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Franziska Mueller

Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
Saarland Informatics Campus
Department 4: Computer Graphics
Campus E1 4, Room 211C
66123 Saarbrücken
Germany

Email: Get my email address via email
Phone: +49 681 9325 4057

I'm a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Graphics, Vision and Video group supervised by Prof. Dr. Christian Theobalt.

Research Interests

Real-time Tracking of Interacting Hands
... and Human Computer Interaction enabled by it
Machine Learning Techniques for Computer Vision

GANerated Hands for Real-Time 3D Hand Tracking from Monocular RGB

F. Mueller F. Bernard O. Sotnychenko D. Mehta S. Sridhar D. Casas C. Theobalt

Spotlight @ Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2018

We propose a novel method for real-time hand tracking from monocular RGB input which combines a CNN-based regressor and a kinematic optimization framework. To enhance our synthetic training data, we introduce a new geometrically consistent image-to-image translator for unpaired examples.

[pdf], [supplemental], [video], [project page]

Real-time Hand Tracking under Occlusion from an Egocentric RGB-D Sensor

F. Mueller D. Mehta O. Sotnychenko S. Sridhar D. Casas C. Theobalt

International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 2017

We present a method for real-time hand tracking under occlusion in cluttered egocentric scenes from a single RGB-D camera. To enable training of our machine learning components, we introduce a new large-scale dataset SynthHands which was captured using a mixed reality approach. Furthermore, we propose a real benchmark dataset EgoDexter which provides annotated fingertip positions.

[pdf], [supplemental], [video], [project page]

Real-time Joint Tracking of a Hand Manipulating an Object from RGB-D Input

S. Sridhar F. Mueller M. Zollhöfer D. Casas A. Oulasvirta C. Theobalt

European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) 2016

In this work we tackle the especially challenging problem of tracking joint hand and object motion while running at realtime framerates.

[pdf], [supplemental], [poster], [video], [project page], [Dexter+Object dataset]

Fast and Robust Hand Tracking Using Detection-Guided Optimization

S. Sridhar F. Mueller A. Oulasvirta C. Theobalt

Proc. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2015

We present a novel approach for real-time tracking of hand motion from a single commodity depth camera. The method combines a generative pose optimization framework with discriminative part label evidence for robustness and recovery.

[pdf], [supplemental], [poster], [video], [project page]

Awards & Honors

October 2017:
Best Poster Award at the 3rd Workshop on Observing and Understanding Hands in Action (HANDS 2017)
April 2017:
Google PhD Fellowship 2017 (in Machine Perception, Speech Technology and Computer Vision)
February 2017:
Frauen-MINT-Award 2016
December 2016:
Award from the Erich-F.-Bläse Foundation for Research and Science
November 2016:
Günter-Hotz-Medal (award for the best Master graduates in CS)
May 2015:
Bachelor Award (for the best Bachelor graduates in CS)
October 2013 - March 2016:
German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) scholarship
April 2013 - February 2015:
Member of the Bachelor Honors Program (special support program for talented and ambitious Bachelor students in CS)
October 2012 - September 2013:
Deutschlandstipendium scholarship
June 2012:
Völklinger Abiturpreis (award for the best high school diploma in the city of Völklingen)

Teaching

September/October 2015:
Voluntary lecturer and coach for the Mathematik-Vorkurs für Informatiker (Math preparation course for new CS students), Saarland University
Winter semester 2014/15:
Tutor for Grundzüge der Theoretischen Informatik (Theoretical Computer Science), Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Markus Bläser, Saarland University
Summer semester 2014:
Tutor for Systemarchitektur (System Architecture), Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jan Reineke, Saarland University
Winter semester 2013/14:
Tutor for Programmierung 1 (Programming 1), Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Holger Hermanns, Saarland University
March 2013:
Tutor for re-exam preparation in Programmierung 1 (Programming 1), Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Gert Smolka, Saarland University

Education

April 2016 - present:
Ph.D. student in Computer Science under supervision of Prof. Dr. Christian Theobalt at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany and the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
March 2015 - present:
Member of the Graduate School of Computer Science at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
April 2015 - March 2016:
Master Studies in Computer Science at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Title of Master's Thesis: Real-Time Hand-Object Tracking Using a Single Depth Camera (supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Theobalt) [pdf]
October 2012 - March 2015:
Bachelor Studies in Computer Science at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Title of Bachelor's Thesis: Real-Time Hand Tracking Using Hybrid Pose Optimization (supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Theobalt) [pdf]
June 2012:
Abitur at the Warndtgymnasium Völklingen, Germany