Baptiste Wicht

Baptiste Wicht, PhD. in Computer Science
Function/Title
Ph.D in Computer Science, Scientific collaborator HEIA-FR
Main Skills
languages:
  • C
  • C++
  • Java Technologies
technologies:
  • Latex
  • Bash
  • ZSH
  • Git
  • Subversion
OSs:
  • Linux
  • Ubuntu
  • Gentoo
  • Win 7
  • Win XP
  • Win Vista
other:
  • Machine Learning
  • Performance benchmarking
  • Profiling
I’m Baptiste Wicht, from Switzerland, now 28 years old. I’m currently a Ph.D student in Computer Science at the University of applied sciences in Fribourg, principally in Machine Learning. Currently, I’m mainly developing high performance applications in C++.

I’ve started programming in 2004, when doing my computer science apprentice ship. For a few years, I programmed a lot in Java and become involved in the french Developpez.com community, for which I was a writer and moderator on the forums and finally a Java Community Leader for the complete Java community on Developpez.com.

Later, in 2011, I find the holy Grail of the programming languages when I started to work with C++ for my Bachelor’s Thesis project and since this time I’ve only been writing in C++. I’ve even written my own compiler and my own operating system. For more information on my projects, you can have a look at the list of my projects below or at my Github account. I’m also teaching an advanced C++ course for Bachelor students.

For my Ph.D., I’ve been working on Machine Learning experiments. For this, I’ve developed an entire machine learning framework with highly-optimized kernels for CPU and a prototype version for GPU. The framework mainly focuses on neural networks, convolutional neural networks and Restricted Boltzmann Machines.

As for my other interests, I’m a fan of Linux and especially Gentoo. Recently, I’ve become also quite interested in home automation technologies and I’ve started testing a few devices in my apartment.

  • Ph.D in Computer Science
    2013-Now
    University of Fribourg
  • Master of Science, Computer Science
    2011-2013
    HES-SO
  • Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
    2008-2011
    University of applied Sciences, Fribourg
  • Scientific Collaborator
    2013-Now
    EIA-FR, Fribourg
  • Software Engineer
    2011-2012
    EIA-FR, Fribourg, CH
  • Apprentice in Computer Science
    2004-2008
    SITEL, Fribourg, CH
  • DLL – C++ Library for Deep Learning
    Generic implementations of Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM), Deep Belief Network and Convolution RBM.
  • ETL – C++ Library for Matrix and Vector Math computations.
    Expression Templates library for matrix and vector computations. Matrix Multiplication, Con- volutions, Fast Fourier Transform, …
  • Thor – Development of a new operating system
    Study of operating system theory. Written in assembly and C++.
  • EDDI – Development of a new programming language.
    Study of compiler theory. Written in C++ with advanced Boost libraries. Aims to be an aggressive optimizer. Generates Intel X86 Assembly.
  • [PDF] [DOI] N. R. Howe, A. Fischer, and B. Wicht, “Inkball Models as Features for Handwriting Recognition,” in 2016 15th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR), 2016, pp. 96-101.
    [Bibtex]
    @INPROCEEDINGS{2016howeicfhr,
    author={N. R. Howe and A. Fischer and B. Wicht},
    booktitle={2016 15th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR)},
    title={Inkball Models as Features for Handwriting Recognition},
    year={2016},
    pages={96-101},
    abstract={Inkball models provide a tool for matching and comparison of spatially structured markings such as handwritten characters and words. Hidden Markov models offer a framework for decoding a stream of text in terms of the most likely sequence of causal states. Prior work with HMM has relied on observation of features that are correlated with underlying characters, without modeling them directly. This paper proposes to use the results of inkball-based character matching as a feature set input directly to the HMM. Experiments indicate that this technique outperforms other tested methods at handwritten word recognition on a common benchmark when applied without normalization or text deslanting.},
    keywords={Computational modeling;Handwriting recognition;Hidden Markov models;Mathematical model;Prototypes;Skeleton;Two dimensional displays;Handwriting recognition;Hidden Markov models;Image processing;Pattern recognition},
    doi={10.1109/ICFHR.2016.0030},
    ISSN={2167-6445},
    month={Oct},}
  • B. Wicht, A. Fischer, and J. Hennebert, “Deep Learning Features for Handwritten Keyword Spotting,” in 23rd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 2016, pp. 3423-3428.
    [Bibtex]
    @conference{wicht:icpr2016,
    author = "Baptiste Wicht and Andreas Fischer and Jean Hennebert",
    abstract = "Deep learning had a significant impact on diverse pattern recognition tasks in the recent past. In this paper, we investigate its potential for keyword spotting in handwritten documents by designing a novel feature extraction system based on Convolutional Deep Belief Networks. Sliding window features are learned from word images in an unsupervised manner. The proposed features are evaluated both for template-based word spotting with Dynamic Time Warping and for learning-based word spotting with Hidden Markov Models. In an experimental evaluation on three benchmark data sets with historical and modern handwriting, it is shown that the proposed learned features outperform three standard sets of handcrafted features.",
    booktitle = "23rd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR)",
    editor = "IEEE",
    keywords = "Handwriting Recognition, Deep learning, Artificial neural networks, keyword spotting",
    month = "December",
    note = "Some of the files below are copyrighted. They are provided for your convenience, yet you may download them only if you are entitled to do so by your arrangements with the various publishers.",
    pages = "3423-3428",
    title = "{D}eep {L}earning {F}eatures for {H}andwritten {K}eyword {S}potting",
    url = "http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/icpr-2016-deep-learning-features-for-handwritten-keyword-spotting.pdf",
    year = "2016",
    }
  • [DOI] B. Wicht, A. Fischer, and J. Hennebert, “On CPU Performance Optimization of Restricted Boltzmann Machine and Convolutional RBM,” in Artificial Neural Networks in Pattern Recognition: 7th IAPR TC3 Workshop, ANNPR 2016, Ulm, Germany, September 28–30, 2016, Proceedings, F. Schwenker, H. M. Abbas, N. El Gayar, and E. Trentin, Eds., Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016, p. 163–174.
    [Bibtex]
    @inbook{wicht:2016annpr,
    author = "Baptiste Wicht and Andreas Fischer and Jean Hennebert",
    address = "Cham",
    booktitle = "Artificial Neural Networks in Pattern Recognition: 7th IAPR TC3 Workshop, ANNPR 2016, Ulm, Germany, September 28--30, 2016, Proceedings",
    doi = "10.1007/978-3-319-46182-3_14",
    editor = "Schwenker, Friedhelm
    and Abbas, M. Hazem
    and El Gayar, Neamat
    and Trentin, Edmondo",
    isbn = "978-3-319-46182-3",
    pages = "163--174",
    publisher = "Springer International Publishing",
    title = "{O}n {CPU} {P}erformance {O}ptimization of {R}estricted {B}oltzmann {M}achine and {C}onvolutional {RBM}",
    url = "http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46182-3_14",
    year = "2016",
    }
  • [DOI] B. Wicht, A. Fischer, and J. Hennebert, “Keyword Spotting with Convolutional Deep Belief Networks and Dynamic Time Warping,” in Artificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning – ICANN 2016: 25th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Barcelona, Spain, September 6-9, 2016, Proceedings, Part II, A. E. P. Villa, P. Masulli, and A. J. Pons Rivero, Eds., Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016, p. 113–120.
    [Bibtex]
    @Inbook{wicht:2016icann,
    author="Wicht, Baptiste
    and Fischer, Andreas
    and Hennebert, Jean",
    editor="Villa, Alessandro E.P.
    and Masulli, Paolo
    and Pons Rivero, Antonio Javier",
    title="Keyword Spotting with Convolutional Deep Belief Networks and Dynamic Time Warping",
    bookTitle="Artificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning -- ICANN 2016: 25th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Barcelona, Spain, September 6-9, 2016, Proceedings, Part II",
    year="2016",
    publisher="Springer International Publishing",
    address="Cham",
    pages="113--120",
    isbn="978-3-319-44781-0",
    doi="10.1007/978-3-319-44781-0_14",
    url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44781-0_14"
    }
  • [PDF] [DOI] B. Wicht and J. Henneberty, “Mixed handwritten and printed digit recognition in Sudoku with Convolutional Deep Belief Network,” in 2015 13th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR), 2015, pp. 861-865.
    [Bibtex]
    @INPROCEEDINGS{wicht:icdar2015,
    author={B. Wicht and J. Henneberty},
    booktitle={2015 13th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR)},
    title={Mixed handwritten and printed digit recognition in Sudoku with Convolutional Deep Belief Network},
    year={2015},
    pages={861-865},
    abstract={In this paper, we propose a method to recognize Sudoku puzzles containing both handwritten and printed digits from images taken with a mobile camera. The grid and the digits are detected using various image processing techniques including Hough Transform and Contour Detection. A Convolutional Deep Belief Network is then used to extract high-level features from raw pixels. The features are finally classified using a Support Vector Machine. One of the scientific question addressed here is about the capability of the Deep Belief Network to learn extracting features on mixed inputs, printed and handwritten. The system is thoroughly tested on a set of 200 Sudoku images captured with smartphone cameras under varying conditions, e.g. distortion and shadows. The system shows promising results with 92% of the cells correctly classified. When cell detection errors are not taken into account, the cell recognition accuracy increases to 97.7%. Interestingly, the Deep Belief Network is able to handle the complex conditions often present on images taken with phone cameras and the complexity of mixed printed and handwritten digits.},
    keywords={Hough transforms;belief networks;handwriting recognition;image sensors;mobile computing;support vector machines;Hough Transform;Sudoku;Sudoku images;Sudoku puzzles;contour detection;convolutional deep belief network;handwritten digits;image processing techniques;mixed handwritten recognition;printed digit recognition;printed digits;smartphone cameras;support vector machine;Camera-based OCR;Convolution;Convolutional Deep Belief Network;Text Detection;Text Recognition},
    doi={10.1109/ICDAR.2015.7333884},
    month={Aug},
    Pdf = {http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/icdar-2015-mixed-handwritten-and-printed-digit-recognition-in-sudoku-with-convolutional-deep-belief-network.pdf},
    }
  • [PDF] [DOI] B. Wicht and J. Hennebert, “Camera-based Sudoku Recognition with Deep Belief Network,” in 2014 6th International Conference of Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition (SoCPaR 2014), 2014, pp. 83-88.
    [Bibtex]
    @conference{wicht2014:socpar,
    Abstract = {In this paper, we propose a method to detect and recognize a Sudoku puzzle on images taken from a mobile camera. The lines of the grid are detected with a Hough transform. The grid is then recomposed from the lines. The digits position are extracted from the grid and finally, each character is recognized using a Deep Belief Network (DBN). To test our implementation, we collected and made public a dataset of Sudoku images coming from cell phones. Our method proved successful on our dataset, achieving 87.5% of correct detection on the testing set. Only 0.37% of the cells were incorrectly guessed. The algorithm is capable of handling some alterations of the images, often present on phone-based images, such as distortion, perspective, shadows, illumination gradients or scaling. On average, our solution is able to produce a result from a Sudoku in less than 100ms.},
    Author = {Baptiste Wicht and Jean Hennebert},
    Booktitle = {2014 6th International Conference of Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition (SoCPaR 2014)},
    Doi = {10.1109/SOCPAR.2014.7007986},
    Isbn = {9781479959358},
    Keywords = {Machine Learning, DBN, Deep Belief Network, Image Recognition, Text Detection, Text Recognition},
    Pages = {83-88},
    Publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE )},
    Title = {{C}amera-based {S}udoku {R}ecognition with {D}eep {B}elief {N}etwork},
    Pdf = {http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/socpar-2014-camera-based-sudoku-recognition-with-deep-belief-network.pdf},
    Year = {2014},
    Pdf = {http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/socpar-2014-camera-based-sudoku-recognition-with-deep-belief-network.pdf},
    Bdsk-Url-2 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/SOCPAR.2014.7007986}}