20,742 research outputs found
Vision systems with the human in the loop
The emerging cognitive vision paradigm deals with vision systems that apply machine learning and automatic reasoning in order to learn from what they perceive. Cognitive vision systems can rate the relevance and consistency of newly acquired knowledge, they can adapt to their environment and thus will exhibit high robustness. This contribution presents vision systems that aim at flexibility and robustness. One is tailored for content-based image retrieval, the others are cognitive vision systems that constitute prototypes of visual active memories which evaluate, gather, and integrate contextual knowledge for visual analysis. All three systems are designed to interact with human users. After we will have discussed adaptive content-based image retrieval and object and action recognition in an office environment, the issue of assessing cognitive systems will be raised. Experiences from psychologically evaluated human-machine interactions will be reported and the promising potential of psychologically-based usability experiments will be stressed
Multi modal multi-semantic image retrieval
PhDThe rapid growth in the volume of visual information, e.g. image, and video can
overwhelm users’ ability to find and access the specific visual information of interest
to them. In recent years, ontology knowledge-based (KB) image information retrieval
techniques have been adopted into in order to attempt to extract knowledge from these
images, enhancing the retrieval performance. A KB framework is presented to
promote semi-automatic annotation and semantic image retrieval using multimodal
cues (visual features and text captions). In addition, a hierarchical structure for the KB
allows metadata to be shared that supports multi-semantics (polysemy) for concepts.
The framework builds up an effective knowledge base pertaining to a domain specific
image collection, e.g. sports, and is able to disambiguate and assign high level
semantics to ‘unannotated’ images.
Local feature analysis of visual content, namely using Scale Invariant Feature
Transform (SIFT) descriptors, have been deployed in the ‘Bag of Visual Words’
model (BVW) as an effective method to represent visual content information and to
enhance its classification and retrieval. Local features are more useful than global
features, e.g. colour, shape or texture, as they are invariant to image scale, orientation
and camera angle. An innovative approach is proposed for the representation,
annotation and retrieval of visual content using a hybrid technique based upon the use
of an unstructured visual word and upon a (structured) hierarchical ontology KB
model. The structural model facilitates the disambiguation of unstructured visual
words and a more effective classification of visual content, compared to a vector
space model, through exploiting local conceptual structures and their relationships.
The key contributions of this framework in using local features for image
representation include: first, a method to generate visual words using the semantic
local adaptive clustering (SLAC) algorithm which takes term weight and spatial
locations of keypoints into account. Consequently, the semantic information is
preserved. Second a technique is used to detect the domain specific ‘non-informative
visual words’ which are ineffective at representing the content of visual data and
degrade its categorisation ability. Third, a method to combine an ontology model with
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a visual word model to resolve synonym (visual heterogeneity) and polysemy
problems, is proposed. The experimental results show that this approach can discover
semantically meaningful visual content descriptions and recognise specific events,
e.g., sports events, depicted in images efficiently.
Since discovering the semantics of an image is an extremely challenging problem, one
promising approach to enhance visual content interpretation is to use any associated
textual information that accompanies an image, as a cue to predict the meaning of an
image, by transforming this textual information into a structured annotation for an
image e.g. using XML, RDF, OWL or MPEG-7. Although, text and image are distinct
types of information representation and modality, there are some strong, invariant,
implicit, connections between images and any accompanying text information.
Semantic analysis of image captions can be used by image retrieval systems to
retrieve selected images more precisely. To do this, a Natural Language Processing
(NLP) is exploited firstly in order to extract concepts from image captions. Next, an
ontology-based knowledge model is deployed in order to resolve natural language
ambiguities. To deal with the accompanying text information, two methods to extract
knowledge from textual information have been proposed. First, metadata can be
extracted automatically from text captions and restructured with respect to a semantic
model. Second, the use of LSI in relation to a domain-specific ontology-based
knowledge model enables the combined framework to tolerate ambiguities and
variations (incompleteness) of metadata. The use of the ontology-based knowledge
model allows the system to find indirectly relevant concepts in image captions and
thus leverage these to represent the semantics of images at a higher level.
Experimental results show that the proposed framework significantly enhances image
retrieval and leads to narrowing of the semantic gap between lower level machinederived
and higher level human-understandable conceptualisation
Organising a daily visual diary using multifeature clustering
The SenseCam is a prototype device from Microsoft that facilitates automatic capture of images of a person's life by integrating a colour camera, storage media and multiple sensors into a small wearable device. However, efficient search methods are required to reduce the user's burden of sifting through the thousands of images that are captured per day. In this paper, we describe experiments using colour spatiogram and block-based cross-correlation image features in conjunction with accelerometer sensor readings to cluster a day's worth of data into meaningful events, allowing the user to quickly browse a day's captured images. Two different low-complexity algorithms are detailed and evaluated for SenseCam image clustering
Supervised learning on graphs of spatio-temporal similarity in satellite image sequences
High resolution satellite image sequences are multidimensional signals
composed of spatio-temporal patterns associated to numerous and various
phenomena. Bayesian methods have been previously proposed in (Heas and Datcu,
2005) to code the information contained in satellite image sequences in a graph
representation using Bayesian methods. Based on such a representation, this
paper further presents a supervised learning methodology of semantics
associated to spatio-temporal patterns occurring in satellite image sequences.
It enables the recognition and the probabilistic retrieval of similar events.
Indeed, graphs are attached to statistical models for spatio-temporal
processes, which at their turn describe physical changes in the observed scene.
Therefore, we adjust a parametric model evaluating similarity types between
graph patterns in order to represent user-specific semantics attached to
spatio-temporal phenomena. The learning step is performed by the incremental
definition of similarity types via user-provided spatio-temporal pattern
examples attached to positive or/and negative semantics. From these examples,
probabilities are inferred using a Bayesian network and a Dirichlet model. This
enables to links user interest to a specific similarity model between graph
patterns. According to the current state of learning, semantic posterior
probabilities are updated for all possible graph patterns so that similar
spatio-temporal phenomena can be recognized and retrieved from the image
sequence. Few experiments performed on a multi-spectral SPOT image sequence
illustrate the proposed spatio-temporal recognition method
The relationship between IR and multimedia databases
Modern extensible database systems support multimedia data through ADTs. However, because of the problems with multimedia query formulation, this support is not sufficient.\ud
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Multimedia querying requires an iterative search process involving many different representations of the objects in the database. The support that is needed is very similar to the processes in information retrieval.\ud
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Based on this observation, we develop the miRRor architecture for multimedia query processing. We design a layered framework based on information retrieval techniques, to provide a usable query interface to the multimedia database.\ud
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First, we introduce a concept layer to enable reasoning over low-level concepts in the database.\ud
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Second, we add an evidential reasoning layer as an intermediate between the user and the concept layer.\ud
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Third, we add the functionality to process the users' relevance feedback.\ud
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We then adapt the inference network model from text retrieval to an evidential reasoning model for multimedia query processing.\ud
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We conclude with an outline for implementation of miRRor on top of the Monet extensible database system
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