Data compression techniques applied to high resolution high frame rate video technology

An investigation is presented of video data compression applied to microgravity space experiments using High Resolution High Frame Rate Video Technology (HHVT). An extensive survey of methods of video data compression, described in the open literature, was conducted. The survey examines compression methods employing digital computing. The results of the survey are presented. They include a description of each method and assessment of image degradation and video data parameters. An assessment is made of present and near term future technology for implementation of video data compression in high speed imaging system. Results of the assessment are discussed and summarized. The results of a study of a baseline HHVT video system, and approaches for implementation of video data compression, are presented. Case studies of three microgravity experiments are presented and specific compression techniques and implementations are recommended

Event-based Vision: A Survey

Event cameras are bio-inspired sensors that differ from conventional frame cameras: Instead of capturing images at a fixed rate, they asynchronously measure per-pixel brightness changes, and output a stream of events that encode the time, location and sign of the brightness changes. Event cameras offer attractive properties compared to traditional cameras: high temporal resolution (in the order of microseconds), very high dynamic range (140 dB vs. 60 dB), low power consumption, and high pixel bandwidth (on the order of kHz) resulting in reduced motion blur. Hence, event cameras have a large potential for robotics and computer vision in challenging scenarios for traditional cameras, such as low-latency, high speed, and high dynamic range. However, novel methods are required to process the unconventional output of these sensors in order to unlock their potential. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of event-based vision, with a focus on the applications and the algorithms developed to unlock the outstanding properties of event cameras. We present event cameras from their working principle, the actual sensors that are available and the tasks that they have been used for, from low-level vision (feature detection and tracking, optic flow, etc.) to high-level vision (reconstruction, segmentation, recognition). We also discuss the techniques developed to process events, including learning-based techniques, as well as specialized processors for these novel sensors, such as spiking neural networks. Additionally, we highlight the challenges that remain to be tackled and the opportunities that lie ahead in the search for a more efficient, bio-inspired way for machines to perceive and interact with the world

An Immersive Telepresence System using RGB-D Sensors and Head Mounted Display

We present a tele-immersive system that enables people to interact with each other in a virtual world using body gestures in addition to verbal communication. Beyond the obvious applications, including general online conversations and gaming, we hypothesize that our proposed system would be particularly beneficial to education by offering rich visual contents and interactivity. One distinct feature is the integration of egocentric pose recognition that allows participants to use their gestures to demonstrate and manipulate virtual objects simultaneously. This functionality enables the instructor to ef- fectively and efficiently explain and illustrate complex concepts or sophisticated problems in an intuitive manner. The highly interactive and flexible environment can capture and sustain more student attention than the traditional classroom setting and, thus, delivers a compelling experience to the students. Our main focus here is to investigate possible solutions for the system design and implementation and devise strategies for fast, efficient computation suitable for visual data processing and network transmission. We describe the technique and experiments in details and provide quantitative performance results, demonstrating our system can be run comfortably and reliably for different application scenarios. Our preliminary results are promising and demonstrate the potential for more compelling directions in cyberlearning.Comment: IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia 201

Local Stereo Matching Using Adaptive Local Segmentation

We propose a new dense local stereo matching framework for gray-level images based on an adaptive local segmentation using a dynamic threshold. We define a new validity domain of the fronto-parallel assumption based on the local intensity variations in the 4-neighborhood of the matching pixel. The preprocessing step smoothes low textured areas and sharpens texture edges, whereas the postprocessing step detects and recovers occluded and unreliable disparities. The algorithm achieves high stereo reconstruction quality in regions with uniform intensities as well as in textured regions. The algorithm is robust against local radiometrical differences; and successfully recovers disparities around the objects edges, disparities of thin objects, and the disparities of the occluded region. Moreover, our algorithm intrinsically prevents errors caused by occlusion to propagate into nonoccluded regions. It has only a small number of parameters. The performance of our algorithm is evaluated on the Middlebury test bed stereo images. It ranks highly on the evaluation list outperforming many local and global stereo algorithms using color images. Among the local algorithms relying on the fronto-parallel assumption, our algorithm is the best ranked algorithm. We also demonstrate that our algorithm is working well on practical examples as for disparity estimation of a tomato seedling and a 3D reconstruction of a face

Transparent Face Recognition in the Home Environment

The BASIS project is about the secure application of transparent biometrics in the home environment. Due to transparency and home-setting requirements there is variance in appearance of the subject. An other problem which needs attention is the extraction of features. The quality of the extracted features is not only depending on the proper preprocessing of the input data but also on the suitability of the extraction algorithm for this problem. Possible approaches to address problems due to transparency requirements are the use of active appearance models in face recognition, smart segmentation, multi-camera solutions and tracking. In this paper an inventory of problems and possible solution will be give