Learning and Example Selection for Object and Pattern Detection

This thesis presents a learning based approach for detecting classes of objects and patterns with variable image appearance but highly predictable image boundaries. It consists of two parts. In part one, we introduce our object and pattern detection approach using a concrete human face detection example. The approach first builds a distribution-based model of the target pattern class in an appropriate feature space to describe the target's variable image appearance. It then learns from examples a similarity measure for matching new patterns against the distribution-based target model. The approach makes few assumptions about the target pattern class and should therefore be fairly general, as long as the target class has predictable image boundaries. Because our object and pattern detection approach is very much learning-based, how well a system eventually performs depends heavily on the quality of training examples it receives. The second part of this thesis looks at how one can select high quality examples for function approximation learning tasks. We propose an {em active learning} formulation for function approximation, and show for three specific approximation function classes, that the active example selection strategy learns its target with fewer data samples than random sampling. We then simplify the original active learning formulation, and show how it leads to a tractable example selection paradigm, suitable for use in many object and pattern detection problems.

The Role of Fixation and Visual Attention in Object Recognition

This research project is a study of the role of fixation and visual attention in object recognition. In this project, we build an active vision system which can recognize a target object in a cluttered scene efficiently and reliably. Our system integrates visual cues like color and stereo to perform figure/ground separation, yielding candidate regions on which to focus attention. Within each image region, we use stereo to extract features that lie within a narrow disparity range about the fixation position. These selected features are then used as input to an alignment-style recognition system. We show that visual attention and fixation significantly reduce the complexity and the false identifications in model-based recognition using Alignment methods. We also demonstrate that stereo can be used effectively as a figure/ground separator without the need for accurate camera calibration.

Robust 2-D Model-Based Object Recognition

Techniques, suitable for parallel implementation, for robust 2D model-based object recognition in the presence of sensor error are studied. Models and scene data are represented as local geometric features and robust hypothesis of feature matchings and transformations is considered. Bounds on the error in the image feature geometry are assumed constraining possible matchings and transformations. Transformation sampling is introduced as a simple, robust, polynomial-time, and highly parallel method of searching the space of transformations to hypothesize feature matchings. Key to the approach is that error in image feature measurement is explicitly accounted for. A Connection Machine implementation and experiments on real images are presented.

Shape from Shading: A Method for Obtaining the Shape of a Smooth Opaque Object from One View

A method will be described for finding the shape of a smooth apaque object form a monocular image, given a knowledge of the surface photometry, the position of the lightsource and certain auxiliary information to resolve ambiguities. This method is complementary to the use of stereoscopy which relies on matching up sharp detail and will fail on smooth objects. Until now the image processing of single views has been restricted to objects which can meaningfully be considered two-dimensional or bounded by plane surfaces. It is possible to derive a first-order non-linear partial differential equation in two unknowns relating the intensity at the image points to the shape of the objects. This equation can be solved by means of an equivalent set of five ordinary differential equations. A curve traced out by solving this set of equations for one set of starting values is called a characteristic strip. Starting one of these strips from each point on some initial curve will produce the whole solution surface. The initial curves can usually be constructed around so-called singular points. A number of applications of this metod will be discussed including one to lunar topography and one to the scanning electron microscope. In both of these cases great simplifications occur in the equations. A note on polyhedra follows and a quantitative theory of facial make-up is touched upon. An implementation of some of these ideas on the PDP-6 computer with its attached image-dissector camera at the Artificial intelligence Laboratory will be described, and also a nose-recognition program.