Partner 2: CNR-ISTI (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie dell’Informazione, Italy)

The Institute of Information Science and Technologies “A. Faedo” (ISTI) is an institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). The Institute is committed to producing scientific excellence and to playing an active role in technology transfer. The domain of competence covers Information Science, related technologies and a wide range of applications. The activity of the Institute aims at increasing knowledge, developing and testing new ideas and widening the application areas. ISTI is actively involved in collaborations with the academic world and in cooperative research and development programs, both national and international. The organization of the research work is aimed at stimulating flexibility and reactivity. The backbone of this organization is constituted by Research Laboratories and Technology Centers.

The “Signals & Images” Lab is working in the fields of signal acquisition and processing, image understanding and artificial vision, high performance and distributed computing, real-time data collection and transmission. The general goal of the Lab is to increase the knowledge in the above mentioned fields, in both theoretical and applicative contexts. This is achieved by studying and developing models, computer-based methods and machines for the formation, elaboration, analysis and recognition of images and signals, and by applying these methods and techniques to several sectors of the public and private society having strategic, scientific and technological interests. Around thirty people are working at the SI Lab, both researchers and technologists and engineers, covering expertise in computers science, engineering, physics and mathematics. The lab aims at developing its activities dynamically, fully becoming a part of the national and international, academic and industrial network in the field of automated vision and information technologies. Particular attention is paid to the most advanced research programs and high-level education programs, to the creation of new channels of technical-scientific and industrial cooperation, and possibly to the promotion of spin off initiatives. People of the Lab have actively participated in several EU projects from the 80’s (both as partner and coordinator) (BRITE, ESPRIT, CRAFT, INTAS, FP4, 5, 6 and 7). During the last years, the Lab has been involved in two projects related to technologies for the seas, i.e. FP7 ARGOMARINE (www.argomarine.eu) and Tuscany regional project THESAURUS (http://thesaurus.isti.cnr.it). In connection with these activities, the Lab has gained strong expertise in the fields of marine-maritime information systems, underwater vision, environmental monitoring and interactive multimedia environments for archaeology and cultural heritage.

Ovidio Salvetti, Director of Research at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), in Pisa, is working in the fields of image analysis and understanding, multimedia information systems, spatial modelling and intelligent processes in computer vision and information technology. He is co-author of four books and monographs and more than three hundreds technical and scientific articles and also owner of ten patents regarding systems and software tools for real-time signal and image acquisition and processing. He has been scientific coordinator of several National and European research and industrial projects, in collaboration with Italian and foreign research groups, in the fields of computer vision, multimedia semantics and high-performance computing for diagnostic imaging. Member of the Editorial Boards of the International Journals Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis and Forensic Computer Science, of IEEE and of the Steering Committee of a number of EU Projects. He is Head of the ISTI ‘Signals and Images’ Lab.

Davide Moroni, M.Sc. in Mathematics honours degree from the University of Pisa in 2001, dipl. at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 2002, Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ in 2006, is a researcher at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies of the National Research Council of Italy, in Pisa. His main interests include geometric modelling, computational topology, image processing and medical imaging. At present he is involved in a number of European research projects working in discrete geometry and scene analysis. He is co-author of more than 30 scientific papers.