Draft:Kihwan Kim

Kihwan Kim
File:To be added Kihwan kim at XR Unlocked (New York; 2024)
Born	(1975-03-07) 7 March 1975 Seoul, Republic of Korea
Alma mater	Yonsei University (B.S.) Georgia Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Title	Corporate Executive Vice President at Samsung Electronics (MX)
Scientific career
Fields	Computer Vision, Graphics, Machine learning, On-device AI, 3D Vision, XR
Korean name
Hangul	김기환
Hanja	金基煥

Kihwan Kim (Korean: 김기환; born 7 March 1975) is a Computer Vision/Graphics R&D Engineer and Executive Vice President of Samsung Electronics (XR, Mobile eXperience Division). He specializes in On-Device AI, Multi-modal AI, 3D Vision, Camera pipe lines and XR platforms for Samsung’s flagship Galaxy devices, including foldable phones and VST/AR Glasses.

With a proven track record in research and commercialization, Kihwan has successfully led cross-functional teams to achieve mass product deployment, delivering over 10 million units annually across phones, watches and diverse mobile devices. His work also extends to XR platforms, self-driving cars and robotics, highlighting his broad technical and leadership impact.

Kihwan holds a Ph.D and M.S in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S in Electrical Engineering from Yonsei University. His academic background has been the foundation of his significant contributions to both academia and industry.

Recent highlights

SDC 2022 (Oct 2022)

During SDC 2022, Kihwan announced the new Avatar SDK (AR emoji SDK 2022) for Phones, Watch, TVs, and showcased the latest update of Galaxy avatar in Samsung Galaxy ecosystem.

Engineering Careers

Samsung Electronics, Mobile eXperience (MX) (2020-)

EVP, Head of XR/AR, AI Responsible for XR/AR and multi-modal AI and computer vision in Samsung. VP, Head of XR and Immersive SW Responsible for XR and Avatar SW in Samsung. • Lead executive of Samsung/Google/Qualcomm joint project on XR/AR. Managing cross-functional world-wide teams across vertically integrated topics on BSP, System SW, perception, rendering, AI, and newly developed XR/AR specific OS and its applications.

• Avatar commercialization (AR Emoji and applications) for Phones, watch, tablets and TV. Unity-based Avatar SDK for various Samsung services (Knox/Cloud). • DL-based avatar reenactment commercialization, and R&D for neural rendering. • XR (AR/VR) Platform and system SW for various form factors. • On-device 3D Computer vision solutions (SLAM, Hand/Eye/Face tracking, etc.). • OpenXR and rendering framework for various user scenarios (AR/VR). • Mobile AR applications (AR Doodle, Bixby Vision, AR Canvas, and AR Emoji Camera) for Galaxy phones, Tablets and watches. VP, Head of Graphics R&D Group Responsible for GPU, Graphics and rendering system optimization. • Android rendering framework, Variational Refresh Rate (VRR) (Since S21). • Game engine, and GPU optimization; adaptive perf, RL-based optimization (SPA). • Flagship models; Galaxy S20, S21, S22, Note 20, Z Flip 2, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Fold 3. A/M series, Watch4, and S6/S7/S8 Tablets etc. VP, Head of Visual Solution Lab Responsible for Camera, Computer vision (CV), and Deep learning (DL) SW. • DL-based scene recognition solutions for Galaxy phones: Bixby Vision, Single take, Relighting, Video summarization, and AI Filters [WACV22]. • DL-based UDC (Under display camera) imaging SW [STC Winner 20]. • DL-based imaging pipeline for flagship Galaxy phones: SR/NR/HDR, Night-mode, Night portrait, and Nightography [STC Winner 21] • DL-based image synthesis for flagship Galaxy phones: Photo remaster. • On-device AI taskforce; GPU/DSP/NPU deployment and optimization with vendor specific SDKs (EDEN, SNPE) for Galaxy devices.

NVIDIA (2012-2020)

Principal Research Scientist Learning and Perception Research Team • Led 3D Computer vision group for inventing algorithms for autonomous driving SDK, robotics SDK, and content creation framework. [CVPR18a,b][ECCV18a,b], [CVPR19a,b,c,d], [WACV20][CVPR20a,b,c] • Led Sensor-based localization project (autonomous driving): mapping and registration of points cloud captured from a Lidar sensor[3DV15][ECCV18b]. • Led VirtualEye (DARPA) project: 3D mapping and free view-point video. • Led NVIDIA SLAM(NVSLAM): An umbrella project of a various 3D Vision projects for next generation augmented/virtual reality and autonomous driving: [3DV14/15][EGSR15] [CVPR16a][ICCV17a][ICCV17b][CVPR18][ECCV18a] [ARX18a][ARXV19a,b,c,d] • Tech-transfer for NVIDIA products: ISAAC SDK (Robotics), SDKs for DrivePX, legacy VisionWorks, internal VR/AR SDKs and various open-source projects. Mobile Visual Computing Team • Collaboration with Google/ATAP for Tango project (Peanut/Yellowstone). • Conducted a project for Driver’s gesture recognition system for Advanced Driver Assistant System (ADAS) using multi-modal sensors and Deep Neural Network (CNN) [FG15][RADAR15][P15-a,b][IV16][CVPRW15][CVPR16b] Kim, 3 of 9 • Conducted tracking and scene reconstruction research for ADAS and autonomous driving project (Sensor fusion: depth-camera, vision, IMU, etc.) • Conducted an Real-time viewfinder editing project: [SIGGRAPHA13]. • Co-author of a tutorial on OpenCV for native Android: SIGGRAPH13 (mobile) • Fast Image registration and tracking for mobile vision [P14] • Stochastic Motion field analysis using Gaussian Process [CVPR12]

Disney Research (2009-2009)

Scene Analysis and Micro-casting • Conducted a project for detecting important location in the game. Designed and implemented proto-type system for micro-casting. [CVPR10A] • Implemented player tracking algorithm using particle filter and mean-shift , and team classification algorithm for sports visualization. [CVPR10B]

Samsung Electronics, SDS (2001-2005)

IFace Recognition, Real-time Collaboration System • Responsible for face detection part. Fisher-face, and statistical skin segmentation were used for ViaFaceTM. Appeared in COMDEX 2001 Las Vegas. • Designed and developed Real-time Collaboration System: SyncbizTM (2002 Samsung Best solution award) • Developed embedded framework for IP-Set top box: LivingWiseTM (fed into Korea Telecommunication’s IP-STB services) Kim, 4 of 9 • Ubiquitous Home network framework: NEXTM (framework fed into U-City projects at Samsung SDS): Remote Management system in the home server for U-City.

Selected publications

List of selected publications:

• [WACV22] A Abdelhamed, J Yim, A Punnappurath, MS Brown, J Choe, K Kim, Extracting Vignetting and Grain Filter Effects From Photos, In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, WACV 2022
• [NeurIPS20] X. Li, S. Liu, K.Kim, S. De melo, X. Wang, M. Yang, J. Kautz, Online Adaptation for Consistent Mesh Reconstruction in the Wild, In Proceeding of 2020 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NeurIPS 2020
• [ECCV20a] W. Yuan, B. Eckart, K.Kim, V. Jampani, D. Fox, J. Kautz, DeepGMR: Learning Latent Gaussian Mixture Models for Registration, In Proceeding of 2020 European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2020
• [ECCV20b] X. Li, S. Liu, K.Kim, S. De melo, V. Jampani, M. Yang, J. Kautz, Self-supervised Single-view 3D Reconstruction via Semantic Consistency, In Proceeding of 2018 European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2020
• [CVPR20a] J. Yoon, K. Kim, O. Gallo, H. Park, J. Kautz, Novel View Synthesis of Dynamic Scenes with Globally Coherent Depths, In Proceeding of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2020
• [CVPR20b] M. Boss, V. Jampani, K. Kim, H. Lensch, J. Kautz, Two-shot Spatially varying BRDF and Shape Estimation, In Proceeding of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2020
• [CVPR20c] A. Badki, O. Gallo, A. Troccoli, K. Kim, P. Sen, J. Kautz, Bi3D: Stereo Depth Estimation via Binary Classifications, In Proceeding of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2020
• [WACV20] M. Innmann, K.Kim, J. Gu, M. Nießner, C. Loop, M. Stamminger, J.Kautz, NR-MVS: Non-Rigid Multi-view Stereo. In Proceeding of 2020 IEEE Winter Conference on Applications on Computer Vision, WACV 2020 (Oral)
• [ICCV19] S.Sengupta, J. Gu, K.Kim, G.Liu, D. Jacobs, J.Kautz, Neural Inverse Rendering of an Indoor Scene from a Single Image. In Proceeding of 2019 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, ICCV 2019
• [CVPR19a] C.Liu, K.Kim, J.Gu, Y. Furukawa, J.Kautz, PlaneRCNN: 3D Plane Detection and Reconstruction from a Single View, In Proceeding of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2019 (Oral)
• [CVPR19b] C.Liu, J.Gu, K.Kim, S. Narasimhan, J.Kautz, Neural RGB→D Sensing: Depth and Uncertainty from a Video Camera, In Proceeding of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2019. (Oral) *Best paper finalist
• [CVPR19c] A. Ranjan, V. Jampani, K.Kim, D.Sun, L.Balles, J.Wulff, M.Black, Competitive Collaboration: Joint Unsupervised Learning of Depth, Camera Motion, Optical Flow and Motion Segmentation. In Proceeding of 2019 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2019
• [CVPR19d] X. Li, S. Liu, K.Kim, X. Wang, M. Wang, J. Kautz, Putting Humans in a Scene: Learning Affordance in 3D Indoor Environments. In Proceeding of 2019 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2019
• [ECCV18a] Z. Lv, K. Kim, A. Troccoli, D. Sun, J. Rehg, J. Kautz, Learning Rigidity in Dynamic Scenes with a Moving Camera for 3D Motion Field Estimation , In Proceeding of 2018 European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2018
• [ECCV18b] B. Eckart, K. Kim, J. Kautz, Fast and Accurate Point Cloud Registration using Trees of Gaussian Mixtures , In Proceeding of 2018 European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2018
• [CVPR18] S. Brahmbhatt, J. Gu, K. Kim, J. Hays, J. Kautz, Geometry-Aware Learning of Maps for Camera Localization (MapNet) , In Proceeding of 2018 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2018 (Oral)
• [ICCV17a] K. Kim, J. Gu, S. Tyree, P. Molchanov, M. Nießner, J. Kautz, A Lightweight Approach for On-the-Fly Reflectance Estimation, In Proceeding of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, ICCV 2017 (Oral)
• [ICCV17b] R. Maier, K. Kim, M. Nießner, D. Cremers, J. Kautz, Intrinsic3D: High-Quality 3D Reconstruction by Joint Appearance and Geometry Optimization with Spatially-Varying Lighting, In Proceeding of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, ICCV 2017
• [3DV17] V. Golyanik, K. Kim, R. Maier, M. Nießner, J. Kautz, Multiframe Scene Flow with Piecewise Rigid Motion, In Proceeding of 2017 IEEE International Conference on 3D Vision, 3DV 2017 (Oral)
• [CVPR16a] B. Eckart, K. Kim, A. Troccoli, A. Kelly, J. Kautz, Accelerated Generative Models for 3D Point Cloud Data, In Proceeding of 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2016 (Oral)
• [CVPR16b] P. Molchanov, X. Yang, S. Gupta, K. Kim, S. Tyree, J. Kautz, Online Detection and Classification of Dynamic Hand Gestures with Recurrent 3D Convolutional Neural Networks, In Proceeding of 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 2016
• [IV16] S. Gupta, P. Molchanov, X. Yang, K. Kim, S. Tyree, J. Kautz, Towards Selecting Robust Hand Gestures for Automotive Interfaces, In Proceeding of 2016 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, IV 2016 (Oral)
• [3DV15] B. Eckart, K. Kim, A. Troccoli, A. Kelly, J. Kautz, MLMD: Maximum Likelihood Mixture Decoupling for Fast and Accurate Point Cloud Registration, In IEEE 3D Vision, 3DV2015 (Oral)
• [EGSR15] S. U. Mehta, K. Kim, D. Pajak, K. Pulli, J. Kautz, R. Ramamoorthi, Filtering Environment Illumination for Interactive Physically-Based Rendering in Mixed Reality, In Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, EGSR 2015 (Oral)
• [CVPRW15] P. Molchanov, S. Gupta, K. Kim, J. Kautz, Hand Gesture Recognition with 3D Convolutional Neural Networks, In IEEE CVPR 2015 Workshop on Hand Gesture Recognition
• [FG15] P. Molchanov, S. Gupta, K. Kim, K. Pulli, Multi-sensor System for Driver’s Hand-Gesture Recognition, In IEEE Automatic Face and Gesture recognition, FG2015 (Oral)
• [RADAR15] P. Molchanov, S. Gupta, K. Kim, K. Pulli, Short-Range FMCW Monopulse Radar for Hand-Gesture Sensing, In IEEE International Radar Conference 2015
• [3DV14] D. Herrera, K. Kim, J. Kannala, K. Pulli, and J. Heikkila , DT-SLAM: Deferred Triangulation for Robust SLAM, In IEEE 3D Vision, 3DV2015
• [SIGGRAPHA13] J. Baek, D. Pajak, K. Kim, K. Pulli, and M. Levoy, WYSIWYG Computational Photography via Viewfinder Editing, In ACM Transactions on Graphics, SIGGRAPH Asia 2013
• [CVPR12] K. Kim, D. Lee, and I. Essa, Detecting Regions of Interest in Dynamic Scenes with Camera Motions, In Proceeding of 2012 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
• [ICCV11] K. Kim, D. Lee, and I. Essa, Gaussian Process Regression Flow for Analysis of Motion Trajectories, In Proceeding of 2011 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision
• [CVPR10a] K. Kim, M. Grundmann, A. Shamir, I. Matthews, J. Hodgins, and I. Essa, Motion Fields to Predict Play Evolution in Dynamic Sports Scenes, In Proceeding of 2010 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
• [CVPR10b] R. Hamid, R. Kumar, M. Grundmann, K. Kim, I. Essa and J. Hodgins, Player Localization Using Multiple Static Cameras for Sports Visualization, In Proceeding of 2010 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
• [ISMAR09] K. Kim, S. Oh, J. Lee and I. Essa, Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps with Dynamic Information, In Proceeding of 2009 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality
• [ISWC08] K. Kim, J. Summet, T. Starner, D. Ashbrook, M. Kapade and I. Essa, Localization and 3D Reconstruction of Urban Scenes Using GPS, In Proceeding of 2008 IEEE International Conference on Wearable Computers
• [ACMMM06] K. Kim, I. Essa and G. D. Abowd, Interactive Mosaic Generation for Video Navigation, In Proceeding of 2006 ACM International Conference on Multimedia
• [TOG13] J. Baek, D. Pajak, K. Kim, K. Pulli, and M. Levoy, WYSIWYG Computational Photography via Viewfinder Editing, In ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 32.
• [VR11] K. Kim, S. Oh, J. Lee and I. Essa, Augmenting Aerial Earthmaps with Dynamic Information from Videos , In Virtual Reality Journal [Special issue on Augmented Reality], Springer London, 2011 (VR)
• [JGT08] B. Kim, K. Kim and G. Turk, A Shadow Volume Algorithm for Opaque and Transparent Non-Manifold Casters, In Journal of Graphics Tools, A.K. Peters, 2008