Project SEMACODE : a scale-invariant object recognition system for content-based queries in image databases

For the efficient management of large image databases, the automated characterization of images and the usage of that characterization for searching and ordering tasks is highly desirable. The purpose of the project SEMACODE is to combine the still unsolved problem of content-oriented characterization of images with scale-invariant object recognition and modelbased compression methods. To achieve this goal, existing techniques as well as new concepts related to pattern matching, image encoding, and image compression are examined. The resulting methods are integrated in a common framework with the aid of a content-oriented conception. For the application, an image database at the library of the university of Frankfurt/Main (StUB; about 60000 images), the required operations are developed. The search and query interfaces are defined in close cooperation with the StUB project “Digitized Colonial Picture Library”. This report describes the fundamentals and first results of the image encoding and object recognition algorithms developed within the scope of the project

MASCOT: a mechanism for attention-based scale-invariant object recognition in images

The efficient management of large multimedia databases requires the development of new techniques to process, characterize, and search for multimedia objects. Especially in the case of image data, the rapidly growing amount of documents prohibits a manual description of the images’ content. Instead, the automated characterization is highly desirable to support annotation and retrieval of digital images. However, this is a very complex and still unsolved task. To contribute to a solution of this problem, we have developed a mechanism for recognizing objects in images based on the query by example paradigm. Therefore, the most salient image features of an example image representing the searched object are extracted to obtain a scale-invariant object model. The use of this model provides an efficient and robust strategy for recognizing objects in images independently of their size. Further applications of the mechanism are classical recognition tasks such as scene decomposition or object tracking in video sequences

Scan matching by cross-correlation and differential evolution

Scan matching is an important task, solved in the context of many high-level problems including pose estimation, indoor localization, simultaneous localization and mapping and others. Methods that are accurate and adaptive and at the same time computationally efficient are required to enable location-based services in autonomous mobile devices. Such devices usually have a wide range of high-resolution sensors but only a limited processing power and constrained energy supply. This work introduces a novel high-level scan matching strategy that uses a combination of two advanced algorithms recently used in this field: cross-correlation and differential evolution. The cross-correlation between two laser range scans is used as an efficient measure of scan alignment and the differential evolution algorithm is used to search for the parameters of a transformation that aligns the scans. The proposed method was experimentally validated and showed good ability to match laser range scans taken shortly after each other and an excellent ability to match laser range scans taken with longer time intervals between them.Web of Science88art. no. 85

Quantum mechanical reactive scattering for three-dimensional atom plus diatom systems. I. Theory

A method is presented for accurately solving the Schrödinger equation for the reactive collision of an atom with a diatomic molecule in three dimensions on a single Born–Oppenheimer potential energy surface. The Schrödinger equation is first expressed in body‐fixed coordinates. The wavefunction is then expanded in a set of vibration–rotation functions, and the resulting coupled equations are integrated in each of the three arrangement channel regions to generate primitive solutions. Next, these are smoothly matched to each other on three matching surfaces which appropriately separate the arrangement channel regions. The resulting matched solutions are linearly combined to generate wavefunctions which satisfy the reactance and scattering matrix boundary conditions, from which the corresponding R and S matrices are obtained. The scattering amplitudes in the helicity representation are easily calculated from the body fixed S matrices, and from these scattering amplitudes several types of differential and integral cross sections are obtained. Simplifications arising from the use of parity symmetry to decouple the coupled‐channel equations, the matching procedures and the asymptotic analysis are discussed in detail. Relations between certain important angular momentum operators in body‐fixed coordinate systems are derived and the asymptotic solutions to the body‐fixed Schrödinger equation are analyzed extensively. Application of this formalism to the three‐dimensional H+H_2 reaction is considered including the use of arrangement channel permutation symmetry, even–odd rotational decoupling and postantisymmetrization. The range of applicability and limitations of the method are discussed