Thomas Shi-Tao Huang (, June 26, 1936 – April 25, 2020) was a Chinese-born American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and writer. He was a researcher and professor emeritus at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

(UIUC). Huang was one of the leading figures in

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

, pattern recognition and

human computer interaction Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

Early life and education

Huang was born June 26, 1936, in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, Republic of China. In 1949, his family moved to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. Huang studied electronics at the National Taiwan University and received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 1956. Huang went on to the United States to study at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT). At MIT he worked initially with Peter Elias, who was interested in

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...

and image coding, and then with

William F. Schreiber William F. Schreiber (1925–2009) was an American electrical engineer and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).scanner for digitizing and reproducing images. Computer programs were written in

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

using a prototype

Lincoln Lab The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and de ...

TX-0 The TX-0, for ''Transistorized Experimental computer zero'', but affectionately referred to as tixo (pronounced "tix oh"), was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64 K of 18-bit words of magnetic-core memory. Constru ...

computer. Descriptions of digitized images were stored on paper tape with punched holes. Huang was supervised by Schreiber for both his M.S. thesis, ''Picture statistics and linearly interpolative coding'' (1960), and his Sc.D. thesis, ''Pictorial noise'' (1963). His master's work focused on algorithms for image coding using adaptive techniques for interpolation with sensitivity to edges. His doctorate included work on the subjective effects of pictorial noise across a spectrum.

Career

Huang accepted a position on the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT, and remained there from 1963 to 1973. He accepted a position as an electrical engineering professor and director of the Information and Signal Processing Laboratory at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

in 1973, remaining there until 1980. In 1980 Huang accepted a chair in electrical engineering at the

(UIUC). On April 15, 1996, Huang became the first William L. Everitt Distinguished Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering at UIUC. He was involved with the

Coordinated Science Laboratory The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a major scientific research laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With deep roots in information technology, CSL has invented and deployed many landmark innovations, such as the el ...

(CSL), and served as head of the Image Formation and Processing Group of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and co-chair of the Beckman Institute's research track on Human Computer Intelligent Interaction. As of 2012, he was named a Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title at UIUC. Huang retired from teaching as of December 2014, but continued to be active as a researcher. Huang was a founding editor of the ''International Journal of Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing'', and of Springer-Verlag's ''Springer Series in Information Sciences''. He helped to organize the first International Picture Coding Symposium (1969), the first International Workshop on Very Low Bitrate Video Coding (1993), and the first International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (1995), all of which became repeated events.

Research

Huang's research tended to focus on the development of general concepts, methodologies, theories, and algorithms which have wide application to multimodal and multimedia signal processing. While still at MIT, he developed the first algebraic procedure for testing the stability conditions of two-dimensional filters, based on double bilinear transformation and the Ansell method. He also published on digital holography. While at Purdue, he worked on

nonlinear filter In signal processing, a nonlinear (or non-linear) filter is a filter whose output is not a linear function of its input. That is, if the filter outputs signals ''R'' and ''S'' for two input signals ''r'' and ''s'' separately, but does not always o ...

s, particularly median filters, which became a standard technique for the removal of noise in images. Some of his earliest work dealt with

image compression Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior r ...

, extending later into areas of enhancement, restoration and analysis. He developed approaches for binary document compression that utilized 2-dimensional scanned information, examining the changes from one line of a scan to the next, and detecting transition points at which a subsequent line differs. Statistical predictions and experimental results of the model's performance conformed well. In 1969, Huang and Grant Anderson were one of the first teams to propose a method for block

transform coding Transform coding is a type of data compression for "natural" data like audio signals or photographic images. The transformation is typically lossless (perfectly reversible) on its own but is used to enable better (more targeted) quantization, whi ...

, building on the work of J. J. Y. Huang and Peter M. Schultheiss. In 1984, Tsai and Huang were the first to present a frequency-domain multi-frame method which related the

discrete Fourier transform In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite sequence of equally-spaced samples of a function into a same-length sequence of equally-spaced samples of the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT), which is a complex- ...

of observed low-resolution satellite images from the acquisition stage to the continuous Fourier transform of the high-resolution image, using the inverse Fourier transform to obtain a final image with increased resolution. Huang also worked on wavelet methods of encoding and on fractal coding. Wavelet coding is particularly important for content based image retrieval from

multimedia database A Multimedia database (MMDB) is a collection of related for multimedia data. The multimedia data include one or more primary media data types such as text, images, graphic objects (including drawings, sketches and illustrations) animation sequen ...

s containing images, video, audio, and text. It enables searches to be done on smaller encoded images rather than on full-size retrieved images. Other research areas of importance include the use of

relevance feedback Relevance feedback is a feature of some information retrieval systems. The idea behind relevance feedback is to take the results that are initially returned from a given query, to gather user feedback, and to use information about whether or not th ...

in adapting database systems to user intentions (when browsing or searching), and constructing tables of contents and semantic indexes for video using multimedia information (image sequence, audio, and closed-captions if available). In the area of 3-D modelling, Huang worked on the identification of three-dimensional motion and the structure of rigid objects given multiple images in which corresponding features can be identified. This work was important for the compression of television images, for the development of image standards, and for research into human and computer vision. Huang also worked on the 3-D modeling, analysis, and synthesis of images of the human face, hands, and body. The initial motivation behind this research was to support low bitrate 3-D model-based video coding for video phone and teleconferencing. The idea was that if a 3-D model of the user could be transmitted and reconstructed at the receiving end, it would then be sufficient to extract and send movement information to drive the 3-D model and regenerate the video sequence. Tools developed for this type of scenarios are applicable to many other problems as well, including virtual space conferencing with avatars, and electronic games. Huang considered image and speech processing to be fundamentally similar, and worked with speech recognition and sound processing as well as images. Huang, Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, and their students created a database of speech, recorded in automobiles, that is usable as a benchmark for testing audio-visual speech recognition algorithms. They also developed methods for detecting audio elements that are likely to attract human attention, and are using them to enable humans to more effectively go through large amounts of audio recordings to find important information. Huang did important work in multimodal

and interface design. He was one of the first researchers to combine audio and video-based techniques for identification of human affective states. More recent work by Huang and others attempts to "develop a series of algorithms to extract information from multi-modality in an optimal way", screening large amounts of data from multiple sources and optimizing the types and amounts of data that are compressed and transmitted. Such opportunistic sensing research has applications in both military and civilian use. Huang also hoped to develop more natural and effective ways for humans to interact with a computer or virtual environment using speech and gesture. Research projects include visual

hand tracking In the field of gesture recognition and image processing, finger tracking is a high-resolution technique developed in 1969 that is employed to know the consecutive position of the fingers of the user and hence represent objects in 3D. In addit ...

and

gesture recognition Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. It is a subdiscipline of computer vision. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or sta ...

; the use of visual lip reading to enhance audio speech recognition accuracy; and integration of

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...

and visual gesture analysis in the controlling of displays in virtual environments. He also worked on audio-visual recognition of gender, age group, and emotion. His work in gender and

emotion detection Emotion recognition is the process of identifying human emotion. People vary widely in their accuracy at recognizing the emotions of others. Use of technology to help people with emotion recognition is a relatively nascent research area. Genera ...

received media attention when his software was used to examine the

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known ...

, concluding that the portrait was of a female (not, as some had theorized, based on

Da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

himself) and that her enigmatic smile was more happy than sad. In 2015, Huang worked with Ann Willemsen-Dunlap in an interdisciplinary project to develop a 3-D computer-generated avatar, capable of showing appropriate emotions, to be used in online communication of medical information to patients. He also explored the use of

high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...

and

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

to develop better techniques for

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. De ...

. One of the tasks being studied, not surprisingly, is face recognition. In another project, his team is working with

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

Robert Brunner to train a

feedforward neural network A feedforward neural network (FNN) is an artificial neural network wherein connections between the nodes do ''not'' form a cycle. As such, it is different from its descendant: recurrent neural networks. The feedforward neural network was the ...

to identify images of

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

Published work

Huang had published more than 21 books and been an author on more than 600 papers. Representative publications by Thomas Huang include: * Qi, G. J., Aggarwal, C., Tian, Q., Ji, H., Huang, T. S. (2012), "Exploring Context and Content Links in Social Media: A Latent Space Method", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, pp. 850–862. * Jaimes, A., Gatica-Perez, D., Sebe, N., Huang, T.S. (2007), "Human-centered Computing: Toward a Human Revolution",

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Computer, 40(5), pp. 30–34. * Cohen, I., Cozman, F., Sebe, N., Cirelo, M., Huang, T.S. (2004), "Semi-supervised Learning of Classifiers: Theory, Algorithms and Their Applications to Human-Computer Interaction", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 26(12), pp. 1553–1567. * Pan, H., Levinson, S.E., Huang, T.S., and Liang, Z.P. (2004), “A Fused HMM Model with Application to Bimodal Speech Processing,”

Transactions On Signal Processing, 52/3, pp. 573– 581. * Zhou, X.S. and Huang, T.S. (2003), "Relevance Feedback in Image Retrieval: A Comprehensive Review,"

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

Multimedia Systems Journal, pp. 536–544. * Bruckstein, A.M., Holt, R.J., Huang, T.S., and Netravali, A.N. (2000), "New Devices for 3D Pose Estimation: Mantis Eyes, Agam Paintings, Sundials, and Other Space Fiducials," International Journal of Computer Vision, pp. 131–139. * – This paper received the Most Cited Paper of the Decade Award from the ''Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation'', 2010 * Lew, M.S., Wong, K., and Huang, T.S. (1994), "Learning and Feature Selection in Stereo Matching," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, pp. 869–881. * Arun, K., Huang, T.S., and Blostein, S.D. (1987), "Least-Squares Fitting of Two 3-D Point Sets, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, pp. 698–700. * R. Y. Tsai and T.S. Huang, (1984) "Uniqueness and estimation of three-dimensional motion parameters of rigid objects with curved surfaces" IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, pp. 13–27.

Personal life

Huang was married to Margaret, who preceded him in death by three months. They married in 1959."I lost both my parents in the COVID-19 era. How do I reopen my own life?"
- ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', May 14, 2020 Huang died peacefully in Indiana on April 25, 2020 at the age of 83. The couple had four children: Caroline, Greg, Tom and Marjorie.

Honors

Huang received numerous honors and awards in his career, including:

Memberships

* Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2002 * Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of Engineering, 2001 * Member,

United States National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

, 2001 * Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1986 * Fellow, SPIE * Fellow, International Association of Pattern Recognition ( IAPR) * Fellow, Optical Society of America, 1986 * Life Fellow,

, 1979

Awards

Azriel Rosenfeld Award In computer vision, the Azriel Rosenfeld Award, or Azriel Rosenfeld Life Time Achievement Award was established at ICCV 2007 in Rio de Janeiro to honor outstanding researchers who are recognized as making significant contributions to the field o ...

, 2011 * HP Innovation Research Award, 2009 * Picture Coding Symposium: Pioneering Research in Picture Coding Award, 2006 * IS&T and SPIE Imaging Scientist of the Year Award, 2006 * Okawa Prize for Information and Telecommunications Technology, 2005 *

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award, 2005. * Pan Wen-Yuan Outstanding Research Award, Pan Wen-Yuan Foundation, 2002 * King-Sun Fu Prize, International Association of Pattern Recognition ( IAPR), 2002 * Information Science Award, Association of Intelligent Machinery, 2002 *

IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal The IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal is presented "for outstanding achievements in signal processing" theory, technology or commerce. The recipients of this award will receive a gold medal, together with a replica in bronze, a certificat ...

, 2001 (together with Arun N. Netravali) *

Achievement Award for Contributions to Motion Analysis, 2000 *

Third Millennium Medal, 2000 * Society Award,

IEEE Signal Processing Society The IEEE Signal Processing Society (IEEE SPS) is one of the nearly 40 technical societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first one created. Its mission is to "advance and disseminate state-of-the-art scien ...

, 1991 *

ASSP Society Technical Achievement Award, 1988 * A. V. Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award, 1976–77 *

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, 1971–72

Awards Named

Huang supervised more than 100 graduate students. In 2012, the Thomas and Margaret Huang Fund for Graduate Research was created in response to appeals by former students James J. Kuch and Chang Wen Chen, to celebrate the contributions of Huang and his wife as mentors and teachers as well as his contributions as a researcher. The fund will provide scholarships to support students in Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction at the Beckman Institute.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huang, Thomas S. 1936 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers American computer scientists American electrical engineers American science writers American writers of Chinese descent Chinese emigrants to the United States Computer vision researchers Engineers from Shanghai Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the International Association for Pattern Recognition Fellows of the Optical Society Fellows of SPIE Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering National Taiwan University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Purdue University faculty Scientists from Shanghai Speech processing researchers Taiwanese people from Shanghai University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Writers from Shanghai