Message from Chair

  Welcome you to the Third Joint Workshop on Machine Perception and Robotics, held on Nov. 16-17, 2007 in Kusatsu Japan. It s a great honor for us to host the wonderful reception this year in Biwako-Kusatsu campus of Ritsumeikan Universty, following the successful MPR2006 held in Fukuoka by Kyusyu University, and on behalf of the organizing committee members we wish to thank all the participants for attending this workshop. We would like to extend our welcome on your visit to Shiga prefecture, which is famous for Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan, and had been historically and culturally important region as an entrance to Kyoto, with the 4th most cultural assets in the nation.

  The workshop is originally conceived to promote research and development on Machine Perception and Robotics through intensive discussion among internationally active scientists. Also it has an important role to provide young students and scientists with opportunities to present their own research results both in an international flavor and also in a friendly atmosphere.

  This year we have invited Professor Sadao Kawamura as a keynote speaker from Ritsumeikan University. The keynote topic will provides an excellent study on robotics research in Ritsumeikan University. Then we have overviews of related research activity in Peking University and Kyushu University, together with a presentation on a representative research topic of Ritsumeikan University according to a good tradition of this workshop.

  In addition, we have 20 presentations covering a variety of topics concerning machine perception and robotics, such as signal processing, computer vision, pattern recognition, computer graphics , virtual reality etc. All of the presentations are quite interesting and challenging. This year, we also started a poster session to provide graduate students to challenge the first opportunity to present their research progress in MPR.

  The program has been completed by the program committee chaired by Prof. Yen- Wei Chen from Ritsumeikan University, Prof. Xihong Wu from Peking University and Prof. Seiichi Uchida from Kyushu University. As a general chair, I am grateful to these chair persons and members of the programming committee.

  The workshop is sponsored by The Global COE Japanese Culture Digital Humanities program and IRT Education and Research Committee of Ritsumeikan University.

  Finally, I hope that you will join your colleagues in making this workshop as success and a memorable experience for all.

                  Hiromi T. Tanaka,
                        General Chair