Wearable devices equipped with a camera and computing abilities are attracting the attention of both the market and the society, with commercial devices more and more available and many companies announcing the upcoming release of new devices. The main appeal of wearable devices is due to their mobility and to their ability to enable user-machine interaction through Augmented Reality. Due to these characteristics, wearable devices provide an ideal platform to develop intelligent assistants able to assist humans and augment their abilities, for which Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision play a major role.
Differently from classic computer vision (the so called “third person vision”), which analyses images collected from a static point of view, first person (egocentric) vision assume that images are collected from the point of view of the user, which gives privileged information on the user’s activities and the way they perceive and interact with the world. Indeed, the visual data acquired with wearable cameras usually provides useful information about the users, their intentions, and how they interact with the world.
This tutorial will discuss the challenges and opportunities offered by first person (egocentric) vision, covering the historical background and seminal works, presenting the main technological tools and building blocks, and discussing applications.