MICHELA LECCA - PERMANENT RESEARCHER AT FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLER
Michela received her Master Degree in Mathematics from the University of Trento, Italy. She is currently researcher at the Research Unit Technologies of Vision of Fondazione Bruno Kessler of Trento, Italy. Her research interests include automatic object recognition, image retrieval, semantic image labeling, Retinex theory, machine color constancy, color correction, and low-level image processing. From 2014, Michela collaborates with the research Unit IRIS (FBK-CMM) on hardware-oriented computer vision topics.
Michela took part to the program committee of many editions of Applied Computing Machine Symposia, and carries on a reviewing activity for several international conferences and journals. She is a member of the International Association for Pattern Recognition - Associazione Italiana per la ricerca in Computer Vision, Pattern recognition e machine Learning IAPR - CVPL (ex GIRPR). As a member of the Gruppo Italiano del Colore - Associazione Italiana Colore (GdC-AIC) (2013-2018), she co-authored a column of the GdC-AIC bilingual journal Cultura e Scienza del Colore / Colour Culture and Science.
E-mail: lecca@fbk.eu
Phone: +39 0461 314536
Publications: Publication List (see also below)
Publication List (2019 - now)
Paissan, F, Lecca, M., Passerone, R., Farella, E., Gottardi, M., HDR vision sensor with neuro-memristive skin detection for edge computing, JOSA A, April 2024, to appear
Lecca, M., Lecca, P., A Dataset for Illuminant- and Device- invariant Colour Barcode Decoding with Cameras, Data in Brief, Vol. 52, Feb. 2024 [doi][open access][data]
Lecca, P, Lecca, M. Graph embedding and geometric deep learning relevance to network biology and structural chemistry, Front. Artif. Intell., Sec. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Volume 6 - Nov. 2023 [doi]
Lecca, M., Backlight and Spotlight Image Enhancement based on von Kries Model, SN Computer Science 4 (5) 2023:680 [doi][url]
Caraffa, A.; Ricci, M.; Lecca, M.; Modena, C.M.; Aprea, E.; Gasperi, F. and Messelodi, S. (2023). A Deep Learning Approach for Estimating the Rind Thickness of Trentingrana Cheese from Images. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Image Processing and Vision Engineering - IMPROVE, ISBN 978-989-758-642-2; ISSN 2795-4943, SciTePress, pages 76-83 [doi]
Lecca, M. (2023). "A Basic Tool for Improving Bad Illuminated Archaeological Pictures". In Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 4: VISAPP, ISBN 978-989-758-634-7; ISSN 2184-4321, pages 204-211 [doi]. Code at: https://github.com/MichelaLecca/MEEK
Lecca, M. (2023). "Enhancing Backlight and Spotlight Images by the Retinex-Inspired Bilateral Filter SuPeR-B". In Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications. VISIGRAPP 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1691. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25477-2_15
Simone G., Lecca, M., Gianini G., and Rizzi, A. "Survey of methods and evaluation of Retinex-inspired image enhancers," Journal of Electronic Imaging 31(6), 063055 (23 December 2022). [doi]
Lecca, M., Gianini, G. and Serapioni, R.P., "Mathematical insights into the original Retinex algorithm for image enhancement," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 39, 2063-2072 (2022) -- EDITORS' PICK.
Lecca, M. "Relighting Backlight and Spotlight Images using the von Kries Model", 2nd International Conference on Image Processing and Vision Engineering - IMPROVE22, Online streaming, April 22-24 2022
Lecca, M. and Poiesi F. "Performance comparison of image enhancers with and without deep learning," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 39, 610-620 (2022)
Lecca, M., "Underwater Image Enhancement by the Retinex Inspired Contrast Enhancer STRESS”, In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 4: VISAPP, ISBN 978-989-758-555-5, pages 627-634. DOI: 10.5220/0010895700003124. VISIGRAPP (4: VISAPP). Online Streaming Ferbuary 2022.
Lecca, M. and Gottardi M., “A Low Power Vision Sensor for Sustainable Surveillance Activities”: the FBK activity in the European Project FORENSOR, 2° Convegno nazionale CINI sull'intelligenza artificiale, ITA-IA 22, Feb. 9-11, 2022, Online Streaming.
Lecca M. "A Retinex Inspired Bilateral Filter for Enhancing Images under Difficult Light Conditions." VISIGRAPP (4: VISAPP). Online Streaming, 2021,
Lecca M. "Machine colour constancy: a work in progress." Coloration Technology 137.1 (2021): 72-77.
Lecca M., Rizzi A., and Serapioni R.P., "An Image Contrast Measure Based on Retinex Principles." IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 30 (2021): 3543-3554.
Lecca P., Lecca M., Maestri C. A., & Scarpa M. (2021). Biexponential fitting for noisy data with error propagation. Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences.
Zou Y., Gottardi M., Lecca M. & Perenzoni, M. (2020). A Low-Power VGA Vision Sensor With Embedded Event Detection for Outdoor Edge Applications. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 55(11), 3112-3121.
Lecca M., "Generalized equation for real-world image enhancement by Milano Retinex family." JOSA A 37.5 (2020): 849-858.
Plutino A., Gabriele S., and Lecca M. "What color for technology in Italy?" XVI Conferenza del Colore. 2020.
Barricelli B. R., Casiraghi E., Lecca M., Plutino, A., & Rizzi, A. (2020). A cockpit of multiple measures for assessing film restoration quality. Pattern Recognition Letters, 131, 178-184.
Lecca P., Lecca M., Melotti P., Lotti V., Preato S., Kleinfelder K., ... & Sorio C. (2020, October). Computing organoids’ volume in medical images: the case study of cystic fibrosis. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CIBCB) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Bonanomi C., Balletti S., Lecca, M., Anisetti M., Rizzi A., & Damiani E. (2020). I3D: a new dataset for testing denoising and demosaicing algorithms. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 79(13), 8599-8626.
Lecca M., Torresani A., and Remondino F. "Comprehensive evaluation of image enhancement for unsupervised image description and matching." IET Image Processing 14.16 (2020): 4329-4339
Rizzi, A. Plutino A., and Lecca M., Designing a cockpit for image quality evaluation - Talk at Transactions: Imaging/Art/Science - Image Quality, Content and Aesthetics Conference at Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, Westminster, UK
Lecca M., "A gradient-based spatial color algorithm for image contrast enhancement." International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing. Springer, Cham, 2019.
Plutino A., Lecca M., and Rizzi A., A cockpit of measures for image quality assessment in digital film restoration. International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing. Springer, Cham, 2019.
Zou Y., Lecca M., Gottardi M., Urlini G., Vretos N., Gymnopoulos L., & Daras P. (2019, September). A Battery Powered Vision Sensor for Forensic Evidence Gathering. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras (pp. 1-6).
Sorio C., Lotti V., Kleinfelder K., Lecca P., Lecca M., Conti J., Preato S. et al. "Testing intestinal organoids for the prediction of response to CFTR potentiators and correctors used in clinic (FFC# 13/2018)." (2019).
Zou Y., Gottardi M., Lecca M., & Perenzoni M. (2019, September). A low-power VGA vision sensor with event detection through motion computation based on pixel-wise double-threshold background subtraction and local binary pattern coding. In ESSCIRC 2019-IEEE 45th European Solid State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC) (pp. 97-100). IEEE.
Zou Y., Gottardi M., Lecca M., & Perenzoni M. (2019). Always-On VGA Vision Sensor with Pixel-Wise Double-Threshold Background Rejection for Event-Detection, presented at ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED), July 29-31, 2019@ EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Lecca M., and Messelodi S., SuPeR: Milano Retinex implementation exploiting a regular image grid. JOSA A 36.8 (2019): 1423-1432, [doi] [Code]
Publication List (2002 - 2018)
Gottardi M., and Lecca M., A 64x64 Pixel Vision Sensor for Local Binary Pattern Computation. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers 66.5 (2018): 1831-1839.
Lecca M., Modena C.M., and Rizzi A., "Using pixel intensity as a self-regulating threshold for deterministic image sampling in Milano Retinex: the T-Rex algorithm." Journal of Electronic Imaging 27.1 (2018): 011005.
Lecca M., Rizzi A., and Gianini G.. "Review and Comparison of Random Spray Retinex and of its variants STRESS and QBRIX." Cultura e Scienza del Colore-Color Culture and Science 9 (2018): 55-64.
Gottardi M. and Lecca M.. "A 35μW 64× 64 pixels vision sensor embedding local binary pattern code computation." 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS). IEEE, 2018.
Lecca M., Simone G., and Rizzi A.. "Milano Retinex Paths as Local Minima of an Energy Functional with Tunable Color and Spatial information." SIAM Conference on Imaging Science. SIAM, 2018.
Lecca P., Lecca M., Caldrer, S., Baruzzi A., Melotti P., & Sorio C. (2018). CORVO: A software tool for computing volume of complex biological structures in medical images and videos. In SIAM Conference on Imaging Science (pp. 159-159).
Lecca M. "STAR: a segmentation-based approximation of point-based sampling Milano Retinex for color image enhancement." IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 27.12 (2018): 5802-5812.
Lecca M., Simone G., Bonanomi C., & Rizzi A. (2018). Point-based spatial colour sampling in Milano-Retinex: a survey. IET Image Processing, 12(6), 833-849.
Lecca M., Zou Y., Gottardi M., Zurriaga S. S., & Orozco J. L. D. (2017, June). A low power smart camera for video surveillance and forensic applications. In 2017 International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE/ITMC) (pp. 626-631). IEEE.
Lecca M., Modena C. M., and Rizzi A. "T-Rex: a Milano Retinex implementation based on intensity thresholding." International Workshop on Computational Color Imaging. Springer, Cham, 2017.
Lecca M. "Color vision is a spatial process: The Retinex theory." International Workshop on Computational Color Imaging. Springer, Cham, 2017.
Simone G., Cordone R., Serapioni R. P., & Lecca M. (2017). On edge-aware path-based color spatial sampling for Retinex: from Termite Retinex to light energy-driven Termite Retinex. Journal of Electronic Imaging, 26(3), 031203.
Lecca M. "Using color and local binary patterns for texture retrieval." Cultura e Scienza del Colore-Color Culture and Science 7 (2017): 29-38.
Zou Y., Gottardi M., & Lecca M.. A 1.6 mW 320× 240 pixel vision sensor for event detection. In 2017 International SoC Design Conference (ISOCC 2017) (pp. 97-98). IEEE.
Lecca M., Rizzi A. and Serapioni R. P.. "GRASS: a gradient-based random sampling scheme for Milano Retinex." IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 26.6 (2017): 2767-2780.
Lecca M,, Rizzi A., and Serapioni R.P.. "GREAT: a gradient-based color-sampling scheme for Retinex." JOSA A 34.4 (2017): 513-522.
Lecca M., Gottardi M., Milosevic B., & Farella E. (2016). A low power colour-based skin detectors for smart environments.
Lecca M., Gianini G., and Rizzi A. "Random spray Retinex and its variants STRESS and QBRIX: comparison and experiments on public color images." Conferenza del colore. Dipartimento di Architettura e Design, 2016.
Rusci M., Rossi D., Lecca M., Gottardi M., Benini L., & Farella E. (2016, September). Energy-efficient design of an always-on smart visual trigger. In 2016 IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Rusci M., Rossi D., Lecca M., Gottardi M., Farella E., & Benini, L. (2016). An event-driven ultra-low-power smart visual sensor. IEEE Sensors Journal, 16(13), 5344-5353.
Lecca M., Gottardi M., Farella E., & Milosevic B. (2016). Always-on low-power optical system for skin-based touchless machine control. JOSA A, 33(6), 1015-1024.
Lecca M., Rizzi A., and Gianini G. "Energy-driven path search for Termite Retinex." JOSA A 33.1 (2016): 31-39.
Gianini G., Lecca M., & Rizzi A. A population-based approach to point-sampling spatial color algorithms. JOSA A, 33(12), 2016, 2396-2413.
Lecca M., Messelodi S. and Serapioni R.P.. "A new region-based active contour model for object segmentation." Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision 53.2 (2015): 233-249.
Lecca M., Gottardi M., Farella E., Milosevic B., & Bilal M. (2015). A low power color sensor for illuminant invariant skin detection. In XI Conferenza del Colore (Vol. 11, pp. 43-54).
Berkovich A., Lecca M., Gasparini L., Abshire P. A., & Gottardi M. (2015). A 30 µw 30 fps 110× 110 pixels vision sensor embedding local binary patterns. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 50(9), 2138-2148.
Lecca M. "A full linear 3× 3 color correction between images." Journal of Real-Time Image Processing 10.2 (2015): 219-237.
Olumodeji O. A., Lecca M., Giordani D., & Gottardi M. (2015, February). Estimating illuminant chromaticity with a low-power color pixel. In 2015 XVIII AISEM Annual Conference (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Lecca M., and Rizzi A., "Tuning the locality of filtering with a spatially weighted implementation of random spray Retinex." JOSA A 32.10 (2015): 1876-1887.
Lecca M.. "On the von Kries model: estimation, dependence on light and device, and applications." Advances in Low-Level Color Image Processing. Springer, Dordrecht, 2014. 95-135.
Lecca M. "Color improves Texture Retrieval." X Colour Conference. 2014.
Lecca M, Leonardo Gasparini, and Massimo Gottardi. "Ultra-low power high-dynamic range color pixel embedding RGB to rg chromaticity transformation." Optical Sensing and Detection III. Vol. 9141. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2014.
Lecca P. and Lecca M.. "Mechanistic models of astrocytic glucose metabolism calibrated on PET images." Biomechanics of Cells and Tissues. Springer, Dordrecht, 2013. 131-155.
Lecca M., "Methods for Estimating the von Kries Transform: A Review and A Comparison." IX Color Conference. 2013.
Lecca M. and Dalla Mura M.. "Intensity and affine invariant statistic-based image matching." CompIMAGE. 2012.
Lecca M., Geometric Distortions of Color Channels for Linear Color Correction Between Images, Technical Report, 2012
Lecca M., Histogram-based Estimation of Illuminant Changes: von Kries Model versus Diagonal-Offset Model, Technical Report, 2012
Lecca M. and Messelodi S.. "Linking the von Kries model to Wien’s law for the estimation of an illuminant invariant image." Pattern recognition letters 32.15 (2011): 2086-2096.
Lecca M. and Messelodi S.. "Von Kries model under Planckian illuminants." International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011.
Lecca M., Statistics-based Estimate of Affine Transforms between Images Without Correspondences, Technical Report, 2011
Lecca M. and Messelodi S., Von Kries Model Under Planckian Illuminants: An Empirical Analysis, Technical Report, 2011
Lecca M., Planckian Illuminants and Von Kries Model, Technical Report, 2010
Lecca M., and Messelodi S.. "Computing von kries illuminant changes by piecewise inversion of cumulative color histograms." ELCVIA: electronic letters on computer vision and image analysis (2009): 1-17.
Lecca M. "An attention module for object detection in cluttered images." ELCVIA: electronic letters on computer vision and image analysis (2009): 68-83.
Lecca M. and Messelodi S.. "Illuminant change estimation via minimization of color histogram divergence." International Workshop on Computational Color Imaging. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009.
Lecca P., Dematté L., Lecca M., & Priami C. (2009). Stochastic modelling of diffusion systems. video image simulation of tubulin diffusion in cytoplasm: a case study. Computational Vision and Medical Image Processing: VipIMAGE 2009, 145.
Lecca M, The object classifier OC-COMPASS, Technoical Report, 2009
Lecca P. and Lecca M.. "A model of the Ca2+ and Na+ waves kinetics in astrocytes and its relevance to functional brain imaging." 5th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering ECCOMAS. 2008.
Lecca P. and Lecca M.. "Modeling the molecular bases of glucose metabolism in astrocytes." XIX Congresso Nazionale SocietaItaliana di Biofisica Pura e Applicata-SIBPA 2008. Rome, 2008.
Lecca M. and Messelodi S., Estimating Illuminant Changes by Piecewise Inversion of Cumulative Color Histograms, Technical Report, 2008
Lecca M., Object Localization by Topological Coverages, Technical Report, 2008
Lecca M. and Messelodi S., Estimating Illuminant Changes in Color Images by Color Histogram Comparison, Technical Report, 2008
Lecca M., Messelodi S. and Andreatta C. "An object recognition system for automatic image annotation and browsing of object catalogs." Proceedings of the 15th ACM international conference on Multimedia. 2007.
Lecca P., and Lecca M. "Molecular mechanism of glutamate-triggered brain glucose metabolism: a parametric model from FDG PET-scans." International Symposium on Brain, Vision, and Artificial Intelligence. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007.
Lecca M. and Messelodi S. "Rotation, Rescaling and Occlusion Invariant Object Retrieval." BMVC. 2007.
Lecca M. "Object recognition in color images by the self configuring system MEMORI." International Journal of Signal Processing 3.3 (2006): 176-185.
Lecca M. "A Self Configuring System for Object Recognition in Color Images." Proceedings of World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. Vol. 12. 2006.
Lecca M, and Messelodi S. "Recognition and Reconstruction of partially Occluded Objects." XVI International Conference on Computer Science. World Enformatika Society, 2006.
Lecca M, Recognition and reconstruction of partially occluded objects, Technical Report, 2006
Andreatta C., Lecca M., and Messelodi S. "Memory-based object recognition in digital images." 19th International Fall Workshop-Vision Modeling and Visualization. AKA Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 2005.
Lecca M., A new method for the automatic estimation of the heuristic rule parameters for MEMORI 1.0, Technical Report, 2005
Lecca M, MEMORI - Version 1.0, technical report, 2005
Andreatta C., Lecca M., and Messelodi S. "Memori." Coupling approaches, coupling media and coupling languages for information retrieval. 2004. 919-919.
Andreatta C., Lecca M. and Messelodi S., Memory based object recognition in images, Technical Report, 2004
Lecca M, Object Retrieval in Digital Images Using Subgraph Isomorphism, Technical Report, 2003
News
July, 2023: A new dataset for testing image enhancement algorithms is online ! See BSIMAGE and its enhanced versions in BSIMAGE-REK here!
February 19th, 2023: Michela is a Session Chair of the Topic "Image and Video Formation, Preprocessing and Analysis" of the conference VISAPP 2023.
January 20th, 2023: Michela is a Topical Editor of JOSA A (Color Vision)
January 2023, look at MEEK, a basic iMage EnhancEment Kit with code at https://github.com/MichelaLecca/MEEK
October 31, 2022: See the new repository https://github.com/MichelaLecca/QBRIX
April 2022: on Apri 23th, Michela was the chair session of 'Fundamentals and Applications' (session 3A) of the conference IMPROVE 2022
April 2021: project CORVO is presented on a radio broadcast.
March, 2021: A new measure for image contrast based on Retinex principles is published on IEEE TIP.
February 10, 2021: Michela was chair of a Session on "Image and Video Formation, Preprocessing and Analysis" of the conference VISAPP 2021.
February 5, 2021: The results of the reasearch on organoids analysis based on image processing, carried out by FBK, Free University of Verona, University of Verona and Azienda Ospedaliera Integrata of Verona, are shortly described here (English version here).
January 7, 2021: Michela gets the OSA Reviewer Certification.
July 2020: two new videos about the low-power vision sensor developed under the EU Project FORENSOR are available. The first video illustrates how the sensor works, displaying all the results at each step of the algorithm implemented in, from frame acquisition to the alert generation. The second video shows on right a gray-level video of a noisy scenario with a moving boat, in the midle the event detected by our sensor and on left the event detected by a frame difference algorithm. An extended explanation about this comparison is available in the paper Y. Zou, M. Gottardi, M. Lecca, M. Perenzoni, "A Low-Power VGA Vision Sensor With Embedded Event Detection for Outdoor Edge Applications", IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, see: 10.1109/JSSC.2020.3005759 (see figure 7 a, b, c).
March 2020: a paper about the need for multiple measures to assess the quality of film restoration is published here. An App in MatLab (MoReCo) for the computation of some measures relevant to assess the quality of film restoration is also provided, read in the paper how to get it !
FBK Learning & Development Courses
Michela took parts as listener to the following FBK training activities:
COVID-19: a che punto siamo? (con S. Merler e A. De Santa, #menoviruspiùconoscenza, 10/07/2020)
Clima, benessere e conciliazione in FBK (con Gruppo di lavoro SLC - FBK, IRVAPP, Families Share, Servizio HR, #menoviruspiùconoscenza, 30/06/2020)
Riflessioni nel periodo dell’emergenza (con F. Sbattella, #menoviruspiùconoscenza, 24/03/2020)
100 minuti insieme – Cambiamenti tra: passato, presente e futuro (con Alfieri, Dolci, Bacci e l’intervento del Presidente Prof. F. Profumo, #menoviruspiùconoscenza, 27/05/2020)
Industry 4.0 (08/10/2019)
Infographics & data visualization (17/04/2018)
Comunicare FBK (10/11/2017)
Comunicare la Scienza / Media Writing (14/09/2017)
Some relevant past activities
September 2019: Michela is a Publication Chair of the Int. Conference on image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP 2019, Trento, IT, 9-13 Sept. 2019)
April 2019: New datasets for image enhancement are online! Have a look !
April 2019: an executable of the spatial color algorithm GREAT has been published on the TeV web pages along with several data for evaluating image enhancers - See Image Enhancement Datasets and Software
January 24, 2019: Michela illustrates the cover of the book Theoretical Physics for Biological Systems, now available on market.
January 07, 2019: a web app of Forensor made avaiable on https://forensor-simulator.fbk.eu
November 2018-May 2019: Michela collaborates with University of Verona (IT), Dept. of Medicine to develop a software for detecting organoids and computing their volumes over time. A first verison of this tool has been presented at SIAM - IS, in Bologna (IT), June 2018, and at the 32nd Annual North America Cystic Fibrosis Conference, in USA, October 2018.
August 2018: Michela is a Guest Editor of the Special Issue on J. of Imaging Image Enhancement, Modeling and Visualization. The call for paper is published on the journal website, deadline on August 12, 2018 (EXTENDED!)
February 2018: Michela is a co-organizer of the Workshop "Mathematics for COmputer Vision" (MCV 2018), hosted by FBK - ICT on February 15-16, 2018.
September 2017: Michela, along with her colleagues at IRIS, participates at the Notte dei Ricercatori and presented some outcomes of the EU Project FORENSOR (Visione Intelligente a Basso Consumo / Ecco la telecamera anti-crimine!).
March 2017: Michela presents a Tutorial on Retinex theory at the 6th Computational Color Imaging Workshop (Milano, Italy).
December 2016 - December 2018: Michela collaborates with the Journal "Cultura e Scienza del Colore - Color Culture and Science" of the Gruppo del Colore - Associazione Italiana Colore. in which she co-authored the Column Communications and Comments.
2015-2016: Michela led a Research in Pairs with the University of Trento, Department of Mathematics, and the University of Milano, Department of Computer Science. The main findings of this research have been published on JOSA A and on IEEE TIP.