Dr John Darby
Senior Lecturer
My profile
Biography
I’m the programme leader for the MSc Computer Science and a unit leader on the undergraduate programme, mainly teaching things to do with AI and machine learning.
I have an undergraduate degree in Computational Physics (BSc Hons.) from the School of Physics & Astronomy at The University of Edinburgh (2000-03) and an MSc in Mobile and Distributed Computer Networks from Leeds Metropolitan University (2003-04). I got my PhD from MMU (2006-10) under the supervision of Baihua Li and Nicholas Costen and then worked as a post-doctoral Research Assistant for the IRM (2010-11) and a Research Associate for the SCMDT (2011-13). All my work has been in the area of Computer Vision and I am a member of the British Machine Vision Association. I started as a permanent Lecturer in Computer Science and Information Systems at the Department of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology in June 2013. I have also worked in industry as a Software Engineer for Echostar Europe (2005-06) with some very enjoyable stints in Denver, Colorado at Echostar Corp.
Interests and expertise
My research aim is to develop non-invasive Computer Vision approaches for the tracking and analysis of human movements. My interests in human movement run from the internal processes that allow limbs to move (see work on skeletal muscle analysis through ultrasound), to the external actions and behaviours that we engage in (see work on markerless motion tracking and behaviour classification), and to the physical interactions we have with objects in the world around us (see work on implement recognition and localisation). The projects I’ve worked on at the Image and Sensory Computation Group have involved techniques from a range of fields like Machine Learning, Image Processing, Particle Filtering/SMC methods, Computer Graphics and Animation and have applications in areas such as Surveillance, Biomechanics, Human-Computer Interaction and Healthcare.
Teaching
6G5Z0032: Machine Learning
6G6Z0048: Artificial Intelligence
6G6Z1114: User Experience and Interaction Design
6G6Z1101: Project
Research outputs
-
Chapters in books
Leightley, D., Li, B., McPhee, J.S., Yap, M.H., Darby, J. (2014) 'Exemplar-Based Human Action Recognition with Template Matching from a Stream of Motion Capture.' Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer International Publishing, pp. 12-20.
-
Journal articles
Grogan, S., Gill, S., Brownbridge, K., McChesney, G., Wren, P., Cole, J., Darby, J., Jones, C., Armitage, C.J. (2021) 'Body Mass Index and Body Satisfaction: Does Availability of Well-fitting Clothes Matter?.' Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 39(4) pp. 251-263.
Abo-Tabik, M., Costen, N., Darby, J., Benn, Y. (2020) 'Towards a smart smoking cessation app: a 1D-CNN model predicting smoking events.' Sensors, 20(4)
Abo-Tabik, M., Costen, N., Darby, J., Benn, Y. (2020) 'Towards a smart smoking cessation app: A 1D-CNN model predicting smoking events.' Sensors (Switzerland), 20(4)
Darby, J., Sánchez, M.B., Bew, S., Loram, I., Butler, P. (2019) 'The development of a video retrieval system using a clinician-led approach.' Expert Systems with Applications, 142
Darby, J., Leightley, D., Williamson, V., Fear, N. (2018) 'Identifying probable post-traumatic stress disorder: applying supervised machine learning to data from a UK military cohort.' Journal of Mental Health,
Sanchez Puccini, M.B., Loram, I., Holmes, P., Darby, J., Butler, P. (2018) 'Working towards an objective segmental assessment of trunk control in children with cerebral palsy..' Gait and Posture, 65pp. 45-50.
Sánchez, M.B., Loram, I., Holmes, P., Darby, J., Butler, P.B. (2018) 'Working towards an objective segmental assessment of trunk control in children with cerebral palsy..' Gait & posture, 66pp. 45-50.
Sánchez, M.B., Loram, I., Darby, J., Holmes, P., Butler, P.B. (2017) 'The potential of an automated system to identify the upper limb component of a controlled sitting posture..' Gait & posture, 58pp. 223-228.
Sanchez, M., Loram, I., Darby, J., Holmes, P.S., Butler, P. (2016) 'Gait and Posture.' Gait and Posture, 51
Darby, J.G., Sánchez, M.B., Butler, P.B., Loram, I.D. (2016) 'An evaluation of 3D head pose estimation using the Microsoft Kinect v2.' Gait and Posture, 48pp. 83-88.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N. (2014) 'Tracking object poses in the context of robust body pose estimates.' Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 127
Leightley, D., Li, B., McPhee, J.S., Yap, M.H., Darby, J. (2014) 'Exemplar-Based Human Action Recognition with Template Matching from a Stream of Motion Capture.' 8815
Leightley, D., Darby, J., Li, B., Mcphee, J.S., Yap, M.H. (2013) 'Human activity recognition for physical rehabilitation.' Proceedings - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC 2013, pp. 261-266.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N., Loram, I., Hodson-Tole, E. (2013) 'Estimating skeletal muscle fascicle curvature from B-mode ultrasound image sequences..' IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, 60(7) pp. 1935-1945.
Darby, J., Hodson-Tole, E.F., Costen, N., Loram, I.D. (2012) 'Automated regional analysis of B-mode ultrasound images of skeletal muscle movement..' J Appl Physiol (1985), 112(2) pp. 313-327.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N. (2010) 'Tracking human pose with multiple activity models..' Pattern Recognit., 43pp. 3042-3058.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N., Fleet, D., Lawrence, N. (2009) 'Backing off: Hierarchical decomposition of activity for 3D novel pose recovery.' British Machine Vision Conference, BMVC 2009 - Proceedings,
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N. (2008) 'Activity Classification for Interactive Game Interfaces..' Int. J. Comput. Games Technol., 2008pp. 751268:1-751268:1.
-
Conference papers
Cunningham, S., McGregor, I., Weinel, J., Darby, J., Stockman, T. (2023) 'Towards a Framework of Aesthetics in Sonic Interaction.' pp. 109-115.
Abo-Tabik, M., Costen, N., Darby, J., Benn, Y. (2020) 'Decision Tree Model of Smoking Behaviour.' In 5th IEEE Internet of People and Smart City Innovation 2019. Leicester, UK, 19/8/2019 - 23/8/2019. IEEE,
Darby, J., Li, B., Cunningham, R., Costen, N. (2012) 'Object localisation via action recognition.' pp. 817-820.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N., Fleet, D.J., Lawrence, N.D. (2009) 'Backing Off: Hierarchical Decomposition of Activity for 3D Novel Pose Recovery..' Cavallaro, A., Prince, S., Alexander, D.C. (ed.) British Machine Vision Association, pp. 1-11.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N. (2008) 'Tracking a walking person using activity-guided annealed particle filtering..' IEEE Computer Society, pp. 1-6.
Fang, H., Costen, N., Cristinacce, D., Darby, J. (2008) '3D facial geometry recovery via group-wise optical flow..' IEEE Computer Society, pp. 1-6.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N.P. (2008) 'Behaviour based particle filtering for human articulated motion tracking..' IEEE Computer Society, pp. 1-4.
Darby, J., Li, B., Costen, N. (2008) 'Human Activity Tracking from Moving Camera Stereo Data..' Everingham, M., Needham, C.J., Fraile, R. (ed.) British Machine Vision Association, pp. 1-10.