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About

Takuya Funatomi is a leading researcher in computational imaging and 3D vision, whose work bridges the gap between physical fabrication and intelligent perception. His most impactful contribution is a pioneering blind watermarking algorithm for 3D-printed objects, which embeds metadata by locally modifying layer thickness during FDM printing. This method, published in 2019 and garnering 39 citations, has transformative applications in counterfeit prevention, robotic grasping, and forensic crime investigation. Funatomi has also made significant advances in active illumination systems, developing "slope disparity gating" techniques that enable selective imaging of photons from specific surface geometries at a distance. This work, detailed in multiple papers, holds promise for robotics, autonomous vehicles, and surveillance. Additionally, he has contributed to light-field camera pose estimation for planar objects and introduced a novel material segmentation method using 1D convolutional neural networks on transient histograms from SPAD sensors. With a research portfolio spanning watermarking, disparity gating, and material classification, Funatomi’s work consistently pushes the boundaries of how machines perceive and interact with the physical world, making him a notable figure in computer vision and 3D printing technologies.