Extraction of Surface-Related Features in a Recurrent Model of V1-V2 Interactions

Humans can effortlessly segment surfaces and objects from two-dimensional (2D) images that are projections of the 3D world. The projection from 3D to 2D leads partially to occlusions of surfaces depending on their position in depth and on viewpoint. One way for the human visual system to infer monocular depth cues could be to extract and interpret occlusions. It has been suggested that the perception of contour junctions, in particular T-junctions, may be used as cue for occlusion of opaque surfaces. Furthermore, X-junctions could be used to signal occlusion of transparent surfaces.In this contribution, we propose a neural model that suggests how surface-related cues for occlusion can be extracted from a 2D luminance image. The approach is based on feedforward and feedback mechanisms found in visual cortical areas V1 and V2. In a first step, contours are completed over time by generating groupings of like-oriented contrasts. Few iterations of feedforward and feedback processing lead to a stable representation of completed contours and at the same time to a suppression of image noise. In a second step, contour junctions are localized and read out from the distributed representation of boundary groupings. Moreover, surface-related junctions are made explicit such that they are evaluated to interact as to generate surface-segmentations in static images. In addition, we compare our extracted junction signals with a standard computer vision approach for junction detection to demonstrate that our approach outperforms simple feedforward computation-based approaches.A model is proposed that uses feedforward and feedback mechanisms to combine contextually relevant features in order to generate consistent boundary groupings of surfaces. Perceptually important junction configurations are robustly extracted from neural representations to signal cues for occlusion and transparency. Unlike previous proposals which treat localized junction configurations as 2D image features, we link them to mechanisms of apparent surface segregation. As a consequence, we demonstrate how junctions can change their perceptual representation depending on the scene context and the spatial configuration of boundary fragments

Template-Cut: A Pattern-Based Segmentation Paradigm

We present a scale-invariant, template-based segmentation paradigm that sets up a graph and performs a graph cut to separate an object from the background. Typically graph-based schemes distribute the nodes of the graph uniformly and equidistantly on the image, and use a regularizer to bias the cut towards a particular shape. The strategy of uniform and equidistant nodes does not allow the cut to prefer more complex structures, especially when areas of the object are indistinguishable from the background. We propose a solution by introducing the concept of a "template shape" of the target object in which the nodes are sampled non-uniformly and non-equidistantly on the image. We evaluate it on 2D-images where the object's textures and backgrounds are similar, and large areas of the object have the same gray level appearance as the background. We also evaluate it in 3D on 60 brain tumor datasets for neurosurgical planning purposes.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, 6 equations, 51 reference

Curvature scale space corner detector with adaptive threshold and dynamic region of support

Corners play an important role in object identification methods used in machine vision and image processing systems. Single-scale feature detection finds it hard to detect both fine and coarse features at the same time. On the other hand, multi-scale feature detection is inherently able to solve this problem. This paper proposes an improved multi-scale corner detector with dynamic region of support, which is based on Curvature Scale Space (CSS) technique. The proposed detector first uses an adaptive local curvature threshold instead of a single global threshold as in the original and enhanced CSS methods. Second, the angles of corner candidates are checked in a dynamic region of support for eliminating falsely detected corners. The proposed method has been evaluated over a number of images and compared with some popular corner detectors. The results showed that the proposed method offers a robust and effective solution to images containing widely different size features.published_or_final_versio

Corner detector based on global and local curvature properties

This paper proposes a curvature-based corner detector that detects both fine and coarse features accurately at low computational cost. First, it extracts contours from a Canny edge map. Second, it computes the absolute value of curvature of each point on a contour at a low scale and regards local maxima of absolute curvature as initial corner candidates. Third, it uses an adaptive curvature threshold to remove round corners from the initial list. Finally, false corners due to quantization noise and trivial details are eliminated by evaluating the angles of corner candidates in a dynamic region of support. The proposed detector was compared with popular corner detectors on planar curves and gray-level images, respectively, in a subjective manner as well as with a feature correspondence test. Results reveal that the proposed detector performs extremely well in both fields. © 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.published_or_final_versio

A Laminar Cortical Model for 3D Perception of Slanted and Curved Surfaces and of 2D Images: Developement, attention, and Bistability

A model of laminar visual cortical dynamics proposes how 3D boundary and surface representations of slated and curved 3D objects and 2D images arise. The 3D boundary representations emerge from interactions between non-classical horizontal receptive field interactions with intracorticcal and intercortical feedback circuits. Such non-classical interactions contextually disambiguate classical receptive field responses to ambiguous visual cues using cells that are sensitive to angles and disparity gradients with cortical areas V1 and V2. These cells are all variants of bipole grouping cells. Model simulations show how horizontal connections can develop selectively to angles, how slanted surfaces can activate 3D boundary representations that are sensitive to angles and disparity gradients, how 3D filling-in occurs across slanted surfaces, how a 2D Necker cube image can be represented in 3D, and how bistable Necker cuber percepts occur. The model also explains data about slant aftereffects and 3D neon color spreading. It shows how habituative transmitters that help to control developement also help to trigger bistable 3D percepts and slant aftereffects, and how attention can influence which of these percepts is perceived by propogating along some object boundaries.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0397, F49620-98-1-0108); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N0014-95-1-0409, N00014-01-1-0624, N00014-95-1-0657); National Science Foundation (IIS-97-20333

Neural Models of Motion Integration, Segmentation, and Probablistic Decision-Making

When brain mechanism carry out motion integration and segmentation processes that compute unambiguous global motion percepts from ambiguous local motion signals? Consider, for example, a deer running at variable speeds behind forest cover. The forest cover is an occluder that creates apertures through which fragments of the deer's motion signals are intermittently experienced. The brain coherently groups these fragments into a trackable percept of the deer in its trajectory. Form and motion processes are needed to accomplish this using feedforward and feedback interactions both within and across cortical processing streams. All the cortical areas V1, V2, MT, and MST are involved in these interactions. Figure-ground processes in the form stream through V2, such as the seperation of occluding boundaries of the forest cover from the boundaries of the deer, select the motion signals which determine global object motion percepts in the motion stream through MT. Sparse, but unambiguous, feauture tracking signals are amplified before they propogate across position and are intergrated with far more numerous ambiguous motion signals. Figure-ground and integration processes together determine the global percept. A neural model predicts the processing stages that embody these form and motion interactions. Model concepts and data are summarized about motion grouping across apertures in response to a wide variety of displays, and probabilistic decision making in parietal cortex in response to random dot displays.National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624

Extracting Agricultural Fields from Remote Sensing Imagery Using Graph-Based Growing Contours

Knowledge of the location and extent of agricultural fields is required for many applications, including agricultural statistics, environmental monitoring, and administrative policies. Furthermore, many mapping applications, such as object-based classification, crop type distinction, or large-scale yield prediction benefit significantly from the accurate delineation of fields. Still, most existing field maps and observation systems rely on historic administrative maps or labor-intensive field campaigns. These are often expensive to maintain and quickly become outdated, especially in regions of frequently changing agricultural patterns. However, exploiting openly available remote sensing imagery (e.g., from the European Union’s Copernicus programme) may allow for frequent and efficient field mapping with minimal human interaction. We present a new approach to extracting agricultural fields at the sub-pixel level. It consists of boundary detection and a field polygon extraction step based on a newly developed, modified version of the growing snakes active contours model we refer to as graph-based growing contours. This technique is capable of extracting complex networks of boundaries present in agricultural landscapes, and is largely automatic with little supervision required. The whole detection and extraction process is designed to work independently of sensor type, resolution, or wavelength. As a test case, we applied the method to two regions of interest in a study area in the northern Germany using multi-temporal Sentinel-2 imagery. Extracted fields were compared visually and quantitatively to ground reference data. The technique proved reliable in producing polygons closely matching reference data, both in terms of boundary location and statistical proxies such as median field size and total acreage

A biologically inspired spiking model of visual processing for image feature detection

To enable fast reliable feature matching or tracking in scenes, features need to be discrete and meaningful, and hence edge or corner features, commonly called interest points are often used for this purpose. Experimental research has illustrated that biological vision systems use neuronal circuits to extract particular features such as edges or corners from visual scenes. Inspired by this biological behaviour, this paper proposes a biologically inspired spiking neural network for the purpose of image feature extraction. Standard digital images are processed and converted to spikes in a manner similar to the processing that transforms light into spikes in the retina. Using a hierarchical spiking network, various types of biologically inspired receptive fields are used to extract progressively complex image features. The performance of the network is assessed by examining the repeatability of extracted features with visual results presented using both synthetic and real images