and M. Jenkin. A system for synchronous distance learning. In Proceedings of the 16^th International Conference on Vision Interface (VI 2003), pages 134-140, Halifax, Canada, June 11 -13, 2003.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos (2001). Eyes ‘n ears face detection. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2001), pages 66-69, Thessaloniki, Greece, October 7-10, 2001.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos (2001). Eyes' n ears: Face detection utilizing audio and video cues. In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Recognition, Analysis and Tracking of Faces and Gestures in Real-time Systems (RATFG-RTS 2001, in conjunction with ICCV 2001), pages 106-112, Vancouver, Canada, July 13, 2001.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos (2001). Eyes 'n ears sound localization. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2001). Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. May 7-11, 2001.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos (2000). Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. The 39^th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Atlanta, Georgia, USA. May 30 - June 3, 2000.

E. Milios, B. Kapralos, S. Stergiopoulos. Sonification of range information for 3D space perception. In Proceedings of the ICAD - Joint ICAD/ASA/EAA Workshop on Auditory Display, Berlin, Germany, March 20, 1999.

Technical Reports

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E (2006). Milios. The sonel mapping acoustical modeling method. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Technical Report. CSE-2006-10..
B. Kapralos, D. Zikovitz, M. Jenkin and L. R. Harris (2004). Auditory cues in the perception of self-motion for linear translation. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Technical Report. CS-2004-04.
B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E (2002). Milios. Audio-visual localization of multiple speakers in a video teleconferencing setting. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Technical Report. CS-2002-02.

Non-Refereed Abstracts / Posters

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. 3D Sound For Virtual Teleconferencing. Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems (IS 2004).Ottawa, Ontario Canada. June 6 - 8 2004.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin and E. Milios. Automatic Recognition of Hand Gestures and Voice Requests for a Remote Learning Application. Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems (IS 2003). Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. June 8-10 2003.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Detection of Hand Gestures Utilizing an Omni-directional Video Sensor for a Remote Teaching Application 12th Annual Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems. Calgary, Alberta. May 29-June 1, 2002. (Gold, first place poster in poster competition).

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. CITO Knowledge Network Conference: Beyond the Edge: Road Mapping Innovation October 2 & 3, 2000 - Nepean, Ontario.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. Crestech's Innovation Network. September 28 2000. Toronto Ontario.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. 10th Annual Precarn - IRIS Conference. May 14 - 17 2000. Montreal Quebec, Canada.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CITO) - Advanced Technology Research Conference. Toronto Ontario. May 17 - 19 1999.

B. Kapralos, E. Milios and S. Stergiopoulos. Sonification of Range Information for 3-D Space Perception. International Conference on Vision and Attention. York University, Toronto Ontario. June 22 - 26 1999.

B. Kapralos, M. Jenkin, E. Milios and J. Tsotsos. Eyes 'n Ears: A System for Attentive Teleconferencing. Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CITO) Forum. Ottawa Ontario. May 17 - 19 1999.

Awards and Honors

Dissertation Award 2006. York University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

York University President's Dissertation Scholarship. September 2004.

Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (OGSST). May 2003.

Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) Student Fellowship. June 2003

Gold (first place) Poster at 12th Annual Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems, Calgary, Alberta. May 29-June 1.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Post Graduate Scholarship (PGS B) 2001.

Ontario Graduate Student (OGS) Scholarship 2001 (Declined in favour of NSERC).

"Joseph Liu Thesis Award " 2001. Department of Computer Science, York University.

Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (Crestech) Graduate Student Conference Travel Award. May 2001.

Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (Crestech) Graduate Student Conference Travel Award. October 2001.

Allen S. Berg Award (in memory of Nancy Waisbord) for consistently demonstrated excellence in Computer Science (June 1999).

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Post Graduate Scholarship (PGS A) 1999.

Ontario Graduate Student (OGS) Scholarship 1999. (Declined in favour of NSERC).

Graduated first class, with distinction, April 1999, York University, Faculty of Science.

York Continuing Student Scholarship 1998.

York Science Undergraduate Research Award 1998.

York Science Undergraduate Research Award 1997.

York Continuing Student Scholarship 1996.

Member of Dean's Honour Roll (York University Faculty of Science) 1995 - 1999.

Member of the Chair's Honour Roll (York University Department of Mathematics and Statistics) 1995-96.

Member of Dean's Honour Roll (Humber College, School of Electronics) 1993 - 1995

Teaching

University of Ontario (UOIT), Faculty of Business and Information Technology (course information for all UOIT courses available internally only via WebCT)
- INFR 1350U: Imaging I (Fall 2006 and Fall 2007)
- INFR 2810U: Computer Architecture (Fall 2006 and Fall 2007)
- INFR 2350U: Imaging II - Graphical Data Processing (Computer Graphics) (Winter 2007 and Winter 2008)
- INFR 2370U: Sound and Audio (Winter 2007 and Winter 2008)

York University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
- CSE 1020: Introduction to Computer Science I (Summer 2006)
- CSE 1030: Introduction to Computer Science II (Summer 2006)
- CSE 3301: Programming Language Fundamentals (Summer 2006)
- CSE 1530: Computer Use II: Programming (Winter 2006)
- COSC 1030: Introduction to Computer Science II - Tutorials (Fall 2003)
- COSC 2011: Fundamentals of Data Structures Section N (Winter 2001)

University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science

CSC 320: Introduction to Visual Computing (Summer 2005)

Humber College of Applied Arts and Technology - North Campus
- ELIC 629: Digital Image Processing (Winter 2006)
- ELIC 629: Digital Image Processing (Fall 2005)
- ELIC 413: Introduction to Programming - C Programming (Fall 2005)
- ELIC 629: Digital Image Processing (Winter 2005)

Student Supervision and Research Projects

Current Students

Hamed Sabri
Saad Khattak (University of Ontario Institute of Technology's Student Training Assistantships in Research (STAR) award recipient (Summer 2007))

Current Research Projects (more information to be available shortly...)
- Acoustical modeling and 3D sound for interactive virtual environments
  - HRTF dimensionality reduction (with Nathan Mekuz, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, York University)
  - Auditory motion perception and simulation (with Daniel Zikovitz, CAE)
- Emergency management and preparedness simulations
- Instant broadband (mesh network) audio/visual surveillance (with Khalil El-Khatib, Faculty of Business and IT)
- Video game and virtual reality technology for Nursing education (with Michelle Hogan, Faculty of Health Sciences)

Program Committees/Reviewer

Journal Reviewer
- Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA)
- Journal of Image and Vision Computing
- Journal of Autonomous Robots

Conference Program Committees
- First IEEE International Workshop on Digital Entertainment, Networked Virtual Environments, and Creative Technology
- First Serious Games Canada Symposium
- IEEE 2007 International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and their Applications (HAVE 2007)
- Third International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP 2008)
- Second International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP 2007)
- Fourth Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV 2007)
- The First IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI 2006)
- The 11^th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG 2003)

Graduate `Stuff'

Graduate Courses Taken

COSC 6002 - Directed Readings in Virtual Reality: Technology and Perception

COSC 6323 - Advanced Topics in Computer Vision

COSC 6390 - Computational Modeling of Visual Perception

COSC 5325 - Signals and Systems

COSC 5324 - Introduction to Robotics

COSC 6115 - Advanced Computational Complexity

COSC 5331 - Computer Graphics

COSC 6331 - Advanced Image Synthesis

COSC 5323 - Computer Vision

Some Completed Graduate Course Projects

Directed Readings in Virtual Reality: Technology and Perception

Course Presentation: Auditory Perception and Virtual Environments

Computational Modeling of Visual Perception:

Detection of Raising Hand Gestures Utilizing an Omni-directional Video Sensor for Use in a Remote Teaching Application. (Includes a tutorial on Hidden Markov Models).

Advanced Topics in Computer Vision. Summary and discussion of several papers:

"Attentional Modulation of Visual Motion Processing in Cortical Areas MTand MST" by Stefan Treue and John H. R. Maunsell
"The Attention System of the Human Brain" by Michael I. Posner and Steven E. Peterson.
"Visual Routines" by Shimon Ullman

Computer Vision Project Final Report:

Detection and Tracking of Objects Using a Combination of Color Information, Image Differencing and Correlation.

Robotics Final Report:

Robot Ears: A System for Sound Localization

Computer Graphics (5331 & 6331 combined Project)

This project was concerned with designing and assembling several Virtual Reality hardware components. In addition, some software to control several of the components as well as commercial tracking units was also implemented. Further details regarding this project, including schematic diagrams etc. may be found here.

Advanced Computational Complexity Presentation (Talk):

The Equivalence Problem for Loop (1) and Loop (2) Programs

Related Information

My Master's thesis was titled "Eyes 'n Ears: A System of Attentive Teleconferencing" and involved the detection of human faces through the integration of auditory and visual information in a multi-speaker video-teleconferencing setting..

Ph.D work is concerned with the investigation and development of a system for acoustical modeling for virtual reality/environments using (suitably modified) computer graphics based techniques and in particular, photon mapping.

Past courses I have been a TA for

COSC 4431 Computer Graphics

Presented two lectures introducing OpenGL and GLUT.

COSC 4352 Real Time Systems Practice

COSC 4451/5325 Signals and Systems

COSC 4422/5323 Computer Vision

COSC 4111/5111 Automata and Computability

COSC 4352 Real Time Systems Practice

COSC 2011 Fundamentals of Data Structures

COSC 1030 Introduction to Computer Science II

COSC 1020 Introduction to Computer Science I