In this brief note, I summarize how and what I learnt from Professor Thomas (Tom) Huang for nearly four decades. I consider myself a student of Tom at a distance, in that I was not a direct student of his, and did not write any papers with him. But Tom influenced me through his papers, lectures, direct and indirect mentorship. He also promoted me in various forums by saying good words about my work.
我學(xué)習(xí)黃煦濤教授（Prefessor Tom Huang）近四十載，此短文概述了我學(xué)習(xí)的心得體會(huì)。我既非他的正式學(xué)生，亦未曾與他共撰文章，但我仍認(rèn)為是他的學(xué)生。不同的是，我學(xué)于遐邇，從他的文章中，在他的講課里，以及來(lái)自他的直接或間接的指導(dǎo)。他也在不同的公開論壇上贊賞我工作以此提攜我。
I first saw Tom in Spring 1978 at Purdue University, where I did my doctoral work. I attended many of his lectures on digital image processing. Tom had just returned from a sabbatical in Germany. I was quite impressed by Tom’s lucid style of explaining image processing fundamentals. The young ones should know that in 1978, image processing was till a new field with lot of emphasis on image compression and restoration. Tom had just finished some interesting work on coding of two-tone images then. What I still remember is that Tom would walk into the class with a cup of coffee and may be a small piece of paper with some equations. Once in a while he will take a sip of coffee and continue lecturing, occasionally looking at the sheet of paper he brought. He never carried any notes to his classes. The handout on FFT that Tom gave to his students is something to be preserved.
1978年春，在我讀博士的普渡大學(xué)里我首次遇見Tom。其時(shí)Tom剛從德國(guó)學(xué)術(shù)休假完回來(lái)，教我們數(shù)字圖像處理課程。他解釋圖像處理的基本原理簡(jiǎn)潔明晰，此等教學(xué)風(fēng)格令我印象尤其深刻。1978年時(shí)的圖像處理尚是新興領(lǐng)域，重于圖像壓縮和恢復(fù)。他當(dāng)時(shí)剛完成了雙色圖象的編碼問題，非常有意思。我依然記得Tom走進(jìn)教室的情景 —— 手握咖啡一杯，有時(shí)攜紙一張，上書公式若干，但從不帶筆記。偶爾，他嘬一口咖啡；間或，他瞄一眼紙張。他發(fā)給學(xué)生們的快速傅立葉變換（FFT）講義絕對(duì)是珍藏品。
Tom moved to UIUC in 1980 and since then, I saw him frequently at various computer vision and pattern recognition conferences. When I moved to USC in 1981, Professor Sandy Sawchuk and I revised the collection of digital image processing papers edited by Prof. Harry Andrews for the IEEE Computer Society Press. As many image processing researchers were migrating towards image analysis and computer vision, we brought out two volumes, one on image processing and the other on image analysis. This effort gave me an opportunity to read some of the pioneering papers on structure from motion (sfm) that Tom co-authored with his students and visitors. The edited collection on image analysis included some of these sfm papers from Tom’s group. After reading Tom’s papers, I got the inspiration to extend two-frame based sfm algorithms to long sequences. This work did in collaboration with Ted Broida and other students kept me busy for a while. At various meetings, I had several opportunities to discuss my work with Tom. Tom encouraged me in my efforts to develop robust sfm algorithms.
Tom于1980年搬到了伊利諾伊大學(xué)香檳分校。自此，我常見他于各種計(jì)算機(jī)視覺和模式識(shí)別的會(huì)議中。在1981年搬到南加州大學(xué)后，我和Sandy Sawchuk教授為IEEE Computer Society Press重新收錄了數(shù)字圖像處理的文章，此項(xiàng)工作原先是Harry Andrews教授做的。基于當(dāng)時(shí)有許多圖像處理研究者在轉(zhuǎn)型做圖像分析和計(jì)算機(jī)視覺，我們編輯了兩卷書，一卷是關(guān)于圖像處理的，另一卷是關(guān)于圖像分析的。這次努力讓我有機(jī)會(huì)讀到了許多由Tom和他的學(xué)生們?cè)L問學(xué)者們合寫的、關(guān)于運(yùn)動(dòng)恢復(fù)結(jié)構(gòu)（structure from motion，sfm）方面的開創(chuàng)性文章。其中不少文章被數(shù)字圖像處理之圖像分析卷采納了。讀了Tom的文章后，我得到了啟示，和Ted Broida以及我別的學(xué)生們把基于兩幅圖像的sfm算法延伸到了多幅圖像，為此我們忙碌了好一陣子。其間，我趁會(huì)議和Tom有不少機(jī)會(huì)討論我的工作，他鼓勵(lì)我要努力開發(fā)出穩(wěn)健的sfm算法。
Tom is a scholar’s scholar. His papers are innovative, clear and almost always broke new grounds. In fact, when reading Tom’s papers, one can almost hear him talk through the contents of the paper as they were written in a lucid style, despite having tons of equations. He is a fantastic lecturer and presented the material with a humorous touch.
Tom是學(xué)者中的學(xué)者。他的文章創(chuàng)新充沛，清楚明晰，多為拓疆之作。讀其文，若聞其聲，概因其文筆簡(jiǎn)明，盡管公式比比皆是。他教學(xué)魅力十足，演講闡述帶人潛入幽默的意境。
Tom is a perpetual learner. When most attendees at conferences stay for a couple of talks in a few sessions and leave the room, I have seen Tom stay in sessions that interested him, keenly listening to the talks, often writing some notes in the conference program books. This is a good practice to emulate by all of us.
Tom其人，學(xué)而不輟。參加學(xué)術(shù)會(huì)議，許多人聽若干演講就離開，Tom則不同。他久滯會(huì)場(chǎng)，專心聽講，常常筆記。這實(shí)值得我輩仿摹。
Tom is a kind-hearted person. In spite of being a busy person, he must have written numerous (hundreds!) letters recommending others for tenure, promotion, and various awards and recognitions. This is something to emulate too.
Tom之心，仁慈善良。他雖忙不得暇，仍不辭辛勞地寫了數(shù)以百計(jì)的推薦信，為了別人的終身職位、升遷、獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)和得到肯定。這亦應(yīng)獲吾等仿效。
Tom also demonstrated a perfect balance between his family life and career, which is something to learn from the master. While at Purdue, I have seen Tom go home for lunch around noon, whenever he is in town and does not have a lunch meeting. Most of us who go to conferences are happy to see Tom and Margaret as a couple engaging their colleagues and friends at lunches, dinners and other social events. By example, Tom demonstrated the importance of balancing the family life and his busy professional life.
Tom亦是大師，完美地平衡家庭與職業(yè)。在普渡，我常見他中午回家用餐，不開中午會(huì)。我們多數(shù)人在參加會(huì)議時(shí)會(huì)瞧見Tom、Margaret夫婦與同事朋友們一起用餐或出席社會(huì)活動(dòng)的幸福場(chǎng)景。對(duì)于平衡家庭與職業(yè)的重要性，Tom以自己的親身例子作了最好的闡釋。
I spent some wonderful days with Tom and Margaret in January 1988 when we were at a conference in Bangalore, India.
1988年一月，我與Tom 、 Margaret在印度班加羅爾一起開會(huì)，共同渡過了一段美好的日子。
Scholars like Tom come rarely. All of us who have had the opportunity to interact with Tom one way or another must consider ourselves very lucky to have known and learned from Tom. I surely did learn many things that have helped my career and personal life, including eating oatmeal for breakfast, which is something that Tom is known for!
師從Tom，我學(xué)到不計(jì)其數(shù)，無(wú)論是職業(yè)上，還是生活中，甚至是他的“聞名作” —— 早餐吃燕麥。學(xué)者如斯，何其少哉！有師若此，何其幸哉！
[Rama Chellappa著、周少華譯]
Prof. Rama Chellappa is a Distinguished University Professor and a Minta Martin Professor of Engineering and Chair of the ECE department at the University of Maryland. Prof. Chellappa is a recipientof an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award and four IBM Faculty Development Awards. Prof. Chellappa received the K.S. Fu Prize from theInternational Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR). He is a recipient of the Society, Technical Achievement and Meritorious Service Awards from the IEEE Signal Processing Society and four IBM Faculty Development Awards. He also received the Technical Achievement and Meritorious Service Awards from the IEEE Computer Society. At UMD, he received college and university level recognitions for research, teaching, innovation and mentoring of undergraduate students. In 2010, he was recognized as an Outstanding ECE by Purdue University. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indian Institute of Science in 2016. Recently, he received the inaugural Leadership Award from the IEEE Biometrics Council. Prof. Chellappa served as the Editor-in-Chief of PAMI. He is a Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society, served as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal Processing Society and as the President of IEEE Biometrics Council. He is a Fellow of IEEE, IAPR, OSA, AAAS, ACM and AAAI and holds five patents. His current research interests span many areas in image processing, computer vision and pattern recognition.
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