Zhang's Laboratory: Welcome

Welcome to 3D MVL

Dr. Song Zhang is an assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University. He is also affiliated with the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC). He is currently directing the 3D machine vision laboratory (MVL) at ISU.

Before coming to ISU in Fall 2008, Dr. Zhang spent three years at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Stony Brook University in 2005 and 2003, respectively, and his B.S. degree from University of Science & Technology of China.

His research interests include real-time 3-D optical metrology, machine/computer vision, virtual reality, and biomedical imaging. He has filed two patents, published over 30 (16 journal) research articles in optics, computer science, medical science, etc. His work has been featured on the cover of Applied Optics (2 times) and Optical Engineering, awarded the best of SIGGRAPH by the Walt Disney Co., and reported by the media including Medical News Today, Famitsu, 3-D World Magazine, and ENT News. He serves as a reviewer for proposals including Israel Science Foundation, and for journals including Optics Letters, Optics Express, Applied Optics, Optical Engineering, Measurement, and Machine Vision and Applications. He is a member of SPIE, ASME, OSA, and Sigma Xi.

Welcome to 3D MVL at ISU! We are a young, energetic, and innovative team doing cutting-edge research, and solving timely practical problems related to 3-D machine vision subjects.

Our primary research goals are to:

develop new techniques for 3-D machine vision.
innovate software algorithms for 3-D geometry data analysis.
innovate hardware systems for 3-D data acquisition.

We will consolidate our students' knowledge on:

programming languages: C++, Matlab, etc;
software packages: OpenGL, GLUT, etc;
hardware control: cameras, projectors, etc;
hardware system design;
and also electronics, optics, computer graphics, and mathematics.

We endeavor to facility students as they learn how to:

perform independent research in institutes or research labs;
start their own 3-D machine vision related businesses;
or become outstanding engineers in industry.

If this feels sound and interesting, please join us and enjoy the exciting research with us.