Education

• 2009, PhD in Bioengineering (University of Genoa)

• 2005, MSc in Bioengineering (University of Genoa)

• 2002, BSc in Biomedical Engineering (University of Genoa)

Research interest

• Development of virtual and augmented reality systems.
  In particular the aim of my research is to study the perception of tridimensionality, through the presentation of virtual stereoscopic 3D stimuli. The application field of this research are the study of the visuo-motor coordination, the development of systems for the cognitive rehabilitation, by using augmented reality systems. In particular the focus of my research is to use low cost and off-the-shelf devices, developed for the entertainment systems (i.e. the motion sensors of the videogame console, or the system for the stereoscopic visualization of 3D contents, such as the 3DTV).
  
  Patent Application: M. Chessa, F. Solari, M. Garibotti, S.P. Sabatini, ``Rappresentazione stereoscopica tridimensionale perfezionata di oggetti virtuali per un osservatore in movimento''. Assignee: University of Genoa. Italian Patent application TO2011A001150, 14th December 2011.
  
  
• Active binocular vision systems.
  In particular my research concerns the study of the interplay between the geometry and the behaviour of the active vision systems and the visual scenes. (For further details see the Eyeshots project website www.eyeshots.it)
  
  
• Cortical models for low level features extraction.
  In particular my research focuses on the development of cortical models for the estimation of optic flow and disparity, based on distributed populations of cells, inspired by the processing of cortical areas V1 and MT. Part of this work is described in my PhD thesis.
  
  
• Context-sensitive receptive fields for the analysis of visual motion.
  In particular my research focuses on an higher order analysis of visual motion, for the evaluation of the time-to-contact and for the 3D reconstruction of the surfaces. Part of this work is described in my PhD thesis.
  
  
• Visual processing in foveated systems
  In particular, I have addressed the problem of the multi-orientation and multiscale filtering in the log-polar domain. To this aim, a systematic analysis of the relationships between the parameters of the discrete log-polar mapping and of a bank of Gabor filters has been carried out. (see here for further details)
  
  
• Software tools for vision systems.
  In particular my research concerns the developing of software tools for the simulation of robotic systems (see the Virtual Reality Tool for Active Vision)) and the developing of neuromorphic algorithms by using graphics processing units (GPGPU).

• UE FP7-ICT "EYESHOTS" (Heterogeneous 3-D Perception Across Visual Fragments) www.eyeshots.it, coordinated by Dr. Silvio P. Sabatini.
  
  
• UE FP7-ICT "SEARISE" (Attending and Recognizing Instances of Salient Events) www.searise.eu, coordinated by Dr. Marina Kolesnik.
  
  
• PRIN 2008 (Modelli bio-ispirati per il controllo dei movimenti oculari nella visione attiva e l'esplorazione 3D) coordinated by Prof. G. Cannata.

• UE FP6-FET "DRIVSCO" (Learning to Emulate Perception-action Cycles in a Driving School Scenario) www.pspc.dibe.unige.it/drivsco, coordinated by Prof. Florentin Woergoetter.
  
  
• UE FP6-NEST-Adventure "MCCOOP" (Multichannel Cooperativity in Visual Processing) www.mccoop.de, coordinated by Dr. Marina Kolesnik.
  
  
• PRIN 2005 (Computational and neural mechanisms of sensorimotor learning and control) coordinated by Prof. P. Morasso.

Publications and patents

• M. Chessa, F. Solari, M. Garibotti, S.P. Sabatini, ``Rappresentazione stereoscopica tridimensionale perfezionata di oggetti virtuali per un osservatore in movimento''. Assignee: University of Genoa. Italian Patent application TO2011A001150, 14th December 2011.
  
  

• F. Solari, M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini. Machine Vision - Applications and Systems. InTech, ISBN: 978-953-51-0373-8, 272 pages, 2012.
  
  

• M. Vanegas, M. Chessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini (2012). Bio-Inspired Active Vision Paradigms in Surveillance Applications,Machine Vision - Applications and Systems, F. Solari, M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini (Eds.), InTech, ISBN: 978-953-51-0373-8, pp. 1-22, 2012
  
  
• M. Chessa, F. Solari and S.P. Sabatini (2011). Virtual Reality to Simulate Visual Tasks for Robotic Systems, Virtual Reality, Jae-Jin Kim (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-307-518-1, InTech, Available from: Virtual Reality to Simulate Visual Tasks for Robotic Systems
  
  

• S. P. Sabatini, F. Solari, M. Chessa (2011). Context-Sensitive Recurrent Filters for Visual Motion Analysis, Neurocomputing: Learning, Architectures and Modeling, Elizabeth T. Mueller (Ed.), ISBN: 978-1-61324-699-3, Nova publisher, InPress.
  
  

• M. Chessa, M. Garibotti, A. Canessa, A. Gibaldi, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari. A stereoscopic augmented reality system for the veridical perception of the 3D scene layout. International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications, VISAPP 2012, 24th-26th February 2012, Rome.
  
  
• F. Solari, M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini. Design strategies for direct multi-scale and multi-orientation feature extraction in the log-polar domain. Pattern Recognition Letters 33(1), pp. 41-51. [doi]
  
  
• M. Chessa, S. P. Sabatini, F. Solari and F. Tatti (2011) A Quantitative Comparison of Speed and Reliability for Log-Polar Mapping Techniques, Computer Vision Systems - 8th International Conference, ICVS 2011, Sophia Antipolis, France, September 20-22, 2011 [doi].
  
  
• G. Maiello, C. Silvestro, A. Canessa, M. Chessa, A. Gibaldi, S. P. Sabatini and F. Solari (2011) Assessment of stereoscopic depth perception in augmented reality environments based on low-cost technologies, Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (APGV 2011).
  
  
• E. Martinez, A.P. del Pobil, M. Chessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini. (2011) An Integrated Virtual Environment for Visual-based Reaching, The ACM Intl. Conf. on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication, Seoul, 2011.
  
  
• A.Gibaldi, M. Chessa, A. Canessa, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari. A cortical model for binocular vergence control without explicit calculation of disparity. Neurocomputing 73 (2010), pp. 1065-1073. [doi]
  
  
• M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari. A fast joint bioinspired algorithm for optic flow and two-dimensional disparity estimation. 7th International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, Belgium, 13-15 October, 2009. [pdf]
  
  
• A. Gibaldi, M. Chessa, A. Canessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini. A neural model for binocular vergence control without explicit calculation of disparity. European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Bruges, Belgium, 22-24 April, 2009. [pdf]
  
  
• M. Chessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini. A Virtual Reality Simulator for Active Stereo Vision Systems. International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP), Lisbon 5-8 February 2009. [pdf]
  
  
• M. Chessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini, G.M. Bisio. Motion Interpretation Using Adjustable Linear Models. British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), Leeds 1-4 September 2008. [pdf]
  
  
• G. Gastaldi, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari, M. Chessa. Systematic Phase-based interpretation of early vision processing. International Conference on Mathematical Problems in Engineering ,Aerospace and Science (ICNPAA), Genova, 25-27 June 2008.
  
  
• M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari, G.M. Bisio. A Recursive Approach to the Design of Adjustable Linear Models for Complex Motion Analysis. IASTED conference on Signal Processing, Pattern Recognition and Applications (SPPRA), Innsbruck 14-16 February 2007. [pdf]

• M. Chessa, G. Maiello, C. Silvestro, A. Canessa, A. Gibaldi, S. P. Sabatini, F. Solari (2011) Assessment of the visuo-motor coordination in the peripersonal space through augmented reality environments. Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 63.
  
  
• S. P. Sabatini, A. Canessa, A. Gibaldi, M. Chessa, F. Solari (2011) Statistical disparity patterns experienced by an active observer in the peripersonal space. Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 105
  
  
• A. Gibaldi, A. Canessa, M. Chessa, F. Solari, S. P. Sabatini (2011) Adaptive read-out mechanisms of disparity population codes: reaching the theoretical disparity-size correlation limit with minimal binocular resources. Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 103
  
  
• A. Canessa, M. Chessa, A. Gibaldi, F. Solari, S. P. Sabatini (2011) Empirical horopter explained by the statistics of disparity patterns in natural space. Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 7
  
  
• A. Gibaldi, A. Canessa, M. Chessa, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini (2011). A cortical model for vergence control: advantages of space-variant geometry of the cortical domain. Cosyne11, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 24 - March 1, 2011.
  
  
• A. Gibaldi, A. Canessa, M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini and F. Solari. Read-out rules for short-latency disparity-vergence responses from populations of binocular energy units: the effect of vertical disparities 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland, 22-26 August, 2010.
  
  
• M. Chessa, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari. A virtual reality tool for disparity statistics in the peripersonal space. 32nd European Conference on Visual Perception, Regensburg, Germany, 24-28 August, 2009.
  
  
• S.P. Sabatini, M. Chessa, F. Solari. How embedding prior constraints improves coding and decoding strategies in a neural distributed architecture for depth perception. 32nd European Conference on Visual Perception, Regensburg, Germany, 24-28 August, 2009.
  
  
• M. Chessa, A. Canessa, A. Gibaldi, F. Solari, S.P. Sabatini. Embedding Fixation Constraints into Binocular Energy-based Models of Depth Perception. International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston, Massachusetts, 27-30 May, 2009.
  
  
• A. Gibaldi, M. Chessa, A. Canessa, S.P. Sabatini, F. Solari. Reading binocular energy population codes for short-latency disparity-vergence eye movements. International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston, Massachusetts, 27-30 May, 2009.
  
  
• S.P. Sabatini, M. Chessa, G. Gastaldi, F. Solari, G. M. Bisio. Cortical Architectures for Early Joint Coding of 3D Dynamic Visual Parameters: Complex Feature Mapping and Distributed Representations. Workshop on Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to Computer Vision, Bielefeld University, Germany, 21 March 2007.
  
  

Teaching activities

• Informatica Medica I (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Tecnologie Software per la Bioingegneria (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Architettura dei calcolatori (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Multimedia Systems (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Strutture Software 1 (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Tecniche Avanzate di Progettazione Software 1 (Prof. F. Solari)
  
  
• Computer Vision (Prof. F. Solari and Prof. S.P. Sabatini)
  
  
• Informatica I (Prof. S.P. Sabatini)