Computer Vision, Some Definitions, and Some History

Machine vision technology is an interdisciplinary subject involving plenty of fields such as artificial intelligence, neurobiology, psychophysics, computer science, image processing and pattern recognition, etc. In recent years, with rapid development of the technology, machine vision recognition is widely used in many fields of detection and control. For thermo-hygrometers calibration, the manual operation method is used traditionally. This has proven to be a cumbersome, time-consuming, and error-prone activity, as there are lots of models and quantities of thermo-hygrometers to be calibrated. Therefore, an automatic thermo-hygrometers calibration system was developed by using vision recognition technology in combination with automatic movement control as well as a purposely structured database management software. It can complete the calibration and the verification task accurately, timely and efficiently. It has drastically reduced the workload, improved accuracy, and realized the automatic calibration of the thermo-hygrometers.

Multisensor data fusion is highly applicable in robotics applications because the relationships among objects and events changes due to the change in orientation of robot, snag in sensory information, sensor range and environmental conditions etc. High level and low level image processing in machine vision are widely involved to investigate object identification in complex application. Due to the limitations of vision technology still it is difficult to identify the objects in certain environments. A new technique of object identification using sonar sensor fusion has been proposed. This paper explains the computational account of the data fusion using Bayesian and neural network to recognize the shape of object in the dynamic environment.

The goal of this book was to introduce the reader to the recent advances in the field of uncertainty quantification and error propagation for computer vision, image processing, and image analysis that are based on partial differential equations (PDEs). Our original motivation was the observation that more and more often, measured data in the form of images are being used as part of the simulation pipeline, and that error propagation and uncertainty quantification—starting from images but then moving through the pipeline—are important to understanding the ending result of this scientific or engineering process. To analyze the image processing pipeline, we have presented concepts that enable error propagation to be formulated with a set of basic operations: the idea of stochastic images and corresponding (numerical PDE) operations on those images. From this perspective, one approach commonly used within the engineering literature is to employ Monte Carlo sampling techniques to attempt to quantify the impact of errors and variability on an engineering pipeline. Within the uncertainty quantification world, alternative approaches such as the class of generalized polynomial chaos (gPC) methods, which make assumptions about the ability to approximate the process of interest through polynomial approximations, have gained traction as a way of accelerating the convergence of the error and uncertainty quantification process in a computationally tractable way. In this book, we have shown the results of our exploration of the use of the gPC methodology for image processing and computer vision problems. We have relied on the fact that all the prerequisites of the gPC framework (e.g., finite variance, smoothness in the stochastic space, etc.) are intrinsically satisfied in the image processing context. In particular, we have shown how the generalized polynomial chaos (gPC) approach and its corresponding rules for computation (e.g., sums, products, projections on the gPC space, etc.) lead to straightforward generalizations to image processing and computer vision techniques. We have shown that the gPC methodology, when combined with image processing and computer vision techniques, provides a powerful approach to error propagation and uncertainty quantification, and to accessing system sensitivity.

One of the fundamental problems of computer vision is to extract 3D shape and motion from images. This can be achieved when a scene or object is observed from different viewpoints or over a period of time. There is a wide range of applications, ranging from digitizing cultural heritage to vision-based autonomous robot navigation. This talk will present several approaches to solve this problem. First, we’ll discuss techniques for 3D shape recovery for static objects and scenes. One particular case is the 3D mapping and localization in large environments from images, e.g. urban 3D reconstruction from vehicleborne cameras or localization from cell-phone images. Next, we’ll shift our focus to modeling dynamic scenes, e.g. people who are moving around. In addition to explicitly 3D modeling an event, we'll consider the possibility to perform video-based rendering from casually captured videos. Speaker Bio-Sketch: Marc Pollefeys is a full professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of ETH Zurich since 2007 where he is the head of the Institute for Visual Computing and leads the Computer Vision and Geometry lab. He currently also remains associated with the Dept. of Computer Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he started as an assistant professor in 2002 and became an associate professor in 2005. Before this he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where he also received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1994 and 1999, respectively. His main area of research is computer vision. One of his main research goals is to develop flexible approaches to capture visual representations of real world objects, scenes and events. Dr. Pollefeys has received several prizes for his research, including a Marr prize, an NSF CAREER award, a Packard Fellowship and a European Research Council Starting Grant. He is the author or co-author of more than 130 peer-reviewed publications. He is the General Chair for the European Conference on Computer Vision 2014 (ECCV), was a Program Co-Chair for the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2009 (CVPR), was general/program co-chair of the Third Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization and Transmission and has organized workshops and courses at major vision and graphics conferences and has served on the program committees of many conferences. Prof. Pollefeys is/was on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and the International Journal of Computer Vision as well as several other journals in computer vision, graphics and robotics.

Scene analysis for robotic watercraft

Fitting a causal dynamic model to an image is a fundamental problem in image processing, pattern recognition, and computer vision. In image restoration, for instance, the goal is to recover an estimate of the true image, preferably in the form of a parametric model, given an image that has been degraded by a combination of blur and additive white Gaussian noise. In texture analysis, on the other hand, a model of a particular texture image can serve as a tool for simulating texture patterns. Finally, in image enhancement one computes a model of the true image and the residuals between the image and the modeled image can be interpreted as the result of applying a de-noising filter. There are numerous other applications within the field of image processing that require a causal dynamic model. Such is the case in scene analysis, machined parts inspection, and biometric analysis, to name only a few. There are many types of causal dynamic models that have been proposed in the literature, among which the autoregressive moving average and state-space models (i.e., Kalman filter) are the most commonly used. In this paper we introduce a 2-D stochastic state-space system identification algorithm for fitting a quarter plane causal dynamic Roesser model to an image. The algorithm constructs a causal, recursive, and separable-in-denominator 2-D Kalman filter model. The algorithm is tested with three real images and the quality of the estimated images are assessed.

The first quarter of 2007 started as an active season for the real-time image processing community. The annual SPIE Conference on Real-Time Image Processing, which was held in San Jose, CA, highlighted recent developments in this growing branch of image processing. As one of the few regular events with its focus matching that of JRTIP, one witnessed the growth in applications of real-time image and video processing. The conference served as an effective instrument to foster the dissemination of recent results and to leverage the cohesion of the real time image processing community. The preparations for the next SPIE Conference on Real-Time Image Processing in 2008 are already progressing and its call-for-papers is included at the end of this issue. In 2007, JRTIP is going to seek involvement of more scientists in the field of real-time image and video processing. After 1 year of operation, the editors-in-chief have started to recruit additional associate editors to enlarge the expertise base of the editorial board, to solicit manuscript submissions from potential authors, and to make the reviewing process more efficient. Interested colleagues should contact the editors-in-chief expressing their Associate Editor candidature in support of one or more fields within the focus of JRTIP. In addition, they wish to encourage researchers to act as guest editors for special issues on any real-time image or video processing related topics of interest to them. It is possible to schedule two special issues in 2007, provided that a draft call-for-papers is sent to the editors-in-chief as soon as possible. The third issue of JRTIP presents four articles, two are survey papers and two are original research papers. These articles address different real-time image processing perspectives ranging from algorithmic to hardware issues. The first survey paper deals with the real-time filtering in 2D and 3D using ordered statistics that are supported by a rich set of experimental results derived from several algorithmic variations. Performance measurements are used to demonstrate the effect of noise suppression and preservation of fine image structures and to show the DSP implementation of denoising filters. The second survey paper introduces a non-invasive analysis of dynamic processes in living cells using microscopic computer vision techniques for understanding the interactions between cellular and molecular functional units and for providing novel insights into the cell biology. The third article is an original research paper covering a machine vision application involving vision-based position sensing for aerial refueling of unmanned aerial vehicles in real-time. A full image processing chain is investigated and tested in a MATLAB/Simulink soft real-time environment as well as in a Linux/RTAI hard real-time environment. The feasibility of the real-time implementation is shown using off-the-shelf commercial hardware. The fourth article is another original research paper describing a hardware architecture for real-time fractal coding for image compression. The introduced parallel hardware architecture contains units for domain M. F. Carlsohn (&) Ingenieurberatung fur Computer Vision und Bildkommunikation, Am Heiddamm 36g, 28355 Bremen, Germany e-mail: matthias.carlsohn@t-online.de

Digital image processing is an important field in pattern recognition and computer vision, where the process of separating an object with the background acts as one of the crucial roles in executing image processing. This research will talk about mean shift algorithm implementation in processing a set of undersea images to see its effectiveness in separating the background with the object automatically based on pixel distribution and color intensity. How the mean shift algorithm works is by doing a reading process to find the center of a pixel cluster in an image before this algorithm starts to cluster or group pixels with similar characteristics. In this research, a set of image input will be used as a test under mean shift algorithm to give output of an optimal pixel segmentation or grouping, leading to a proof that the mean shift algorithm has the capability to separate a main object from the background, especially in images with intense and high contrast. Even so, in images with less intense and lower contrast, the segmentation is not as accurate. The image input will have to undergo some more pre-processing before the mean shift segmentation is implemented. This research outcome is that the mean shift algorithm is effective for segmenting marine animal images based on colors without having to initialize how many clusters as the conclusion where this method is applicable in many computer vision programs such as object detection or image pattern recognition.

A method of calculating the 3x3 mask convolution required for many low level image processing algorithms is presented, which is well suited for implementing on reconfigurable FPGAs. The approach is based on distributed arithmetic, and uses the symmetry of weights present in many filter masks to save on circuit space, at the expense of requiring custom circuitry for each set of coefficients. A four product example system has been implemented on a Xilinx XC6216 device to demonstrate the suitability of this reconfigurable architecture for image processing systems.

Object detection is a hot topic in the field of machine vision. In the innovation and development of modern technology, the integration of machine learning, pattern recognition, image processing and other multidisciplinary knowledge can effectively solve the image problem. In computer vision and digital image processing technology in the development of innovation, target detection theory research and practical application has achieved excellent results, although there are many problems need to solve, but a lot of new technology and new method has yet to be developed, so countries scholars gradually strengthen the scientific research strength, strong adaptability are put forword technique, high precision and good robustness. In this paper, based on the understanding of the research status of object detection, according to the basic theory of image processing, the application of computer vision in object detection is analyzed. The final experimental results show that shadow detection, image enhancement and filtering methods can effectively improve the application effect.

Digital image sensors have been utilized in various applications including, but not limited to, consumer electronics, machine vision, and security surveillance. In the early days of digital cameras, charge-coupled-device (CCD) technology was dominant because of its superior imaging quality. In recent years, with the advancement of complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, CMOS image sensors have prevailed due to their lower power consumption and inexpensive fabrication cost. The design of commercial image sensors focuses on the improvement of imaging quality by increasing spatial resolution with smaller pixel size. When sensors without an on-chip computation capability are applied to the computer vision field, they produce massive amounts of raw image data. To extract valuable image features, such redundant raw data has to be transmitted and then processed by the vision processing system. This process wastes tremendous hardware resources and causes significant power consumption. Therefore, there is a growing demand for the smart image sensor that can perform on-chip image processing to directly export valuable image features such as spatial contrast or temporal motion. In many computer vision applications, motion features are widely used to identify active objects from stationary backgrounds. Once active regions with motion activities are extracted, more advanced processing such as image compression, object segmentation, and pattern recognition can be implemented on the acquired images. Visual motion detection can be achieved by measuring light intensity changes along with time on every pixel. Light intensities can be transformed into electrical signals in the form of currents, charges, or voltages. By detecting temporal variations in these signals with dedicated circuits, a motion-detection function can be implemented on image sensors. Various smart image sensors with on-chip motion feature-extraction capabilities have been reported in recent years. They can be classified into two main categories: “discrete mode” and “continuous mode”. In the first mode, an analog intensity image is acquired by integrating incident light within a certain period. A comparison of two consecutive frames can realize the motion-detection function. However, this algorithm suffers from a severe aliasing effect due to the discrete differentiation between two separate frames. In the “continuous mode”, incident light is directly converted into photo currents or intensity voltages without the integrating operation. By applying continuous differentiation on these signals, motion features can be extracted more efficiently. In order to report motion activities in real time, researchers innovatively developed an asynchronous address-event representation (AER) strategy to export motion address events from smart image sensors to post processors. Unfortunately, image processing on address events is different with the conventional frame-based strategy because of their asynchronous nature, and specific event-based algorithms have to be customized based on applications. The aim of this work is to design a smart CMOS image sensor that can extract and process motion features on the same chip so as to simplify the entire visual system with minimal computation burden. In order to achieve this ultimate goal, several smart motion-detection image sensors have been developed. The first image sensor was designed based on the temporal difference algorithm to on-chip export motion features, and this sensor is a compact visual system that integrates motion detection and feature processing on the same chip. In order to maximize photon sensitivity in every pixel, a feature-extraction image sensor based on an emerging 3D integration technology was developed. The sensor can extract either temporal motion or spatial contour in real time. Also, an event-clustering image sensor specialized for object tracking applications was proposed. This sensor continuously detects motion events and on-chip processes them in parallel to export specific “event-flow” features. Simulation results show that this image sensor significantly simplifies and accelerates visual object tracking systems.

One of the most fundamental problems in image processing and computer vision is the inherent ambiguity that exists between texture edges and object boundaries in real-world images and video. Despite this ambiguity, many applications in computer vision and image processing often use image edge strength with the assumption that these edges approximate object depth boundaries. However, this assumption is often invalidated by real world data, and this discrepancy is a significant limitation in many of today's image processing methods. We address this issue by introducing a simple, low-level, and patch-consistency assumption that leverages the extra information present in video data to resolve this ambiguity. Through analyzing how well patches can be modeled by simple transformations over time, we can obtain an indication of which image edges correspond to texture edges versus object boundaries. Our approach is simple to implement and has the potential to improve a wide range of image and video-based applications by suppressing the detrimental effects of strong texture edges on regularization terms. We validate our approach by presenting results on a variety of scene types and directly incorporating our augmented edge map into existing image segmentation and optical flow applications, showing results that better correspond to object boundaries.

Introduction. Many computer vision applications often use procedures for recognizing various shapes and estimating their dimensional characteristics. The entire pipeline of such processing consists of several stages, each of which has no clearly defined boundaries. However, it can be divided into low, medium, and high-level processes. Low-level processes only deal with primitive operations such as preprocessing to reduce noise, enhance contrast, or sharpen images. The processes of this level are characterized by the fact that there are images at the input and output. Image processing at the middle level covers tasks such as segmentation, description of objects, and their compression into a form convenient for computer processing. Middle-level processes are characterized by the presence of images only at the input, and only signs and attributes extracted from images are received at the output. High-level processing involves “understanding” a set of recognized objects and recognizing their interactions. Using the example of the developed software models for recognizing figures and estimating their characteristics, it is shown that the image processing process is reduced to transforming spatial image data into metadata, compressing the amount of information, which leads to a significant increase in the importance of data. This indicates that at the input of the middle level, the image should be as informative as possible (with high contrast, no noise, artifacts, etc.) because after the transformation of the spatial image data into metadata, no further the procedures are not able to correct the data obtained by the video sensors in the direction of improving or increasing the information content. Recognition of figures in an image can be realized quite efficiently through the use of the procedure for determining the contours of figures. To do this, you need to determine the boundaries of objects and localize them in the image, often the first step for procedures such as separating objects from the background, image segmentation, detection and recognition of various objects, etc. The purpose of the article is to study the image processing pipeline from the moment of image fixation to the recognition of a certain set of figures (for example, geometric shapes, such as a triangle, quadrilateral, etc.) in an image, the development of software models for recognizing figures in an image, determining the center of mass figures by means of computer vision. Results. We proposed and tested some variants of nonlinear estimating problem. The properties of such problems depend on value of regulating parameter. The dependence of estimation on value of parameter was studied. It was defined a range for parameter's value for which estimating problem gives adequate result for initial task. Numerical examples show how much volume of calculations reduces when using a dynamic branching tree. Conclusions. The results obtained can be used in many applications of computer vision, for example, counting objects in a scene, estimating their parameters, estimating the distance between objects in a scene, etc. Keywords: contour, segmentation, image binarization, computer vision, histogram.

One of the most important problems in computer vision and image processing is signal representation and shape description. This usually involves mapping the signal from an original domain to a set of coefficients describing feature contents of the signal. These methods can be classified in two, global and local, categories. Global methods are sensitive to inaccurate segmentation and masking effects. Local methods, on the other hand, are better in partial pattern recognition but are generally application-dependent. Generalized pattern spectrum (GPS) is a local method and it has proved to be a robust shape descriptor which can also be used in partial pattern recognition. We have investigated the classification properties of this mapping on both noisy and partially missed objects. The results show that it is superior to the pecstrum method in the case of partially missed patterns. >

The retina is responsible of the treatment of visual information at early stages. Visual stimuli generate patterns of activity that are transmitted through its layered structure up to the ganglion cells that interface it to the optical nerve. In this trip of micrometers, information is sustained by continuous signals that interact in excitatory and inhibitory ways. This low-level processing compresses the relevant information of the images to a manageable size. The behavior of the more external layers of the biological retina has been successfully modelled within the Cellular Neural Network framework. Interactions between cells are realized on a local basic. Each cell interacts with its nearest neighbors and every cell in the same layer follows the same interconnection pattern. Intra- and inter-layer interactions are continuous in magnitude and time. The evolution of the network can be described by a set of coupled nonlinear differential equations. A mixed-signal VLSI implementation of focal-plane low-level image processing based upon this biological model constitutes a feasible and cost effective alternative to conventional digital processing in real-time applications. A CMOS Programmable Array Processor prototype chip has been designed and fabricated in a standard technology. It has been successfully tested, validating the proposed design techniques. The integrated system consists of a network of 2 coupled layers, containing 32×32 elementary processors, running at different time constants. Involved image processing algorithms can be programmed on this chip by tuning the appropriate interconnection weights, internally coded as analog but programmed via a digital interface. Propagative, active wave phenomena and retina-lake effects can be observed in this chip. Low-level image processing tasks for early vision applications can be developed based on these high-order dynamics.