Human perception in segmentation of sketches

In this paper, we study the segmentation of sketched engineering drawings into a set of straight and curved segments. Our immediate objective is to produce a benchmarking method for segmentation algorithms. The criterion is to minimise the differences between what the algorithm detects and what human beings perceive. We have created a set of sketched drawings and have asked people to segment them. By analysis of the produced segmentations, we have obtained the number and locations of the segmentation points which people perceive. Evidence collected during our experiments supports useful hypotheses, for example that not all kinds of segmentation points are equally difficult to perceive. The resulting methodology can be repeated with other drawings to obtain a set of sketches and segmentation data which could be used as a benchmark for segmentation algorithms, to evaluate their capability to emulate human perception of sketches

New method to find corner and tangent vertices in sketches using parametric cubic curves approximation

Some recent approaches have been presented as simple and highly accurate corner finders in the sketches including curves, which is useful to support natural human-computer interaction, but these in most cases do not consider tangent vertices (smooth points between two geometric entities, present in engineering models), what implies an important drawback in the field of design. In this article we present a robust approach based on the approximation to parametric cubic curves of the stroke for further radius function calculation in order to detect corner and tangent vertices. We have called our approach Tangent and Corner Vertices Detection (TCVD), and it works in the following way. First, corner vertices are obtained as minimum radius peaks in the discrete radius function, where radius is obtained from differences. Second, approximated piecewise parametric curves on the stroke are obtained and the analytic radius function is calculated. Then, curves are obtained from stretches of the stroke that have a small radius. Finally, the tangent vertices are found between straight lines and curves or between curves, where no corner vertices are previously located. The radius function to obtain curves is calculated from approximated piecewise curves, which is much more noise free than discrete radius calculation. Several tests have been carried out to compare our approach to that of the current best benchmarked, and the obtained results show that our approach achieves a significant accuracy even better finding corner vertices, and moreover, tangent vertices are detected with an Accuracy near to 92% and a False Positive Rate near to 2%.Spanish Ministry of Science and Education and the FEDER Funds, through CUESKETCH (Ref. DPI2007-66755-C02-01) and HYMAS projects (Ref. DPI2010-19457) partially supported this work.Albert Gil, FE.; García Fernández-Pacheco, D.; Aleixos Borrás, MN. (2013). New method to find corner and tangent vertices in sketches using parametric cubic curves approximation. Pattern Recognition. 46(5):1433-1448. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2012.11.006S1433144846

A new paradigm based on agents applied to free-hand sketch recognition

Important advances in natural calligraphic interfaces for CAD (Computer Aided Design) applications are being achieved, enabling the development of CAS (Computer Aided Sketching) devices that allow facing up to the conceptual design phase of a product. Recognizers play an important role in this field, allowing the interpretation of the user’s intention, but they still present some important lacks. This paper proposes a new recognition paradigm using an agent-based architecture that does not depend on the drawing sequence and takes context information into account to help decisions. Another improvement is the absence of operation modes, that is, no button is needed to distinguish geometry from symbols or gestures, and also “interspersing” and “overtracing” are accomplishedThe Spanish Ministry of Science and Education and the FEDER Funds, through the CUESKETCH project (Ref. DPI2007-66755-C02-01), partially supported this work.Fernández Pacheco, D.; Albert Gil, FE.; Aleixos Borrás, MN.; Conesa Pastor, J. (2012). A new paradigm based on agents applied to free-hand sketch recognition. Expert Systems with Applications. 39(8):7181-7195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.01.063S7181719539

Improvements to the TCVD method to segment hand-drawn sketches

Tangent and Corner Vertices Detection (TCVD) is a method to detect corner vertices and tangent points in sketches using parametric cubic curves approximation, which is capable to detect corners with a high accuracy and a very low false positive rate, and also to detect tangent points far above other methods in literature. In this article, we present several improvements to TCVD method in order to establish mathematical conditions to detect corners and make the obtaining of curves independent from the scale, what increases the success ratio in transitions between lines and curves. The new conditions for obtaining corners use the radius as the inverse of the curvature, and the second derivative of the curvature. For the detection of curves, a new descriptor is presented, avoiding the parameters dependent of scale used in TCVD method. In order to obtain the performance of the implemented improvements, several tests have been carried out using a dataset which contains sketches more complex than those used for validation of TCVD algorithm (sketches with more curves and tangent points and sketches of different sizes). For corners detection, the accuracy obtained was pretty similar to that obtained with the previous TCVD, however, for curves and tangent points detection the accuracy increases significantly.Spanish Ministry of Science and Education and the FEDER Funds, through HYMAS project (Ref. DPI2010-19457) and INIA project VIS-DACSA (Ref. RTA2012-00062-C04-03) partially supported this work.Albert Gil, FE.; Aleixos Borrás, MN. (2017). Improvements to the TCVD method to segment hand-drawn sketches. Pattern Recognition. 63:416-426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2016.10.024S4164266

A method for reconstructing sketched polyhedral shapes with rounds and fillets

In this paper we present a method for detecting rounds and fillets in engineering sketches and drawings, and automatically generating a 3D model of the corresponding object, with rounds and fillets applied. This method is useful both as a component of computer-aided sketching tools and in determining de- sign intent—although rounds and fillets are common in engineering parts, they often conceal design intent, which is more easily determined from the object’s underlying polyhedral skeleton