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Kemal Ugur

Research Leader
Nokia Research Center

Kemal Ugur is Research Leader of the Audiovisual Content Representation team at Nokia Research Center, where world-leading coding and transport knowledge is leveraged to create breakthrough impact in representation and sharing of audiovisual data.

He has been with Nokia since 2004 and he has been involved with mobile video coding and communications related activities since then. He has been actively participating in several standardization forums, such as the Joint Video Team work on the standardization of the Multiview Video Coding extension of H.264/AVC, the Video Coding Experts Group explorations toward a next generation video coding standard and the 3GPP activities for mobile broadcast and multicast standardization. Most recently, he has been working in a program management role within the Nokia-Cisco-Ericsson industry consortium, which made one of the proposals that the initial design of the next generation video coding standard, HEVC, is based upon.

Dr. Ugur received his doctoral degree in Computing and Electrical Engineering from Tampere University of Technology, Finland in 2010, his M.Sc. degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada in 2004, and his B.Sc. degree from Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 2001. He has authored around 30 papers in academic conferences/journals and is an inventor/co-inventor of more than 30 patent applications. In addition, he has been lecturing a post-graduate course on “Video Compression” at the Tampere University of Technology. He was a member of the team that won the Nokia Quality Award in 2006.

Research Interests

Kemal Ugur's current professional and academic interests include:

  • Image and video compression
  • Motion compensation and interpolation filtering
  • Real-time, error resilient video transmission
  • 3D and multi-view video coding
  • Novel concepts utilizing 3D and multi-view video

Research Projects

Mobile 3D Video: Download NRC's MVC software

Personal Information

Education

  • Ph. D. (2010), Department of Signal Processing, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland.
  • M. A.Sc. (2004), Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
  • B.S. (2001), Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
  • TED Ankara College, 1997

Other Information

Invited Talks

  • "Beyond H.264/MPEG-4 AVC", invited panelist at Picture Coding Symposium, Nagoya, Japan, Dec. 2010.
  • "Recent Advances in Video Standardization", ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, July 2009.
  • “State of the Art in Video Coding”, Nokia Innovation Center, Tampere, Finland, K. Ugur, Y.K. Wang, May 2008.
  • "Video Coding Algorithms Towards Future Video Coding Standards", invited talk at Nokia-TI-MIT Workshop, Cambridge, MA, USA September 2006.
  • "Energy Efficient Implementation of the H.264 Video Codec", invited talk at Nokia-TI-MIT Workshop, Cambridge, MA ,USA September 2006.
  • "Future Video Coding Solutions: Challenges and Promising Directions", invited talk in Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey organized by IEEE-SPS Turkey Chapter, June 2007.

Publications

Journal Papers

[J6] K. Ugur, K. Andersson, A. Fuldseth, G. Bjøntegaard, L. P. Endresen, J. Lainema, A. Hallapuro, J. Ridge, D. Rusanovskyy, C. Zhang, A. Norkin, C. Priddle, T. Rusert, J. Samuelsson, R. Sjöberg, Z. Wu, "High Performance, Low Complexity Video Coding and the Emerging HEVC Standard", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, CSVT.

[J5] T. Wiegand, J.R. Ohm, G. J. Sullivan, Woo-Jin Han, R. Joshi, T.K. Tan, K. Ugur, "Special Section on the Joint Call for Proposals on High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standardization", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, CSVT.

[J4] Cixun Zhang, K. Ugur, J. Lainema, A. Hallapuro, M. Gabbouj, “Video Coding Using Spatially Varying Transform”, accepted, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, CSVT.

[J3] K. Ugur, D. Rusanovskyy, A. Hallapuro, J. Lainema, M. Gabbouj, “Efficient Implementation of Adaptive Interpolation Filters for Low Complexity Video Coding”, accepted  IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, January 2009.

[J2] D. Rusanovskyy, K. Ugur, A. Hallapuro, J. Lainema, M. Gabbouj  “Video Coding with Low Complexity Directional Adaptive Interpolation Filters”, accepted IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

[J1] Y. Chen, Y.-K. Wang, K. Ugur, M.M. Hannuksela, J. Lainema, and M. Gabbouj, "The emerging MVC standard for 3D video services," EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, vol. 2009, Article ID 786015, 13 pages, 2009.

Conference Papers

[C25] Tasli, E. H., Ugur, K., "User Interaction Based Efficient 2D 3D Image Conversion for Mobile Device", accepted,  3DTV Conference: IEEE The True Vision - Capture, Transmission and Display of 3D Video, 2011.  16-18 May 2011.

[C24] Bici, M. O., Lainema J., Ugur, K.,  Gabbouj ,M., "Planar Representation for Intra Coding of Depth Maps", accepted,  3DTV Conference: IEEE The True Vision - Capture, Transmission and Display of 3D Video, 2011.  16-18 May 2011.

[C23] Zhang, C., Ugur, K., Lainema J., Hallapuro A., Gabbouj, M, "Prediction Signal Aided Spatially Varying Transform", accepted, International Conference on Multimedia & Expo, July 2011.

[C22] J. Lainema, K. Ugur, "Intra Picture Coding with Planar Representations",  Picture Coding Symposium (PCS), Dec. 2010 

[C21] K. Ugur, K. Andersson, A. Fuldseth, G. Bjøntegaard, L. P. Endresen, J. Lainema, A. Hallapuro, J. Ridge, D. Rusanovskyy, C. Zhang, A. Norkin, C. Priddle, T. Rusert, J. Samuelsson, R. Sjöberg, Z. Wu, "Low Complexity Video Coding and the Emerging HEVC Standard", Picture Coding Symposium (PCS), Dec. 2010

[C20] Hallapuro A., Rusanovskyy D., Ugur K., Lainema J., “Efficient SIMD-based implementation of adaptive filter”, accepted, International Symposium on on Circuits and Systems, ISCAS’2010

[C19] D. Rusanovskyy, K. Ugur, M. Gabbouj, “Adaptive Interpolation with Flexible Filter Structures for Video Coding”, accepted, International conference on Image Processing, ICIP 2009. 

[C18] Zhang C., Ugur K., Lainema J., Hallapuro A., Gabbouj M., “Low Complexity Algorithm for Spatially Varying Transforms”, accepted, Picture Coding Symposium (PCS), May 2009.

[C17] Zhang C., Ugur K., Lainema J., Gabbouj M., “Video Coding using Variable Block Size Spatially Varying Transforms”, accepted IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2009.

[C16] Zhang C., Ugur K., Lainema J., Gabbouj M., “Video Coding using Spatially Varying Transform”, accepted IEEE Pacific Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology (PSIVT) 2009.

[C15] Ugur, K., Rusanovskyy D., Hallapuro A., Lainema J., Gabbouj M., “Efficient Implementation of Adaptive Interpolation Filters for Low Complexity Video Coding”, accepted IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE) 2009, Sept. 2008.

[C14] Rusanovskyy D., Ugur K., Gabbouj M., "Fast Encoding Algorithms for Video Coding with Adaptive Interpolation Filters", Multimedia Signal Processing, 2008. IEEE MMSP 2008, presented June 2008.

[C13] Willner, K.; Ugur, K.; Salmimaa, M.; Hallapuro, A.; Lainema, J. “Mobile 3D Video Using MVC and N800 Internet Tablet”, 3DTV Conference: IEEE The True Vision - Capture, Transmission and Display of 3D Video, 2008  28-30 May 2008, Page(s): 69-72
 
[C12] Cixun Zhang; Ugur, K.; Gabbouj, M., “Fast mode decision for adaptive prediction error coding” Multimedia and Expo, 2008 IEEE International Conference on  June 23 2008-April 26 2008 Page(s): 585-588

[C11] Rusanovskyy, D.; Ugur, K.; Gabbouj, M.; Lainema, J., "Video coding with pixel-aligned directional adaptive interpolation filters," Circuits and Systems, 2008. ISCAS 2008. IEEE International Symposium on , vol., no., pp.704-707, 18-21 May 2008

[C10] Cixun Zhang; Ugur, K.; Lainema, J.; Hallapuro, A.; Gabbouj, M. “Video coding using pruned transforms and interleaving of multiple block”, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2008. ICASSP 2008. IEEE International Conference on March 31 2008-April 4 2008 Page(s): 1049-1052

[C9] Ugur, K.; Rusanovskyy, D.; Gabbouj, M., "Efficient calculation of adaptive interpolation filter with distortion modelling," Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2008. ICASSP 2008. IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.673-676, March 31 2008-April 4 2008

[C8] Rusanovskyy, D.; Gabbouj, M.; Ugur, K., "Spatial and Temporal Adaptation of Interpolation Filter For Low Complexity Encoding/Decoding," Multimedia Signal Processing, 2007. MMSP 2007. IEEE 9th Workshop on , vol., no., pp.163-166, 1-3 Oct. 2007

[C7] Ugur, K.; Hui Liu; Lainema, J.; Gabbouf, M.; Houqiang Li, “Parallel Encoding - Decoding Operation for Multiview Video Coding with High Coding Efficiency”, 3DTV Conference: IEEE The True Vision - Capture, Transmission and Display of 3D Video, 2007 7-9 May 2007, Page(s): 1-4

[C6] Ugur, K.; Lainema, J.; Gabbouj, M. “Adaptive Interpolation Filter with Flexible Symmetry for Coding High Resolution High Quality Video”, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2007. ICASSP 2007. IEEE International Conference on Volume: 1  15-20 April 2007 Page(s): I-1013-I-1016

[C5] Ugur, K.; Lainema, J.; Hallapuro, A.; Gabbouj, M. “Generating H.264/AVC Compliant Bitstreams for Lightweight Decoding Operation Suitable for Mobile Multimedia Systems”, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2006. ICASSP 2006 Proceedings. 2006 IEEE International Conference on Volume: 2  14-19 May 2006 Page(s): II-II

[C4] Ugur K., Wenger S., Tian D., Gabbouj M. “Where to Spend the Bits? Efficiency of Source and Channel Coding in MBMS”, EURASIP EUSIPCO 2005 

[C3] Ugur, K.; Nasiopoulos, P.; Ward, R., “An efficient H.264 based fine-granular-scalable video coding system”, Signal Processing Systems Design and Implementation, 2005. IEEE Workshop on  2-4 Nov. 2005 Page(s): 399- 402

[C2] Ugur, K.; Nasiopoulos, P. “Combining bitstream switching and FGS for H.264 scalable video transmission over varying bandwidth networks”, Communications, Computers and signal Processing, 2003. PACRIM. 2003 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Volume: 2  28-30 Aug. 2003 Page(s): 972- 975 vol.2

[C1] Ugur, K.; Louizis, G.; Nasiopoulos, P.; Ward, R., “Extremely fast selective enhancement method for fine granular scalable enabled H.264 video”, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2003. IEEE CCECE 2003. Canadian Conference on Volume: 2  4-7 May 2003,  Page(s): 1103- 1106 vol.2