47,936 research outputs found
Maximum likelihood estimation of cloud height from multi-angle satellite imagery
We develop a new estimation technique for recovering depth-of-field from
multiple stereo images. Depth-of-field is estimated by determining the shift in
image location resulting from different camera viewpoints. When this shift is
not divisible by pixel width, the multiple stereo images can be combined to
form a super-resolution image. By modeling this super-resolution image as a
realization of a random field, one can view the recovery of depth as a
likelihood estimation problem. We apply these modeling techniques to the
recovery of cloud height from multiple viewing angles provided by the MISR
instrument on the Terra Satellite. Our efforts are focused on a two layer cloud
ensemble where both layers are relatively planar, the bottom layer is optically
thick and textured, and the top layer is optically thin. Our results
demonstrate that with relative ease, we get comparable estimates to the M2
stereo matcher which is the same algorithm used in the current MISR standard
product (details can be found in [IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote
Sensing 40 (2002) 1547--1559]). Moreover, our techniques provide the
possibility of modeling all of the MISR data in a unified way for cloud height
estimation. Research is underway to extend this framework for fast, quality
global estimates of cloud height.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS243 the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
3D inference and modelling for video retrieval
A new scheme is proposed for extracting planar surfaces from 2D image sequences. We firstly perform feature correspondence over two neighboring frames, followed by the estimation of disparity and depth maps, provided a calibrated camera. We then apply iterative Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) plane fitting to the generated 3D points to find a dominant plane in a maximum likelihood estimation style. Object points on or off this dominant plane are determined by measuring their Euclidean distance to the plane. Experimental work shows that the proposed scheme leads to better plane fitting results than the classical RANSAC method
Computational multi-depth single-photon imaging
We present an imaging framework that is able to accurately reconstruct multiple depths at individual pixels from single-photon observations. Our active imaging method models the single-photon detection statistics from multiple reflectors within a pixel, and it also exploits the fact that a multi-depth profile at each pixel can be expressed as a sparse signal. We interpret the multi-depth reconstruction problem as a sparse deconvolution problem using single-photon observations, create a convex problem through discretization and relaxation, and use a modified iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm to efficiently solve for the optimal multi-depth solution. We experimentally demonstrate that the proposed framework is able to accurately reconstruct the depth features of an object that is behind a partially-reflecting scatterer and 4 m away from the imager with root mean-square error of 11 cm, using only 19 signal photon detections per pixel in the presence of moderate background light. In terms of root mean-square error, this is a factor of 4.2 improvement over the conventional method of Gaussian-mixture fitting for multi-depth recovery.This material is based upon work supported in part by a Samsung Scholarship, the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1422034, and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Advanced Concepts Committee. We thank Dheera Venkatraman for his assistance with the experiments. (Samsung Scholarship; 1422034 - US National Science Foundation; MIT Lincoln Laboratory Advanced Concepts Committee)Accepted manuscrip
Finding Galaxy Groups In Photometric Redshift Space: the Probability Friends-of-Friends (pFoF) Algorithm
We present a structure finding algorithm designed to identify galaxy groups
in photometric redshift data sets: the probability friends-of-friends (pFoF)
algorithm. This algorithm is derived by combining the friends-of-friends
algorithm in the transverse direction and the photometric redshift probability
densities in the radial dimension. The innovative characteristic of our
group-finding algorithm is the improvement of redshift estimation via the
constraints given by the transversely connected galaxies in a group, based on
the assumption that all galaxies in a group have the same redshift. Tests using
the Virgo Consortium Millennium Simulation mock catalogs allow us to show that
the recovery rate of the pFoF algorithm is larger than 80% for mock groups of
at least 2\times10^{13}M_{\sun}, while the false detection rate is about 10%
for pFoF groups containing at least net members. Applying the algorithm
to the CNOC2 group catalogs gives results which are consistent with the mock
catalog tests. From all these results, we conclude that our group-finding
algorithm offers an effective yet simple way to identify galaxy groups in
photometric redshift catalogs.Comment: AJ accepte
Learning loopy graphical models with latent variables: Efficient methods and guarantees
The problem of structure estimation in graphical models with latent variables
is considered. We characterize conditions for tractable graph estimation and
develop efficient methods with provable guarantees. We consider models where
the underlying Markov graph is locally tree-like, and the model is in the
regime of correlation decay. For the special case of the Ising model, the
number of samples required for structural consistency of our method scales
as , where p is the
number of variables, is the minimum edge potential, is
the depth (i.e., distance from a hidden node to the nearest observed nodes),
and is a parameter which depends on the bounds on node and edge
potentials in the Ising model. Necessary conditions for structural consistency
under any algorithm are derived and our method nearly matches the lower bound
on sample requirements. Further, the proposed method is practical to implement
and provides flexibility to control the number of latent variables and the
cycle lengths in the output graph.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOS1070 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
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