152,035 research outputs found
Near real-time stereo vision system
The apparatus for a near real-time stereo vision system for use with a robotic vehicle is described. The system is comprised of two cameras mounted on three-axis rotation platforms, image-processing boards, a CPU, and specialized stereo vision algorithms. Bandpass-filtered image pyramids are computed, stereo matching is performed by least-squares correlation, and confidence ranges are estimated by means of Bayes' theorem. In particular, Laplacian image pyramids are built and disparity maps are produced from the 60 x 64 level of the pyramids at rates of up to 2 seconds per image pair. The first autonomous cross-country robotic traverses (of up to 100 meters) have been achieved using the stereo vision system of the present invention with all computing done onboard the vehicle. The overall approach disclosed herein provides a unifying paradigm for practical domain-independent stereo ranging
The effect of image pixelation on unfamiliar face matching
Low-resolution, pixelated images from CCTV can be used to compare the perpetrators of crime with high-resolution photographs of potential suspects. The current study investigated the accuracy of person identification under these conditions, by comparing high-resolution and pixelated photographs of unfamiliar faces in a series of matching tasks. Performance decreased gradually with different levels of pixelation and was close to chance with a horizontal image resolution of only 8 pixel bands per face (Experiment 1). Matching accuracy could be improved by reducing the size of pixelated faces (Experiment 2) or by varying the size of the to-be-compared-with high-resolution face image (Experiment 3). In addition, pixelation produced effects that appear to be separable from other factors that might affect matching performance, such as changes in face view (Experiment 4). These findings reaffirm that criminal identifications from CCTV must be treated with caution and provide some basic estimates for identification accuracy with different pixelation levels. This study also highlights potential methods for improving performance in this task
Confocal microscopy of colloidal particles: towards reliable, optimum coordinates
Over the last decade, the light microscope has become increasingly useful as
a quantitative tool for studying colloidal systems. The ability to obtain
particle coordinates in bulk samples from micrographs is particularly
appealing. In this paper we review and extend methods for optimal image
formation of colloidal samples, which is vital for particle coordinates of the
highest accuracy, and for extracting the most reliable coordinates from these
images. We discuss in depth the accuracy of the coordinates, which is sensitive
to the details of the colloidal system and the imaging system. Moreover, this
accuracy can vary between particles, particularly in dense systems. We
introduce a previously unreported error estimate and use it to develop an
iterative method for finding particle coordinates. This individual-particle
accuracy assessment also allows comparison between particle locations obtained
from different experiments. Though aimed primarily at confocal microscopy
studies of colloidal systems, the methods outlined here should transfer readily
to many other feature extraction problems, especially where features may
overlap one another.Comment: Accepted by Advances in Colloid and Interface Scienc
High Level Tracker Triggers for CMS
Two fast trigger algorithms based on 3 innermost hits in the CMS Inner
Tracker are presented. One of the algorithms will be applied at LHC low
luminosity to select B decay channels. Performance of the algorithm is
demonstrated for the decay channel Bs->Ds+pi. The second algorithm will be used
to select tau-jets at LHC high luminosity.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, to be published in the Vertex 2001 Conference
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Real-time on-board obstacle avoidance for UAVs based on embedded stereo vision
In order to improve usability and safety, modern unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) are equipped with sensors to monitor the environment, such as
laser-scanners and cameras. One important aspect in this monitoring process is
to detect obstacles in the flight path in order to avoid collisions. Since a
large number of consumer UAVs suffer from tight weight and power constraints,
our work focuses on obstacle avoidance based on a lightweight stereo camera
setup. We use disparity maps, which are computed from the camera images, to
locate obstacles and to automatically steer the UAV around them. For disparity
map computation we optimize the well-known semi-global matching (SGM) approach
for the deployment on an embedded FPGA. The disparity maps are then converted
into simpler representations, the so called U-/V-Maps, which are used for
obstacle detection. Obstacle avoidance is based on a reactive approach which
finds the shortest path around the obstacles as soon as they have a critical
distance to the UAV. One of the fundamental goals of our work was the reduction
of development costs by closing the gap between application development and
hardware optimization. Hence, we aimed at using high-level synthesis (HLS) for
porting our algorithms, which are written in C/C++, to the embedded FPGA. We
evaluated our implementation of the disparity estimation on the KITTI Stereo
2015 benchmark. The integrity of the overall realtime reactive obstacle
avoidance algorithm has been evaluated by using Hardware-in-the-Loop testing in
conjunction with two flight simulators.Comment: Accepted in the International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote
Sensing and Spatial Information Scienc
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