GREC

The IAPR International Graphics Recognition Workshop (GREC) is the main activity of IAPR Technical Committee 10 (TC10) on Graphics Recognition. The eighth edition (GREC2009) was held in the City University of La Rochelle, La Rochelle (France), just before the 9^th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR2009) held in Barcelona. GREC2009 was chaired by Jean-Marc Ogier, Liu Wenyin, and Josep Lladós. 45 valid papers were presented in the scientific program. The workshop had 70 registered participants from 23 countries, which represents a record of participation, since the first edition of this event.

Following the tradition of the previous workshops in the series, the scientific program was organized in a single-track 2-day workshop. It comprised 8 sessions dedicated to specific topics. Session topics included: Structural Approaches for Recognition and Indexing; Techniques Towards Vectorization; Sketching Interfaces and On-line Processing; Symbol and Shape Segmentation, Description and Recognition; Historical Documents Analysis; Indexing and Spotting; and Performance Evaluation and Ground Truthing. We aimed to restore the original GREC model, a true workshop with interaction rather than a mini-conference. From this point GREC 2009 was a big success, since the discussions were numerous and interesting for the community.

With this purpose, only extended abstracts were selected for the workshop, giving the opportunity to present works in any maturity stage. Electronic proceedings with full papers were available to registrants allowing “electronic” discussions prior to the workshop. Authors gave short presentations of 5 minutes, leaving time for panel discussions. The role of chairpersons was of key importance in this format. Session chairs were asked not just to introduce speakers, but to read papers before his/her session, and to prepare a survey presentation on the topic and a list of questions to foster active discussions, and encourage participation. Each session participant was also asked to read the papers of the same session and prepare some questions. Chairs did great jobs in preparing their corresponding sessions, and we had a really interactive workshop.

The last session of GREC2009 was a panel discussion chaired by Pr. Karl Tombre, and co-animated by Pr. Young Bin Kwon, and Dr. Ramachandrula Sitaram (senior researcher at HP Labs India), who gave an interesting point of view issuing from R&D companies. Karl Tombre prepared an excellent summary of the issues discussed during two days, and addressed the hot topics on the present and the future of Graphics Recognition. Selected and extended papers of GREC2009 will be published in a volume of the Springer LNCS series.

Continuing with the tradition of past GREC workshops, the program of GREC2009 included graphics recognition contests. In particular, two contests were organized, but unfortunately slightly postponed to September 15th in order to consolidate the preparation and the number of participants: an arc segmentation contest, organized Hasan S.M. Al-Khaffaf and Abdullah Zawawi Talib (USM, Malaysia), and a symbol recognition contest, organized by Philippe Dosch (LORIA, France), Ernest Valveny (CVC Spain), and Mathieu Delalandre (CVC Spain).

The GREC2009 participants had the opportunity to socialize thanks to a set of exciting social events: a sea cruise in the rain, followed by a tyrolean between the two old towers of La Rochelle, and ending with a splendid banquet in the Aquarium of La Rochelle. In order to consolidate GREC participant interactions, a touristic trip was also organized between La Rochelle and Barcelona, allowing the participants to reach the ICDAR (see report in this issue) event, in a convivial, cultural and friendly environment.

Concerning the next session, it was also the first time that we had two proposals for the next GREC (2011), highlighting the dynamics of the community. A vote was organized to decide the place, and finally, GREC2011 was decided to be organized by Pr. Young-Bin Kwon at Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea, Sept 15-16, 2011, just before ICDAR2011.

Workshop Report: GREC 2009

Report prepared by the General Chair