Richard Zanibbi Headshot

Richard Zanibbi

Professor
Department of Computer Science
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
rxzvcs@rit.edu
585-475-5023
Office Hours
Tuesday 3:15-4:45pm Thursday 3:15-3:45pm Friday 2-3pm
Office Location
GOL-3551
Office Mailing Address
Dept. Computer Science Rochester Institute of Technology 102 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5608

Richard Zanibbi

Professor
Department of Computer Science
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Education

BMusic; BA (minor) in Computer Science; MS in Computer Science; Ph.D. in Computer Science, Queen's University (Canada)

Bio

I am a Professor of Computer Science at RIT. My research interests include pattern recognition and machine learning, with applications in document recognition and information retrieval. Recently I've worked on math-aware search engines and interfaces, recognizing math notation, locating text in pictures, and audio-visual search in lecture videos. 

I direct the Document and Pattern Recognition Lab (dprl) and am affiliated with the Artificial Intelligence Cluster in the Computer Science Department. I am on the Editorial Board of the International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR), and am a member of the IEEE Computer Society, ACM, and International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR). I served as the Communications Officer for IAPR Technical Committee No. 11 ('Reading Systems') during 2017-2018, and recently Co-Chaired the International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR 2018).

rxzvcs@rit.edu
585-475-5023
Personal Links
Personal Website
Curriculum Vitae
Areas of Expertise
Artificial Intelligence
Document Recognition
Human-Computer Interaction
Information Retrieval

Currently Teaching

CSCI-539
Seminar in Intelligent Systems
3 Credits
This course examines current topics in Intelligent Systems. This is intended to allow faculty to pilot potential new undergraduate offerings. Specific course details (such as prerequisites, course seminar, format, learning outcomes, assessment methods, and resource needs) will be determined by the faculty member(s) who propose a specific seminar course in this area. Specific course instances will be identified as belonging to the Intelligent Systems cluster, the Computational Vision and Acoustics cluster, the Security cluster, or some combination of these three clusters.
CSCI-737
Pattern Recognition
3 Credits
An introduction to pattern classification and structural pattern recognition. Topics include Bayesian decision theory, evaluation, clustering, feature selection, classification methods (including linear classifiers, nearest-neighbor rules, support vector machines, and neural networks), classifier combination, and recognizing structures (e.g. using HMMs and SCFGs). Students will present current research papers and complete programming projects such as optical character recognizers. Offered every other year.
IMGS-890
Research & Thesis
1 - 6 Credits
Doctoral-level research by the candidate on an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.
IMGS-799
Imaging Science Independent Study
1 - 4 Credits
This course is a faculty-directed tutorial of appropriate topics that are not part of the formal curriculum. The level of study is appropriate for student in their graduate studies.
IMGS-699
Imaging Science Graduate Co-op
0 Credits
This course is a cooperative education experience for graduate imaging science students.

In the News

  • June 23, 2020

    screenshot of program that searches math formulas.

    RIT researchers create easy-to-use math-aware search interface

    Researchers at RIT have developed MathDeck, an online search interface that allows anyone to easily create, edit and lookup sophisticated math formulas on the computer. Created by an interdisciplinary team of more than a dozen faculty and students, MathDeck aims to make math notation interactive and easily shareable, and it's is free and open to the public.

More News

Select Scholarship

Journal Paper
Davila, Kenny and Richard Zanibbi. "Visual Search Engine for Handwritten and Typeset Math in Lecture Videos and LaTeX Notes." Proc. International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR, *Best Paper Award). (2018): 50-55. Web.
Kanadje, Manish, et al. "Assisted Keyword Indexing for Lecture Videos Using Unsupervised Keyword Spotting." Pattern Recognition Letters 71. 1 (2016): 8-15. Print.
Riedl, Christoph, et al. "Detecting Figures and Part Labels in Patents: Competition-based Development of Graphics Recognition Algorithms." Int'l J. Document Analysis and Recognition 19. 2 (2016): 155-172. Print.
Mouchere, Harold, et al. "Advancing the State-of-the-Art for Handwritten Math Recognition: The CROHME Competitions, 2011-2014." Int'l J. Document Analysis and Recognition 19. 2 (2016): 173-189. Print.
Hu, Lei and Richard Zanibbi. "MST-based Visual Parsing of Online Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Int'l Conf. Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition. (2016): 337-342. Print.
Hu, Lei and Richard Zanibbi. "Line-of-sight Stroke Graphs and Parzen Shape Context features for Handwritten Math Formula Representation and Symbol Segmentation." Int'l Conf. Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition. (2016): 180-186. Print.
Mouchere, Harold, et al. "ICFHR 2016 CROHME: Competition on Recognition of Online Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Int\'l Conf. Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition. (2016): 607-612. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard, et al. "Multi-stage Math Formula Search: Using Appearance-based Similarity Metrics at Scale." Proc. ACM SIGIR. (2016): 145-154. Print.
Zhu, Siyu and Richard Zanibbi. "A Text Detection System for Natural Scenes with Convolutional Feature Learning and Cascaded Classification." Proc. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). (2016): 625-632. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard, et al. "NTCIR-12 MathIR task overview." Proc. NTCIR-12. (2016): 299-308. Web.
Chatbri, Houssem, et al. "Shape Matching using Keypoints Extracted from both the Foreground and the Background of Binary Images." Proc. Int'l Conf. Image Processing, Theory, Tools and Applications. (2015): 205--210. Print.
Stalker, David and Zanibbi, Richard. "Math Expression Retrieval Using an Inverted Index Over Symbol Pairs." Proc. Document Recognition and Retrieval (Proc. SPIE) 9402. (2015): 940207(1-12). Print.
Kanadje, Manish, et al. "Assisted Keyword Indexing for Lecture Videos using Unsupervised Keyword Spotting." Pattern Recognition Letters 71. 1 (2016): 8-15. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Dorothea Blostein. "Recognition and Retrieval of Mathematical Expressions." International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition 15. 4 (2012): 331-357. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Dorothea Blostein. "Recognition and Retrieval of Mathematical Notation." International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition 15. 4 (2012): 331-357. Print.
Heliotis, James and Richard Zanibbi. "Moving Away from Programming and Towards Computer Science in the CS First Year." Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges 26. 3 (2011): 115-125. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Dorothea Blostein. "Recognition and Retrieval of Mathematical Expressions." International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. (2011): 1-28. Web.
Published Conference Proceedings
Coüasnon, Bertrand, Ashok Popat, and Richard Zanibbi. "Discussion Group Summary: Graphics Syntax in the Deep Learning Age." Proceedings of the 12th IAPR International Workshop on Graphics Recognition. Ed. Alicia Fornés and Bart Lamiroy. Kyoto, Japan: n.p., 2018. Print.
Pacha, Alexander, et al. "Handwritten Music Object Detection: Open Issues and Baseline Results." Proceedings of the Proc. IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS). Ed. Basilis Gatos, Koichi Kise, Dan Lopresti, and Jean-Marc Ogier. Vienna, Austria: n.p., 2018. Web.
Bigelow, Charles and Zanibbi, Richard. "Analysis Of Typographical Trends In European Printing 1470-1660." Proceedings of the Conf. of the American Printing History Association. Ed. American Printing History Associate. Rochester, NY: n.p., 2015. Web.
Pattaniyil, Nidhin and Richard Zanibbi. "Combining TF-IDF Text Retrieval with an Inverted Index over Symbol Pairs in Math Expressions: The Tangent Math Search Engine at NTCIR 2014." Proceedings of the Proc. 11th NII Testbeds and Community for Information access Research (NTCIR), Dec. 2014, Tokyo. Ed. Noriko Kando, Hideo Joho, and Kazuaki Kishida. Tokyo, Japan: n.p., 2014. Web.
Davila, Kenny M., Stephanie Ludi, and Richard Zanibbi. "Using Off-line Features and Synthetic data for On-line Handwritten Math Symbol Recognition." Proceedings of the International Conference on the Frontiers of Handwriting Recognition (ICHFR), Sept. 2014, Crete, Greece). Ed. Josep Llados, R. Manmatha, and Chew Lim Tan. New York, USA: n.p., 2014. Print.
Mouchere, Harold, et al. "ICFHR 2014 Competition on Recognition of On-line Handwritten Mathematical Expressions (CROHME 2014)." Proceedings of the International Conference on the Frontiers of Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR), Sept. 2014, Crete, Greece. Ed. Josep Llados, R. Manmatha, and Chew Lim Tan. New York, USA: IEEE, 2014. Print.
Reichenbach, Matthias, Anurag Agarwal, and Richard Zanibbi. "Rendering Expressions to Improve Accuracy of Relevance Assessment for Math Search." Proceedings of the ACM SIGIR (July 2014, Gold Coast, Australia). Ed. Peter Bruza, Charles L.A. Clarke, and Kal Jarvelin. New York, USA: ACM, 2014. Print.
Wangari, Keita, Richard Zanibbi, and Anurag Agarwal. "Discovering Real-World Use Cases for a Multimodal Math Search Interface." Proceedings of the ACM SIGIR (July 2014, Gold Coast, Australia). Ed. Peter Bruza, Charles L.A. Clarke, and Kal Jarvelin. New York, USA: ACM, 2014. Print.
Augereau, Olivier and Daniel Walker. "Edited Collection." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XX. Ed. Richard Zanibbi and Bertrand Couasnon (Eds.). San Francisco, CA: SPIE, 2013. Print.
Castellanos, K.D., et al. "AccessMath: Indexing and Retrieving Video Segments Containing Math Expressions Based on Visual Similarity." Proceedings of the IEEE Western New York Image Processing Workshop. Ed. N. Cahill. Rochester, NY: n.p., 2013. Web.
Alvaro, F. and R. Zanibbi. "A Shape-Based Layout Descriptor for Classifying Spatial Relationships in Handwritten Math." Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering. Ed. S. Marinai. Florence, Italy: n.p., 2013. Print.
Mouchere, H., et al. "ICDAR 2013 CROHME: Third International Competition on Recognition of Online Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the Int. Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. D. Doermann. Washington, DC: n.p., 2013. Print.
Zhu, S. and R. Zanibbi. "Label Detection and Recognition for USPTO Images Using Convolutional K-means Feature Quantization and AdaBoost." Proceedings of the Int. Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. D. Doermann. Washington, DC: n.p., 2013. Print.
Hu, L. and R. Zanibbi. "Segmenting Handwritten Math Symbols Using AdaBoost and Multi-Scale Shape Context Features." Proceedings of the Int. Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. D. Doermann et al. Washington, NY: n.p., 2013. Print.
Zanibbi, R., H. Mouchere, and C. Viard-Gaudin. "Evaluating Structural Pattern Recognition for Handwritten Math via Primitive Label Graphs." Proceedings of the SPIE Document Recognition and Retrieval XX. Ed. R. Zanibbi and B. Couasnon. San Francisco, CA: n.p., 2013. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Bertrand Cousanon. "Proceedings of Document Recognition and Retrieval XX." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XX. San Francisco, CA: n.p., 2013. Print.
Zhu, S., L. Hu, and R. Zanibbi. "Rotation-robust Math Symbol Recognition and Retrieval Using Outer Contours and Image Subsampling." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XX. Ed. R. Zanibbi and B. Couasnon. San Francisco, CA: SPIE, 2013. Print.
Cheng, Beibei, et al. "Proceedings of SPIE Volume 8297." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XIX. Ed. Christian Viard-Gaudin and Richard Zanibbi. San Francisco, CA: SPIE, 2012. Print.
Sasarak, Christopher, et al. "Min: A Multimodal Web Interface for Math Search." Proceedings of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval. Ed. Robert Capra, et al. Cambridge, MA: ACM, 2012. Web.
Hu, Lei, et al. "Baseline Extraction-driven Parsing of Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition. Ed. A. Del Bimbo, K.L. Boyer and K. Ikeuchi. Tsukuba Science City, Japan, NY: IEEE, 2012. Print.
LiVolsi, Robert, Richard Zanibbi, and Charles Bigelow. "Collecting Historical Font Metrics from Google Books." Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition. Ed. A. Del Bimbo, K.L. Boyer, and K. Ikeuchi. Tsukuba Science City, Japan, NY: IEEE, 2012. Print.
Schellenberg, Thomas, Bo Yuan, and Richard Zanibbi. "Layout-Based Substitution Tree Indexing and Retrieval for Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XIX. Ed. Christian Viard-Gaudin and Richard Zanibbi. San Francisco, CA: SPIE, 2012. Print.
Viard-Gaudin, C and Richard Zanibbi. "Proceedings of SPIE Document Recognition and Retrieval XIX (2011) (editors)." Proceedings of the SPIE EI/DRR. San Francisco, CA: n.p., 2012. Print.
Hu, L, et al. "Baseline Extraction-Driven Parsing of Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition. Tsukuba Science City, Japan: n.p., 2012. Print.
Sasarak, C, et al. "Min: A Multimodal Web Interface for Math Search." Proceedings of the HCIR 2012. Cambridge, MA: n.p., 2012. Print.
Schellenberg, Thomas and Richard Zanibbi. "Layout-Based Substitution Tree Indexing and Retrieval for Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the SPIE. San Francisco, CA: n.p., 2012. Print.
LiVolsi, R, Richard Zanibbi, and C Bigelow. "Collecting Historical Font Metrics from Google Books." Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition. Tsukuba Science City, Japan: n.p., 2012. Print.
Hu, Lei and Richard Zanibbi. "HMM-Based Recognition of Online Handwritten Mathematical Symbols Using Segmental K-means Initialization and a Modified Pen-up/down Feature." Proceedings of the International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. Chew Lin Tan, Daniel Lopresti, and Thomas Breuel. Beijing, China: IEEE Computer Society, 2011. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Li Yu. "Math Spotting: Retrieving Math in Technical Documents Using Handwritten Query Images." Proceedings of the International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. Chew Lin Tan, Daniel Lopresti, and Thomas Breuel. Beijing, China: IEEE Computer Society, 2011. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard, et al. "Stroke-Based Performance Metrics for Handwritten Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Ed. Chew Lin Tan, Daniel Lopresti, and Thomas Breuel. Beijing, China: IEEE Computer Society, 2011. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard and Bo Yuan. "Keyword and Image-Based Retrieval for Mathematical Expressions." Proceedings of the Document Recognition and Retrieval XVIII. Ed. Gady Agam and Christian Viard-Gaudin. San Francisco, CA: SPIE, 2011. Print.
Journal Editor
Kise, Koichi, Daniel Lopresti, and Simone Marinai, ed. International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. Berlin: Springer, 2018. Print.
Mirmehdi, Majid, ed. IET Computer Vision. London, England: n.p., 2018. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard, ed. IET Computer Vision. London, UK: IET, 2016. Print.
Zanibbi, Richard, ed. Int'l J. Document Analysis and Recognition. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2016. Print.
(Associate-Editor), Richard Zanibbi, ed. International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. Berlin: Springer, 2015. Print.
Peer Reviewed/Juried Poster Presentation
Mahdavi, Mahshad, Michael Condon, and Richard Zanibbi. "Applying Hierarchical Contextual Parsing to Isolated Typeset Math Formulas." Proceedings of the Western New York Image and Signal Processing Conference (WNYIP). Ed. Ray Ptucha et al. Rochester, NY: n.p..
Invited Keynote/Presentation
Zanibbi, Richard. "Visual Search Engine for Math in Lecture Videos and LaTeX Notes." Western New York Image and Signal Processing Conference (WNYIP). IEEE. Rochester, NY. 5 Oct. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Zanibbi, Richard. "Math Search for the Masses: Multimodal Search Interfaces and Appearance-Based Retrieval." Conference on Intelligent Computer Mathematics (CICM). CICM Conference. Washington, DC. 14 Jul. 2015. Keynote Speech.
Zanibbi, Richard. "Creating User-Friendly Math Search Engines." University of Waterloo HCI Seminar Series. University of Waterloo, Canada. Waterloo, ON. 26 Sep. 2014. Guest Lecture.
Zanibbi, Richard. "Creating User-Friendly Math Search Engines." Image and Document Processing: Recognition and Interaction Seminar. IUT Nantes (Univ. Nantes). Nantes, France. 30 Jun. 2014. Guest Lecture.
Zanibbi, Richard. "Recent Developments in Math Recognition and Retrieval." Invited Talk, Dept. Computer Science. Lehigh University. Bethlehem, PA. 14 Mar. 2012. Guest Lecture.
LiVolsi, Robert, Charles Bigelow, and Richard Zanibbi. "Google Books, Readability, and Culturomics." Reading Digital Symposium. RIT. Rochester, NY. 28 Apr. 2012. Conference Presentation.
Invited Paper
Davila, Kenny, et al. "Tangent-3 at the NTCIR-12 MathIR Task." Proc. NTCIR-12. (2016). Web.
Zanibbi, Richard and Orakwue, Awelemdy. "Math Search for the Masses: Multimodal Search Interfaces and Appearance-Based Retrieval." Intelligent Computer Mathematics (Proc. CICM). (2015). Print.
National/International Competition Award Winner
Hu, Lei and Richard Zanibbi. International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR). IAPR Int'l. Conf. Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition: 2016 Best Poster Award. Shenzhen, China, 2016.
Pattaniyil, Nidhin, David Stalnaker, and Richard Zanibbi. NTCIR-11 Math-2 Math Search Task/Competition. Highest Precision@5 Search Result Ranking; Best Formula Retrieval (1st round). Tokyo, Japan, 2014.
Published Game, Application or Software
Davila, Kenny, et al. Tangent 0.3.1. Software. Publicly released prototype (available online). 2016.
Stalnaker, David and Nidhin Pattaniyil. Tangent Math Search Engine (versions 0.1 and 0.2). Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Pospesel, Richard, et al. DPRL Lab CROHME Handwritten Math Competition Entires, 2011-2014. Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Hu, Lei and Richard Zanibbi. HMM-based Handwritten Math Symbol Recognizer. Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Davila, Kenny. Offline Featured-Based Classifier (SVM/Random Forest) for Handwritten Math Symbols. Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Zhu, Siyu and Lei Hu. Image-based Classifier for Typeset Math Symbols. Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Pospesel, Richard, et al. MIN (Multimodal Math Search Interface). Software. (DPRL Lab: Open Source). 2014.
Book Chapter
Blostein, Dorothea and Richard Zanibbi. "Processing Mathematical Notation." Handbook of Document Image Processing and Recognition. Ed. David Doermann and Karl Tombre. London, UK: Springer-Verlag, 2014. 679-702. Print.
Zanibbi, R and Dorothea Blostein. "Processing Mathematical Notation." Handbook of Document Image Processing and Recognition. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 2014. Print.
External Scholarly Fellowships/National Review Committee
6/15/2014 - 7/5/2014
     University of Nantes, France (Travel Expenses for Visiting Research Professor Appointment)
     Amount: 0
10/1/2014 - 10/30/2014
     University of Waterloo Canada (Travel Expenses for Visiting Research Professor Appointment)
     Amount: 0