Mohamed Sayed


Hello! I'm Mohamed, a Research Scientist at Niantic, Inc.

I am excited about 3D reconstruction and real-world robust interactive vision systems. My most recent exciting project is SimpleRecon, where we build a state-of-the-art MVS-based monocular depth estimator and show its use for fast accurate 3D reconstruction. I also designed and built the majority of LookOut, an interactive filming-copilot system for automatically pointing a camera during filming for low budget or small-size crews (down to one camera-operator as the base case).

Publications

SimpleRecon: 3D Reconstruction Without 3D Convolutions

Mohamed Sayed, John Gibson, Jamie Watson, Victor Prisacariu, Michael Firman, Clément Godard

European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) 2022

Project Page, Paper, Code, Video, Bibtex, Media: Niantic Labs Blog, Marktechpost Article

LookOut! Interactive Camera Gimbal Controller for Filming Long Takes

Mohamed Sayed, Robert Cinca, Enrico Costanza, Gabriel Brostow

Transactions on Graphics (ToG) 2022, to be presented at SIGGRAPH 2022 in Vancouver

Project Page, Paper, 30s Fast Forward, Video, Filmed Scenes, Bibtex

Interactive Sketching of Mannequin Poses

Gizem Esra Ünlü, Mohamed Sayed, Gabriel Brostow

International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV) 2022

Project Page, Paper, Video, Bibtex

Improved Handling of Motion Blur in Online Object Detection

Mohamed Sayed, Gabriel Brostow

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR) 2021

Project Page, Paper, Video, Code, Bibtex
Work Experience

April 2023 -
London

Research Scientist, Niantic, Inc.

Aug 2022 - Feb 2023,
London

Part-time Researcher, Niantic, Inc.

Production work for SimpleRecon

April - July 2022,
Zurich

Research Intern, Disney Research | Studios

Controllable Super Resolution and Diffusion Models

May - Dec 2021,
London

Research Intern, Niantic, Inc.

Depth Estimation and 3D Reconstruction Project - Work accepted at ECCV 2022 and patent pending.

Spring 2017,
Cairo

Software Intern, Valeo

Developed automation software for hardware integration testing. Reduced regression testing time significantly.

Summer 2016,
Cairo

IT Intern, Mercedes-Benz Egypt

Recognized by the CEO for reporting and fixing errors and loopholes in the employee time tracking system.

Education

September 2018 -

PhD Student in Computer Vision (University College London)

Supervised by Prof. Gabriel Brostow and Dr. Matthew Johnson.

September 2017 - September 2018

MSc Computer Graphics, Vision, and Imaging (University College London)

Distinction and Dean's List. Thesis: "Scripted Camera Control Through Visual Tracking." Thesis mark: 91/100.

September 2012 - May 2017

Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, Communications & Computer Engineering (Cairo University)

Distinction with honors. Thesis: Improving the performance of a widely used Mentor tool with Process Mining.

Academic Peer Reviewing

Reviewer

TPAMI (2022, Journal), IJCV (2022, Journal), SIGGRAPH (2023, Journal/Conference), CVPR (2023, conference), BMVC (2022, conference)

Teaching

University College London

Voted Best Teaching Assistant (TA) in Computer Science (2018/2019)

Machine Vision TA - 2018, 2019, 2020 (head)

Computer Graphics TA - 2020

Image Processing TA - 2018, 2019

Computational Photography and Capture TA - 2019, 2020

Other Projects

Melanoma Classification (2016)

Built a classifier for diagnosing melanoma skin lesions through dermoscopic images.

Supervisor: Prof. Tawfik Ismail.

Telescope Guidance System (2016)

Amateur astrophotography with an 8-inch Newtonian telescope. Prototyped a telescope guidance system (hardware and software) with an Arduino and the ASCOM platform. Images at astrobin.com/users/DexPrime/.

“YallaCode” Android App (2015)

Led a team of four to develop the app to teach children how to build basic computer programs. The app featured a built in “block statement” compiler.

Musical Glove (2013)

Built a “Musical Glove” using Arduino that tracks hand movements and alters musical notes on a synthesizer through a virtual MIDI driver.

Skills

Languages

Python, MATLAB, C++, C#, Assembly

Deep Learning Libraries

Pytorch, Tensorflow

Useful Tools

COLMAP, Inkscape, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Google Cloud Compute

Hardware

Arduino, Soldering, 3D Printing, Real-time Control, Serial Communication

Hobbies

Photography, Cooking, Running, Model Making