Network and Multimedia Systems Lab (NMSL)
Welcome to the Network and Multimedia Systems Lab (NMSL) at SFU!
We are interested in the broad areas of multimedia systems and computer networks. We develop algorithms and systems to efficiently distribute multimedia content to large-scale user communities over wired and wireless networks. We design machine learning models to address important and challenging problems in multimedia and network systems. In most of our works, we develop prototypes and testbeds to demonstrate the practicality of our solutions and show their performance in actual environments.
The Network and Multimedia Systems Lab is led by Dr. Mohamed Hefeeda, and it is located in the TASC1 building, room 8208. We hold regular group meeting for discussion and brainstorming.
Our current research projects include hyperspectral imaging, datacenter networking, scalable multicast systems, cloud gaming, multimedia forensics, mobile multimedia, and AR/VR content processing and streaming. Brief descriptions and links to some of our active projects are given below.
Immersive and Next-Generation Videos
With massive investments in the virtual reality (VR) hardware sector, companies encounter the challenge of providing VR content. The current solution of installing and operating VR camera rigs is expensive and not scalable. This project provides novel algorithms and methods to automatically convert standard broadcast 2D video streams to 3D and immersive VR streams of high quality. It also provides algorithms for adaptively streaming such complex multimedia content over the Internet to heterogeneous receivers.
Hyperspectral Imaging
Hyperspectral cameras capture scenes in many wavelength bands across the spectrum, providing far more information than regular cameras that operate in the visible light range. For example, when observing a remote object (e.g., a car), signals in the visible light band can show the shape/color of the object, whereas signals in the infrared band can determine the temperature of that object (e.g., whether the car engine is on). Furthermore, signals in other bands can identify the surroundings of that object, e.g., whether the area has vegetation, the moisture level in the soil, and the presence and depth of water nearby. Current, commercially available, hyperspectral cameras can capture more than 200 bands, and thus produce huge amounts of high-dimensional data. Hyperspectral imaging can be useful in many commercial/civilian applications such as agricultural research, land-cover mapping, forest monitoring, and mapping of natural disasters, as well as military applications including remote sensing, surveillance, and identification of camouflaged objects. Despite the substantial potential of hyperspectral imaging, its utilization has been limited to a small subset of large-scale military and industrial applications. The long-term goal of this research is to enable wide adoption of hyperspectral imaging in many applications.
Cloud Gaming
The goal of this project is to design and implement a comprehensive, end-to-end, framework for next-generation cloud gaming systems to optimize the video quality, bitrate, and end-to-end delay.
Scalable Multicast for ISP and Datacenter Networks
In this project, we design scalable multicast systems for general ISP networks and datacenter networks.
Multimedia Forensics
Recent advances in machine learning have made it easier to create fake images and videos. Users and computing systems are facing increasing difficulties in differentiating forged contents from original ones. In this project, we focus on various aspects of detecting fake content, including detecting makeup attacks in biometrics systems and identifying forged videos and images.
ISP and CDN Traffic Management
We develop algorithms and systems for future ISP and CDN architectures. This includes resource management of ISP-managed CDNs (often called Telco-CDN). We develop stateless and efficient protocols and tools to support multicast traffic engineering in the ISP network.
Concluded Projects
Please check this link for some of our previous projects.
