| Year | Challenge | Sponsor | Dataset |
| 3D human reconstruction and action recognition |  |
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| 2012 | Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments | |
Info / Obtain |
| 2011 | Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments | |
Info / Obtain |
| 2010 | Sports Activity Analysis in Camera Networks |  |
Info / Obtain |
Motivation. The grand challenge concept is a proven approach to stimulating research activity in a given domain. It is best achieved by presenting the research community with a difficult problem to solve and by providing researchers with the means, usually software tools and data, to investigate potential solutions. Whilst very often the challenge alone is enough to stimulate participation and encourage research integration, it is even more effective to provide a common forum to bring participants together and provide a “reward”, typically in the form of recognition and publishing opportunities.
From the very start of the 3DLife project, in January 2010, the consortium agreed to propose a 3DLife challenge in conjunction with the ACM Multimedia Grand Challenge. The ACM Multimedia Grand Challenge is a set of problems and issues from industry leaders, geared to engaging the Multimedia research community in solving relevant, interesting and challenging questions about the industry’s 2-5 year horizon for multimedia. More specifically, researchers are encouraged to submit working systems in response to an industry challenge.
2013 Challenge. This challenge calls for demonstrations of methods and technologies that support real-time or near real-time 3D reconstruction of moving humans from multiple calibrated and remotely located RGB cameras and/or consumer depth cameras. Additionally, this challenge also calls for methods for human gesture/movement recognition from multimodal data. The challenge targets mainly real-time applications, such as collaborative immersive environments and inter-personal communications over the Internet or other dedicated networking environments. To this end, we provide two data sets to support investigation of various techniques in the fields of 3D signal processing, computer graphics and pattern recognition, and enable demonstrations of various relevant technical achievements.
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Challenge for 2011 & 2012. This challenge calls for demonstrations of technologies that support real-time realistic interaction between humans in online virtual environments. This includes approaches for 3D signal processing, computer graphics, human computer interaction and human factors. To this end, we propose a scenario for online interaction and provide a data set around this to support investigation and demonstrations of various technical components.
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2010 Challenge. This challenge is designed to facilitate exploration of some of the key research challenges facing the future media internet in a specific application domain, corresponding to sports. Advances in the availability and utility of cameras is rapidly changing the sporting landscape. In professional sports we are familiar with high-end camera technology being used to enhance the viewer experience above and beyond a traditional broadcast. High profile examples include the Hawk-Eye Officiating System as used in tennis and cricket or ESPN’s recent announcement to showcase 3D broadcast in its coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Whilst extremely valuable to the viewing experience, such technologies are really only feasible for high profile professional sports. On the other hand, advances in camera technology coupled with falling prices means that reasonable quality visual capture is now within reach of most local and amateur sporting and leisure organizations. Thus it becomes feasible for every field sports club, whether tennis, soccer, cricket or hockey, to install their own camera network at their local ground. In fact, the same goes for other leisure activities like dance, aerobics and performance art that take place in a constrained environment and that would benefit from visual capture. In these cases, the motivation is usually not for broadcast purposes, or for the technology to act as a “video referee” or adjudicator, but rather to facilitate coaches and mentors to provide better feedback to athletes based on recorded competitive training matches, training drills or any prescribed set of activities.
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