Multi-Cue Structure Preserving MRF for Unconstrained Video Segmentation

Video segmentation is a stepping stone to understanding video context. Video segmentation enables one to represent a video by decomposing it into coherent regions which comprise whole or parts of objects. However, the challenge originates from the fact that most of the video segmentation algorithms are based on unsupervised learning due to expensive cost of pixelwise video annotation and intra-class variability within similar unconstrained video classes. We propose a Markov Random Field model for unconstrained video segmentation that relies on tight integration of multiple cues: vertices are defined from contour based superpixels, unary potentials from temporal smooth label likelihood and pairwise potentials from global structure of a video. Multi-cue structure is a breakthrough to extracting coherent object regions for unconstrained videos in absence of supervision. Our experiments on VSB100 dataset show that the proposed model significantly outperforms competing state-of-the-art algorithms. Qualitative analysis illustrates that video segmentation result of the proposed model is consistent with human perception of objects

Neural Dynamics of 3-D Surface Perception: Figure-Ground Separation and Lightness Perception

This article develops the FACADE theory of three-dimensional (3-D) vision to simulate data concerning how two-dimensional (2-D) pictures give rise to 3-D percepts of occluded and occluding surfaces. The theory suggests how geometrical and contrastive properties of an image can either cooperate or compete when forming the boundary and surface representations that subserve conscious visual percepts. Spatially long-range cooperation and short-range competition work together to separate boundaries of occluding ligures from their occluded neighbors, thereby providing sensitivity to T-junctions without the need to assume that T-junction "detectors" exist. Both boundary and surface representations of occluded objects may be amodaly completed, while the surface representations of unoccluded objects become visible through modal processes. Computer simulations include Bregman-Kanizsa figure-ground separation, Kanizsa stratification, and various lightness percepts, including the Munker-White, Benary cross, and checkerboard percepts.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409); National Science Foundation (IRI 94-01659, IRI 97-20333); Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-1309, N00014-95-1-0657

The image torque operator: A new tool for mid-level vision

Contours are a powerful cue for semantic image understanding. Objects and parts of objects in the image are delineated from their surrounding by closed contours which make up their boundary. In this paper we introduce a new bottom-up visual operator to capture the concept of closed contours, which we call the ’Torque ’ operator. Its computation is inspired by the mechanical definition of torque or moment of force, and applied to image edges. The torque operator takes as input edges and computes over regions of different size a measure of how well the edges are aligned to form a closed, convex contour. We explore fundamental properties of this measure and demonstrate that it can be made a useful tool for visual attention, segmentation, and boundary edge detection by verifying its benefits on these applications. 1

View-Invariant Object Category Learning, Recognition, and Search: How Spatial and Object Attention Are Coordinated Using Surface-Based Attentional Shrouds

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0397); National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624

Geometrical and topological issues in octree based automatic meshing

Finite element meshes derived automatically from solid models through recursive spatial subdivision schemes (octrees) can be made to inherit the hierarchical structure and the spatial addressability intrinsic to the underlying grid. These two properties, together with the geometric regularity that can also be built into the mesh, make octree based meshes ideally suited for efficient analysis and self-adaptive remeshing and reanalysis. The element decomposition of the octal cells that intersect the boundary of the domain is discussed. The problem, central to octree based meshing, is solved by combining template mapping and element extraction into a procedure that utilizes both constructive solid geometry and boundary representation techniques. Boundary cells that are not intersected by the edge of the domain boundary are easily mapped to predefined element topology. Cells containing edges (and vertices) are first transformed into a planar polyhedron and then triangulated via element extractor. The modeling environments required for the derivation of planar polyhedra and for element extraction are analyzed

Object-based 2D-to-3D video conversion for effective stereoscopic content generation in 3D-TV applications

Three-dimensional television (3D-TV) has gained increasing popularity in the broadcasting domain, as it enables enhanced viewing experiences in comparison to conventional two-dimensional (2D) TV. However, its application has been constrained due to the lack of essential contents, i.e., stereoscopic videos. To alleviate such content shortage, an economical and practical solution is to reuse the huge media resources that are available in monoscopic 2D and convert them to stereoscopic 3D. Although stereoscopic video can be generated from monoscopic sequences using depth measurements extracted from cues like focus blur, motion and size, the quality of the resulting video may be poor as such measurements are usually arbitrarily defined and appear inconsistent with the real scenes. To help solve this problem, a novel method for object-based stereoscopic video generation is proposed which features i) optical-flow based occlusion reasoning in determining depth ordinal, ii) object segmentation using improved region-growing from masks of determined depth layers, and iii) a hybrid depth estimation scheme using content-based matching (inside a small library of true stereo image pairs) and depth-ordinal based regularization. Comprehensive experiments have validated the effectiveness of our proposed 2D-to-3D conversion method in generating stereoscopic videos of consistent depth measurements for 3D-TV applications