Dr. Naokazu Yokoya graduated from the School of Engineering Science Direct Affiliates at Osaka University in 1974 and completed a doctoral course in Physics and Information Engineering in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University in 1979. He joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory in the same year. From 1983, he served as a senior researcher at the Electrotechnical Laboratory, and in 1986, he became a visiting professor at McGill University before being appointed professor at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in 1993, where he promoted leading research both in Japan and abroad in the three fields of computer vision, virtual reality, and mixed reality, as well as their interdisciplinary areas. Furthermore, from FY2017 to FY2020, he served as the President of the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, where he worked hard to establish a flexible research and education system without organizational barriers by integrating existing graduate schools.

He started his research in the field of image processing and computer vision in the 1970s and has achieved remarkable results, especially in 3D object recognition based on differential geometry features and computer vision algorithms suitable for massively parallel computing based on the optimization principle. After moving to the university, he was among the first to focus on mixed reality, which emerged at the boundary between computer vision and virtual reality. He devoted himself to research and education on augmented reality systems and telepresence, making significant contributions to establishing a leadership role for Japan in this new technological field.

In the field of computer vision, he was one of the first to focus on 3D shape data processing and has proposed many algorithms that form the basis of technologies for the segmentation and synthesis of 3D point cloud data acquired by distance sensors such as LiDAR, which is now widely used. He has also made many research achievements that will serve as the basis of 3D shape acquisition technology for large-scale outdoor environments such as buildings and terrain. For example, he already achieved excellent research results more than 20 years ago in technology for the construction of 3D images of outdoor environments from hundreds of viewpoints, a precursor to the photogrammetry software widely used today.

He has also conducted numerous research results utilizing such 3D computer vision technologies in mixed reality, presenting a seamless fusion of cyberspace and physical space. In addition to both sides, he has achieved world-leading research in methods for realizing the photometric consistency caused by the reflective properties of illumination and object surfaces.

For these research achievements, he has been awarded the title of Fellow of the IEICE, the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), and the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), respectively. He has also received the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award from the IEICE, the Tateisi Prize for Distinguished Achievement, the Best Paper Award from IPSJ (twice), and the ICIP 2013 Open Paper Award. He has also served as President and Vice President of IEICE-ISS, Chair of the PRMU Technical Committee of IEICE-ISS, Chair of SIG-CVIM of IPSJ, Director of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ), and Chair of SIG-Mixed Reality of VRSJ, and, through such activities, has worked to invigorate related fields, including IEICE. He has also demonstrated international leadership by serving as the General Chair of ISMAR 2003 and the Program Chair of ICCV 2009.

As mentioned above, his achievements in the field of electronic information and communication, especially in the fields of computer vision and mixed reality/virtual reality, are extremely remarkable, and we recommend him as the IEICE's Honorary Member.