Thinning-free Polygonal Approximation of Thick Digital Curves Using Cellular Envelope

Since the inception of successful rasterization of curves and objects in the digital space, several algorithms have been proposed for approximating a given digital curve. All these algorithms, however, resort to thinning as preprocessing before approximating a digital curve with changing thickness. Described in this paper is a novel thinning-free algorithm for polygonal approximation of an arbitrarily thick digital curve, using the concept of "cellular envelope", which is newly introduced in this paper. The cellular envelope, defined as the smallest set of cells containing the given curve, and hence bounded by two tightest (inner and outer) isothetic polygons, is constructed using a combinatorial technique. This envelope, in turn, is analyzed to determine a polygonal approximation of the curve as a sequence of cells using certain attributes of digital straightness. Since a real-world curve=curve-shaped object with varying thickness, unexpected disconnectedness, noisy information, etc., is unsuitable for the existing algorithms on polygonal approximation, the curve is encapsulated by the cellular envelope to enable the polygonal approximation. Owing to the implicit Euclidean-free metrics and combinatorial properties prevailing in the cellular plane, implementation of the proposed algorithm involves primitive integer operations only, leading to fast execution of the algorithm. Experimental results that include output polygons for different values of the approximation parameter corresponding to several real-world digital curves, a couple of measures on the quality of approximation, comparative results related with two other well-referred algorithms, and CPU times, have been presented to demonstrate the elegance and efficacy of the proposed algorithm

A Framework for SAR-Optical Stereogrammetry over Urban Areas

Currently, numerous remote sensing satellites provide a huge volume of diverse earth observation data. As these data show different features regarding resolution, accuracy, coverage, and spectral imaging ability, fusion techniques are required to integrate the different properties of each sensor and produce useful information. For example, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data can be fused with optical imagery to produce 3D information using stereogrammetric methods. The main focus of this study is to investigate the possibility of applying a stereogrammetry pipeline to very-high-resolution (VHR) SAR-optical image pairs. For this purpose, the applicability of semi-global matching is investigated in this unconventional multi-sensor setting. To support the image matching by reducing the search space and accelerating the identification of correct, reliable matches, the possibility of establishing an epipolarity constraint for VHR SAR-optical image pairs is investigated as well. In addition, it is shown that the absolute geolocation accuracy of VHR optical imagery with respect to VHR SAR imagery such as provided by TerraSAR-X can be improved by a multi-sensor block adjustment formulation based on rational polynomial coefficients. Finally, the feasibility of generating point clouds with a median accuracy of about 2m is demonstrated and confirms the potential of 3D reconstruction from SAR-optical image pairs over urban areas.Comment: This is the pre-acceptance version, to read the final version, please go to ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing on ScienceDirec

Optical Alignment System for the PHENIX Muon Tracking Chambers

A micron-precision optical alignment system (OASys) for the PHENIX muon tracking chambers is developed. To ensure the required mass resolution of vector meson detection, the relative alignment between three tracking station chambers must be monitored with a precision of 25$\mu$m. The OASys is a straightness monitoring system comprised of a light source, lens and CCD camera, used for determining the initial placement as well as for monitoring the time dependent movement of the chambers on a micron scale.Comment: Accepted for the publication in Nucl.Instr.Meth.

Edge Potential Functions (EPF) and Genetic Algorithms (GA) for Edge-Based Matching of Visual Objects

Edges are known to be a semantically rich representation of the contents of a digital image. Nevertheless, their use in practical applications is sometimes limited by computation and complexity constraints. In this paper, a new approach is presented that addresses the problem of matching visual objects in digital images by combining the concept of Edge Potential Functions (EPF) with a powerful matching tool based on Genetic Algorithms (GA). EPFs can be easily calculated starting from an edge map and provide a kind of attractive pattern for a matching contour, which is conveniently exploited by GAs. Several tests were performed in the framework of different image matching applications. The results achieved clearly outline the potential of the proposed method as compared to state of the art methodologies. (c) 2007 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works