Spotlight on the Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee

The Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee (MMSP TC) of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) promotes the advancement of multimedia signal processing technology. The scope of the TC includes joint processing/representation of audiovisual and multimodal information; fusion/fission of sensor information or multimodal data; integration of media, art, and multimedia technology; and analysis and feature extraction of multimodal data. Other key areas encompass virtual reality and 3D imaging, multimedia communications and networking, human–machine interface and interaction, visual and auditory quality assessment, multimedia databases, and digital libraries. In this context, the TC also serves as an incubator of technologies that lie in the gaps between traditional areas.

 

Each year, the MMSP TC organizes the IEEE International Workshop on MMSP, which attracts researchers from SPS and related communities who work on multimedia topics. Running as a single-track event, the workshop consists of oral and poster sessions, including special sessions that capture specific research trends. It also includes invited plenary presentations (in 2018, G. Durity from Electronic Arts, J.-N. Hwang from the University of Washington, and H. Malvar from Microsoft Research) and panel discussions (in 2017, on deep learning in MMSP research). The workshop typically receives about 150 paper submissions and has more than 100 attendees from all over the world. The workshop has been effective at building a community around the thematic of MMSP, and it enjoys a good reputation among re - searchers/academics. To further strengthen the event, the TC is also considering means to more effectively engage industry and students. Photos of the 2017 and 2018 events are shown in Figures 1 and 2.