Recreating the Physical Natural World from Images

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Elliott Wu - Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
• Wednesday 21 May 2025, 15:05-15:55
• Lecture Theatre 1, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ben Karniely.

For centuries, unraveling the mysteries of nature through the lens of physics has captivated countless scientists. Today, generative AI models excel at reproducing visual worlds in pixels, but still struggle with basic physical concepts such as 3D shape, motion, material, and lighting—-key elements that connect computer vision to a wide range of real-world engineering applications, including interactive VR, robotics, biology, and medical analysis. The main challenge arises from the difficulty of collecting large-scale physical measurements for training machine learning models.

In this talk, I will discuss an alternative unsupervised approach based on inverse rendering, which enables machine learning models to learn explicit physical representations from raw, unstructured image data, such as Internet photos and videos. This approach thus circumvents the need for any direct supervision, allowing us to model a wide variety of 3D objects in nature, including diverse wildlife, using only casually recorded imagery. The resulting model can generate physically-grounded 3D assets with controllable animations instantly, ready for downstream rendering and analysis. The papers presented can be found at: https://elliottwu.com/.

Link to join virtually: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87421957265

This talk is being recorded. If you do not wish to be seen in the recording, please avoid sitting in the front three rows of seats in the lecture theatre. Any questions asked will also be included in the recording. The recording will be made available on the Department’s webpage

This talk is part of the Wednesday Seminars - Department of Computer Science and Technology series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge talks
• Chris Davis' list
• Department of Computer Science and Technology talks and seminars
• Graduate-Seminars
• Guy Emerson's list
• Interested Talks
• Lecture Theatre 1, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building
• School of Technology
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• Wednesday Seminars - Department of Computer Science and Technology
• bld31
• computer science
• se393's list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.