PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Naokazu Yokoya

Also known as 横矢直和

Naokazu Yokoya is a computer vision and mixed reality researcher whose work combines scene depth with virtual and real-world imagery. He completed an engineering doctorate at Osaka University and joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1979, then became a professor at NAIST in 1993. His research later connected stereo-based depth recovery with telepresence, outdoor 3D modeling and video retrieval, and he led NAIST as president from 2017 to 2021. Since 2021, he has been a professor emeritus at NAIST, and as of October 2026, he is an emeritus member of the IEEE ISMAR Steering Committee.

Works
362
Citations
4,583
h-index
33
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1979–1987

    Doctorate and ETL career

    He earns a Doctor of Engineering at Osaka University after graduate study in its Graduate School, Division of Engineering Science, and joins the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) as a researcher in 1979. He becomes a senior researcher there in 1983 and spends 1986–1987 as a visiting professor at McGill University.

  2. 1993–1999

    Professor at NAIST

    He becomes a professor at NAIST in 1993. From 1997 to 1999, as a professor in NAIST's Graduate School of Information Science, he leads a Grant-in-Aid project on merging real and virtual worlds. It uses binocular and motion stereo to recover depth and vision-based registration for video see-through augmented reality.

  3. 2005

    IEICE and IPSJ Fellow

    He becomes an IEICE Fellow and an IPSJ Fellow in 2005.

  4. 2011–2015

    Mixed reality at Nara sites

    From 2011 to 2015, he leads a Grant-in-Aid project as a professor in NAIST's Graduate School of Information Science. The project combines telepresence with augmented reality and real-time diminished reality, which hides unwanted objects in scene images. Public experiments test prototypes at the Heijo Palace site and the grounds of Todaiji Temple in Nara.

  5. 2012–2015

    Outdoor 3D modeling

    From 2012 to 2015, he contributes as a co-investigator from NAIST's Graduate School of Information Science to a Grant-in-Aid project that builds 3D models of outdoor environments from image sequences. The team detects moving objects in point-cloud data by using photometric consistency and road-environment knowledge, then tests the method in outdoor experiments.

  6. 2016

    IAPR Fellow and video retrieval

    In 2016, the IAPR names him a Fellow for contributions to image processing, computer vision, and mixed and augmented reality. He coauthors a paper with Mayu Otani, Yuta Nakashima, Esa Rahtu and Janne Heikkilä on learning joint representations of videos and sentences with web image search. The paper addresses video retrieval from natural-language queries.

  7. 2016–2021

    NAIST vice president and president

    At NAIST, he serves as a vice president and executive director in 2016. He becomes president in 2017 and serves until 2021; in September 2019, he presents degrees at a graduation ceremony, and Kazuhiro Shiozaki succeeds him in 2021.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor emeritus and ISMAR service

    Since 2021, he is a professor emeritus at NAIST, with research in computer vision, virtual reality and mixed reality. In 2026, he is an emeritus member of the IEEE ISMAR Steering Committee.

Career

  1. Since 2021Nara Institute of Science and TechnologyVice President and Executive Director, Professor emeritus
  2. 2004–2007NEC
  3. 1986–1987McGill UniversityVisiting professor
  4. 1979–1983Electrotechnical LaboratoryResearcher, Senior researcher

Education

  1. Osaka UniversityDoctorate in engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. A Robust Method for Registration and Segmentation of Multiple Range Images1995 · Computer Vision and Image Understanding · 245 citations
  2. Image database systems: A survey1984 · Pattern Recognition · 239 citations
  3. Range image segmentation based on differential geometry: a hybrid approach1989 · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · 207 citations
  4. Registration and integration of multiple range images for 3-D model construction1996 · International Conference on Pattern Recognition · 197 citations
  5. Fractal-based analysis and interpolation of 3D natural surface shapes and their application to terrain modeling1989 · Computer Vision Graphics and Image Processing · 128 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Nara Institute of Science and Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  2. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes McGill University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes McGill University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes McGill University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Naokazu Yokoya yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Naokazu Yokoya - My portal - researchmap researchmap.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. KAKEN — Research Projects | Merging Real and Virtual Worlds Considering Depth Information (KAKENHI-PROJECT-09480068) kaken.nii.ac.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. KAKEN — Research Projects | Mixed Reality over Space and Time Basd on Sensing Real World Environments (KAKENHI-PROJECT-23240024) kaken.nii.ac.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. KAKEN — Research Projects | Study on 3D Modeling of Outdoor Environments using Image Sequence (KAKENHI-PROJECT-24500234) kaken.nii.ac.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Chronological List of IAPR Fellows – International Association for Pattern Recognition iapr.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. [1608.02367] Learning Joint Representations of Videos and Sentences with Web Image Search arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. President Pierre-Paul Zalio and Vice President Keitaro Nakatani (ENS Cachan, France) Visit (April 15, 2016)｜NARA Institute of Science and Technology naist.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Nara Institute of Science and Technology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. 2019 NAIST Fall Graduation Ceremony (September 25, 2019)｜NARA Institute of Science and Technology naist.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. IEEE ISMAR 2026 Steering Committee ieeeismar.net. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. Naokazu Yokoya | alphaXiv alphaxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.