06-08, 14:30–14:50 (Europe/Vilnius), Panel Room III - I-408
CONNEXIONs is a H2020 EU funded project that aims to develop and demonstrate next-generation detection, prediction, prevention, and investigation services that are based on the multidimensional integration and correlation of heterogeneous multimodal data, as well as on the delivery of pertinent information to various stakeholders in an interactive manner tailored to their needs, including through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) environments.
CONNEXIONs will present its achievements related to its use case on improving crime scene investigation and training through 3D reconstruction and VR applications.
For 3D reconstruction, CONNEXIONs leverages the emergence of high-precision and low-cost devices capable of scanning scenes or objects in 3D, proven a reliable means for the digital documentation of the scene. To this end, CONNEXIONs has developed a methodology and best practices for acquiring data for 3D reconstruction across a wide range of scales in indoor and outdoor scenes, emplacing the applicability of each technique in a wide range of situations, ranging in type and size. The application of each reconstruction method is considered in this context and compared with respect to additional constraints, such as time availability and simplicity of operation of the corresponding scanning modality.
Regarding the VR applications developed by the project, CONNEXIONs uses state-of-the-art VR technology for the purposes of training and post-event analysis. VR allows users to intuitively explore real-world environments, represented by realistic 3D reconstructions, and can embed information from multiple sources into a single scene, facilitating the intuitive understanding of the event or a crime scene. To facilitate understanding of the process of events, data, such as videos and locations. can be played back synchronously and in their spatial context. The analysis can be further enhanced by adding certain documents (e.g., photos of the event or crime scene). Moreover, the VR Training Application is a device-agnostic application that offers a variety of functionalities to create a wide range of different scenarios within a single reconstructed environment, complemented with a visual analytics tool providing additional insights into trainee’s actions and walking paths within the environment.
Dr. Theodora Tsikrika is a computer scientist specialised in Information Retrieval and Data Mining, with particular focus on AI technologies and security/cybersecurity applications. She received the Degree in Computer Science from University of Crete, Heraklion, the MSc degree in Advanced Methods in Computer Science from Queen Mary, University of London, and the PhD degree in Computer Science also from Queen Mary, University of London. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow with CERTH-ITI and has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at CWI (Amsterdam, the
Netherlands), the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (Sierre, Switzerland), and the Royal School of Library and Information Science (Copenhagen, Denmark). Her research interests focus on the fields of Information Retrieval and Data Mining, and include AI technologies, OSINT methods, Web search, domain-specific data discovery, Web and social media mining, multimodal analytics, and evaluation, with particular focus on security/cybersecurity applications. She has participated in several European Security research projects, with particular focus on Fight Crime & Terrorism and Cybersecurity projects (e.g., CONNEXIONs, CREST, ECHO, ODYSSEUS) and in several European ICT research projects (e.g., MULTISENSOR, PROMISE, VITALAS), and has co-authored more than 80 publications in refereed journals and international conferences.