Faisal Qureshi
Faisal Qureshi
Professor
Computer Science
Visual Computing Lab
Faculty of Science
Ontario Tech University (formerly UOIT)
UA4000, 2000 Simcoe St. N., Oshawa, ON L1G OC5 Canada
faisal.qureshi@uoit.ca
(905) 721-8668 x 3626

Messages

Please read this if you are considering doing an honours thesis with me.

Please read this if you are considering doing graduate studies under my supervision.

News

Dec 7, 2023
Congratulations to Chirag Karia who successfully defended his thesis on predicting human dynamics. Best thesis award nominee
Oct 2, 2023
Congratulations to Roya Dehghani who successfully defended her thesis on a person re-identification using ConvNeXt architectures.
Sep 1, 2023
Checkout our journal paper “An interactive threshold-setting procedure for improved multivariate anomaly detection in time series.” This is joint work with Adam Lundstrom and Mattias O’Nils.
Sep 1, 2023
Welcome Hafiz Arslan Amjad who is joining visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. in computer science.
May 29, 2023
Check out our new arXiv manuscript on error estimation in single image 3d human mesh recovery. Project page is available here. Code is available on github.
May 18, 2023
Hamoon Jafarian successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis on error estimation in single image 3d human mesh recovery. Best thesis award nominee
Apr 17, 2023
Our paper on Hyperspectral Image Compression using Implicit Neural Networks has been accepted to appear in Conference on Robots and Computer (CRV 2023).
Apr 12, 2023
Check out our abstract that outlines an Iterative Method for Hyperspectral Pixel Unmixing Leveraging Latent Dirichlet Variational Autoencoder that has been accepted to appear in International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS).
Oct 11, 2022
Checkout our journal paper “Improving deep learning based anomaly detection on multivariate time series through separated anomaly scoring”. This is joint work with Adam Lundstrom, Mattias O’Nils, and Axel Jantsch.
Oct 6, 2022
Congratulations to Mir Afgan Talpur who successfully defended his thesis on a modular approach to image matting.
Sep 10, 2022
I gave a series of ai lectures titled “A Deep Learning Primer” at Institute of Space Technology (IST). Thank you IST for hosting me.
Jul 14, 2022
Checkout our journal paper “The Effects of Spectral Dimensionality Reduction on Hyperspectral Image Classification. A Case Study.” More information and the datasets used in this study can be found here.
Apr 2, 2022
Thank you Prof. Mattias O’Nils for hosting me at Center for Sensible Things that Communicate, Mid Sweden University. It was great fun! Check out my interview here.
Apr 2, 2022
I am thrilled to be appointed as an adjunct faculty at the Institute of Space Technology, Pakistan.
Jan 6, 2022
Welcome Negin Tabaraki and Neha Ejaz who are joining visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. in computer science.
Jan 6, 2022
Congratulations to Michael Lombardo for successfully defending his M.Sc. thesis on parsing genetic models.
Dec 1, 2021
I now have a status-only appoinment in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology (CSB) at the University of Toronto. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues in CSB.
Nov 30, 2021
Checkout our journal paper “Evaluation of 2D-/3D-Feet-Detection Methods for Semi-Autonomous Powered Wheelchair Navigation”. This is joint work with Cristian Gimenez, Silvia Krug, and Mattias O’Nils from Mid Sweden University. Dataset is available here.
Oct 28, 2021
Checkout our journal paper “A Temporal Boosted YOLO-Based Model for Birds Detection around Wind Farms”. This is joint work with Hiba Alqaysi, Igor Fedorov, and Mattias O’Nils from Mid Sweden University. (Dataset coming soon.)
Sep 2, 2021
Welcoming two new members. Hamoon Jafarian and Roya Dehghani are joining visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. in computer science.
Jun 3, 2021
I am both honoured and excited to be nominated for the Student Choice Award. This year it is particularly meaningful given the larger COVID-19 context and the sudden shift to online teaching and learning. Though we do not see each other in physical spaces, my interactions with my students continue to be the most enjoyable part of my job. Thank you, my students!
Mar 9, 2021
Thank you SOSCIP for providing cloud and deep learning computing resources for our work with Mitacs and Axiom.
Jan 4, 2021
Welcome Mohamed Zayed who is joining visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. in computer science.
Dec 11, 2020
Our journal paper “Improving hyperspectral image segmentation by applying inverse noise weighting and outlier removal for optimal scale selection” has been accepted to appear in ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. This is joint work with Phuong D. Dao, Kiran Mantripragada, and Yuhong He.
Dec 08, 2020
Check out our c++ notes here.
Oct 18, 2020
Check out our computer vision notebooks here.
Sep 8, 2020
Welcome Shima Rezasoltani and Afgan Mir Talpur, who are joining visual computing lab to pursue graduate studies in computer science. Shima will be working towards her Ph.D. in computer science, whereas Afgan is returning to VCLab to work towards his M.Sc. in computer science.
Jul 24, 2020
Our journal paper “A Stream Algebra for Performance Optimization of Large Scale Computer Vision Pipelines” has been accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. Joint work with Mohamed Helala and Ken Pu.
Jul 21, 2020
Excited to report that my student Salik Nadeem got selected for Phase 1 of the OpenCV Spatial AI Competition sponsored by Intel. He will receive the OpenCV AI Kit OAK-D to further develop his work.
Jun 19, 2020
Check out Webify v4.2. A Python tool to convert plaintext to beautiful course notes and websites. Now it supports a live mode that can be used to maintain websites remotely.
Jun 01, 2020
I am now serving as the secretary for the Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society (CIPPRS).
Apr 24, 2020
Just got the official confirmation. I will be promoted to Full Professor starting July 1, 2020.
Apr 14, 2020
Our work Improving Hyperspectral Image Segmentation by Applying Inverse Noise Weighting and Outlier Removal for Optimal Scale Selection received the second place at the 2020 American Association of Geographers (AAG), Remote Sensing Specialty Group, Student Honors Competition. This is joint work with my student Kiran Mantripragada and our colleagues Phuong D. Dao and Yuhong He at the Remote Sensing and Spatial Ecosystem Modeling laboratory, University of Toronto Mississauga. Phuong presented this work at the AAG meeting.
Mar 9, 2020
VCLab received a $120,000 Mitacs Accelerate Grant to develop a data-driven framework for integrating visual inspection into injection moulding pipeline. Our partner organization is Axiom Plastics Inc.
Dec 17, 2019
I took part in the science information panel organized by Glenforest Secondary School STEM team. The students asked some very interesting questions, and I had a blast.
Dec 1, 2019
I am visiting Prof. OMattias O’Nils at Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden where I am scheduled to give two talks. First talk, is a public seminar titled “Deep learning meets computer vision,” and the second talk will discuss our recent work on joint layer and spatial attention network and image inpainting.
Oct 16, 2019
My student Tony Joseph is presenting our work on “Joint Spatial and Layer Attention for Convolutional Networks” at the Evolution of Deep Learning Symposia organized by Vector Institute to celebrate the work and achievements of Prof. Geoff Hinton, 2019 Turing Award Winner. My co-author Martin Magill is also presenting our work on “Neural Networks for DNNs” at this symposia.
I am particulary thrilled about this; my very first graduate course was with Prof. Hinton back when deep learning wasn’t a thing.
Sep 23, 2019
Our paper A Residual-Dyad Encoder Discriminator Network for Remote Sensing Image Matching is accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. This is joint work with our colleagues at Graphics and Computer Vision Lab, Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Sep 1, 2019
Welcome Chirag Karia and Michael Lombardo, who are joining visual computing lab to pursue graduate studies in computer science.
Aug 24, 2019
Our work on Structure Guided Image Inpainting using Edge Prediction is accepted to appear in the ICCV19 workshop on Advances in Image Manipulation. This is joint work with our colleagues in the Imaging Lab.
Aug 15, 2019
I am now a Senior Member of IEEE.
Jul 1, 2019
Our paper Joint Spatial and Layer Attention for Convolutional Networks is accepted as a spotlight at BMVC19! This is joint work with Tony Joseph and Prof. Kosta Derpanis (Ryerson University and Samsung AI Lab Toronto).
Jul 1, 2019
Starting July 1st, 2019, I will be serving as the Graduate Program Director for Ontario Tech University Computer Science program.
June 14, 2019
Tony Joseph successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis.
Feb 27, 2019
I am both honoured and excited to be nominated for the Student Choice Award. My interactions with an amazing group of students is truly the most enjoyable part of my job. Thank you, my students!
Jan 7, 2019
Check out our EdgeConnect work on image inpainting on arXiv. Code for this paper is available at Github.
Jan 7, 2019
Check out new project page on stream algebra for computer vision pipelines here.
Jan 2, 2019
Welcome Salik Nadeem. Salik has joined visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. in computer science. He did his undergraduate at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan.
Dec 15, 2018
Check out our NeurIPS18 paper on neural networks for DNNs on arXiv.
Nov 15, 2018
Our paper on compact representations on neural networks for solving Laplace’s equation has been accepted at appear at NuerIPS 2018 workshop on Compact Deep Neural Networks with Industrial Applications.
Oct 2, 2018
Michael Lombardo was runner-up in the undergrad category at CSearch 2018. Congrats Michael!
Sep 5, 2018
Our paper on neural networks for DNNs has been accepted at appear at NuerIPS 2018.
Sep 1, 2018
Welcome Michael Stergianis. Michael has joined the visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. computer science.
Jun 21, 2018
Our paper on video summarization on commodity hardware has been accepted to appear at 12th ACM International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras 2018.
May 10, 2018
Welcome Hunter Thompson. Hunter has joined the visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. computer science.
May 10, 2018
Welcome Ghazal Reshad. Ghazal has joined the visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. computer science.
May 10, 2018
Welcome Michael Lombardo. Michael will be spending his summer in the lab as an NSERC USRA.
Jan 24, 2018
Wesley Taylor successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis on video summarization on commodity hardware. Congratulations, Wesley!
Dec 8, 2017
Check out webify, a python wrapper and a little bit more than that to convert markdown, yaml and mustache content to websites and pdf documents using pandoc.
Sep 12, 2017
Welcome Miguel Jose Mendez. Miguel has joined the visual computing lab to pursue M.Sc. computer science.
Sep 12, 2017
Welcome Kiran Mantripragada. Kiran has joined the visual computing lab to pursue Ph.D. computer science.
Sep 11, 2017
Attending ITEA3 Project Outline Preparation Days 2017 in Berlin.
May 18, 2017
Our paper, "Fast estimation of large displacement optical flow using dominant motion patterns and sub-volume patchmatch filtering" received the Best Computer Vision Paper award at Computer Robot Vision 2017.
Apr 28, 2017
David Nemirovsky successfully defended his M.Sc. thesis. Congrats, David!
Apr 14, 2017
Michael Stergianis will again spend the summer months at VCLab as NSERC USRA. Welcome back, Michael!
Mar 20, 2017
Two papers accepted to CRV 2017.
Jul 3, 2016
Paper presenting formal algebra (for vision streams) implementation accepted to ICDSC 2016
Apr 1, 2016
Michael Stergianis receives NSERC USRA
Apr 1, 2016
Wesley Taylor receives Ontario Graduate Scholarship
Apr 1, 2016
Luis Zarrabeitia joined Google
Feb 2, 2016
Two papers accepted to WACV 2016
more >>>

About

I am a professor of computer science at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. I also direct the visual computing lab that focuses on problems residing at the intersection of pattern recognition, computer vision, visual sensor networks, large-scale processing and computer graphics.

Visual computing lab is involved in number of exciting research problems:

more >>>

Research

Project Thumbnail
A Modular Approach to Image Matting

A method that bridges the gap between the performance of trimap-based networks and the convenience of trimap-free networks.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Iterative LDVAE for Hyperspectral Pixel Unmixing

A method for hyperspectral pixel unmixing that does not require labelled per-pixel "training" data.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Implicit Neural Representations for HSI Compression

Using implicit neural representations for hyperspectral image compression.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Human 3D Mesh Recovery

Error estimation for single image human 3D mesh recovery.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Visual Anomaly Detection Package

A web-based system for deploying anomalib for visual anomaly detection.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Hyperspectral Pixel Classification

A systematic study of the effects of spectral compression on hyperspectral pixel classification.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Multivariate Anomaly Detection

On aggregated vs. separating scoring methods for multivariate anomaly detection tasks.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Feet Localization for Autonomous Wheelchair Navigation

Caregiver feet localization from wheelchair mounted cameras for autonomous navigation.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Bird Detection in Wind Farms

A temporal boosted YOLOv4 model for bird detection around wind farms.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Hyperspectral Image Segmentation

Optimal scale selection for object-based image analysis and interpretation in hyperspectral images.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
A Residual-Dyad Encoder Discriminator Network for Remote Sensing Image Matching

A new deep learning unit, residual-dyad, for remote sensing image matching.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Joint Spatial and Layer Attention for Convolutional Networks

What and where attention for convolutional neural networks

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Image Inpainting using Edge Prediction

GANs for Structured Image Inpainting

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Neural Networks Solving PDEs

Neural networks learn general representations when trained to solve differential equations.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Cost-Volume Filtering for Stereo Depth Estimation

Accelerated cost-volume filtering for depth analysis

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Cost-Volume Filtering for Optical Flow Estimation

Cost-volume filtering for fast optical flow estimation

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Video Summarization

Exploring various ways to summarize a video.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Virtual Vision

Advanced computer graphics and vision simulation technologies to serve the needs of camera networks research.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Tracking Blood Droplets in 3D

Extracting three-dimensional flight trajectories of liquid droplets from video data.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Computer Vision Pipelines

A formal algebraic framework for the mathematical description of computer vision pipelines.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Road Boundary Detection

Road boundary detection adverse lighting and environmental conditions.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Distributed Virtual Vision Simulator

Scalable virtual vision.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Aerial Mosaics

Mosaic of Near Ground UAV Videos Under Parallax Effects

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Satellite Rendezvous and Docking

Cognitive/behavior visual serving controllers for capturing free-flying uncooperative satellites.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Camera grouping via local negotiations

Collaborative sensing in camera networks.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Video Driven Crowd Synthesis

Motion vectors extracted from crowd videos are used to synthesize artificial crowds.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
PTZ Camera Scheduling

Multicamera control as an online scheduling problem.

Project Thumbnail
Proactive PTZ Camera Control

Planning ahead for camera handoff and control.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Object Video Streams

A privacy framework for video surveillance.

Project page

Project Thumbnail
Multi-Tasking PTZ Cameras

Behavior-based controllers for passive and active PTZ cameras.

Project Thumbnail
Trie Indexing

An index structure for fast range searches in Hamming space.

Project page

Teaching

Notes

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Computer Vision

Covers topics discussed in both undergraduate and graduate computer vision courses.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Programming in C++

Covers topics discussed in a first-year C++ programming courses.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Python Development Notes

Recipies for using Python for AI and data-science adjacent courses.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Deep Learning using PyTorch Notes

Recipes for deep learning development using PyTorch.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
CNNs for Object Detection

Discusses the unreasonable effectiveness of convolutional neural networks for object detection.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Deep Learning Primer

Discusses topics, such as t-SNE, gradient descent, and variational and conditional autoencoders.

Teaching Notes Thumbnail
Simulation and Modeling

Discusses topics covered in the undergraduate simulation and modeling course.

Courses

Current

CSCI 3010U [Web]
Simulation and Modeling
Winter 2024

CSCI 4420U [Web]
Computer Vision
Winter 2024

Past

CSCI 5770G [Web]
Machine Learning (graduate course)
Last offered in Winter 2023

CSCI 3240U [Web]
Computational Photography
Last offered in Fall 2023

CSCI 5520G [Web]
Computer Vision (graduate course)
Last offered in Fall 2022

MCSC 6230G/7230G [Web]
Advanced Topics in High-Performance Computing
Last offered in Fall 2017

CSCI 1061U [Web]
Programming Workshop II
Last offered in Winter 2021

CSCI 2050U
Computer Architecture

CSCI 5550G [Web]
Topics in Digital Media
Last offered in Fall 2018

Coding

From time to time I find myself compelled to do some coding. Below I list some open source software that I have written that you may find useful.

Publications