The aim of realistic digital imaging is the creation of high quality imagery, which faithfully represents the physical environment. The ultimate goal is to create images, which are perceptually indistinguishable from a real scene. The RealVision network brings together leading universities, centers focused on industrial development and companies in Multimedia, Optics, Visual Communication, Visual Computing, Computer Graphics and Human Vision research across Europe, with the aim of training a new generation of scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs that will move Europe into a leading role in innovative hyper-realistic imaging technologies. Current imaging technologies capture only a fraction of visual information that the human eye can see. The colours and dynamic range are inadequate for most real-world scenes and not all depth cues required for natural 3D vision are captured. This limits the realism of the experience and has hampered the introduction of 3D technology. Advancement in imaging technologies makes it possible to circumvent these bottlenecks in visual systems. As a result, new visual signal-processing areas have emerged such as light fields, ultra-high definition, highframe rate and high dynamic range imaging. The novel combinations of those technologies can facilitate a hyper-realistic visual experience. This will without doubt be the future frontier for new imaging systems. However there are several technological barriers that need to be overcome as well as challenges in what are the best solutions perceptually. The goal of this network is to combine expertise from several disciplines as engineering, computer science, physics, vision science and psychology – usually disconnected – and train ESRs to be capable of working with all stages and aspects of visual processing to overcome existing interdisciplinary and intersectorial barriers to efficiently develop truly perceptually better visual imaging systems.

The strategic objective of this platform grant is to underpin Audio-Visual Media Research within the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) to pursue fundamental research combining internationally leading expertise in understanding of real-world audio and visual data, and to transfer this capability to impact new application domains. Our goal is to pioneer new technologies which impact directly on industry practice in healthcare, sports, retail, communication, entertainment and training. This builds on CVSSP's unique track-record of world-leading research in both audio and visual machine perception which has enabled ground-breaking technology exploited by UK industry. The strategic contribution and international standing of the centres research in audio and visual media has been recognised by EPSRC through two previous platform grant awards (2003-14) and two programme grant awards in 2013 and 2015. Platform Grant funding is requested to reinforce the critical mass of expertise and knowledge of specialist facilities required to contribute advance in both fundamental understanding and pioneering new technology. In particular this Platform Grant will catalyse advances in multi-sensory machine perception building on the Centre's unique strengths in audio and vision. Key experienced post-doctoral researchers have specialist knowledge and practical know-how, which is an important resource for training new researchers and for maintaining cutting edge research using state-of-the-art facilities. Strategically the Platform Grant will build on recent independent advances in audio and visual scene analysis to lead multi-sensory understanding and modelling of real-world scenes. Research advances will provide the foundation for UK industry to lead the development of technologies ranging from intelligent sensing for healthcare and assisted living to immersive entertainment production. Platform Grant funding will also strengthen CVSSP's international collaboration with leading groups world-wide through extended research secondments US (Washington, USC), Asia (Tsinghua, Tianjin, Kyoto, Tokyo, KAUST) and Europe (INRIA, MPI, Fraunhofer, ETH, EPFL, KTH, CTU, UPF).

The SOUNDS European Training Network (ETN) revolves around a new and promising paradigm coined as Service- Oriented, Ubiquitous, Network-Driven Sound. Inspired by the ubiquity of mobile and wearable devices capable of capturing, processing, and reproducing sound, the SOUNDS ETN aims to bring audio technology to a new level by exploiting network-enabled cooperation between devices. We envision the next generation of audio devices to be capable of providing enhanced hearing assistance, creating immersive audio experience, enabling advanced voice control and much more, by seamlessly exchanging signals and parameter settings, and spatially analyzing and reproducing sound jointly with other nearby audio devices and infrastructure. Moreover, such functionality should be self-organizing, flexible, and scalable, requiring minimal user interaction for adapting to changes in the environment or network. It is anticipated that this paradigm will eventually result in an entirely new way of designing and using audio technology, by considering audio as a service enabled through shared infrastructure, rather than as a device-specific functionality limited by the capabilities and constraints of a single user device. To attain this paradigm shift in audio technology not only requires additional research but also calls for a new generation of qualified researchers with a transdisciplinary and international scientific profile, strong collaborative research and research management skills, and the intersectoral expertise needed to carry research results from academia to industry. It is believed that the SOUNDS ETN will offer the best possible framework for achieving these goals, by organizing advanced interdisciplinary research training, developing solid transferable skills, and providing intersectoral and international experience in a network of qualified and complementary industrial and academic institutions.