928 research outputs found
Superpixels: An Evaluation of the State-of-the-Art
Superpixels group perceptually similar pixels to create visually meaningful
entities while heavily reducing the number of primitives for subsequent
processing steps. As of these properties, superpixel algorithms have received
much attention since their naming in 2003. By today, publicly available
superpixel algorithms have turned into standard tools in low-level vision. As
such, and due to their quick adoption in a wide range of applications,
appropriate benchmarks are crucial for algorithm selection and comparison.
Until now, the rapidly growing number of algorithms as well as varying
experimental setups hindered the development of a unifying benchmark. We
present a comprehensive evaluation of 28 state-of-the-art superpixel algorithms
utilizing a benchmark focussing on fair comparison and designed to provide new
insights relevant for applications. To this end, we explicitly discuss
parameter optimization and the importance of strictly enforcing connectivity.
Furthermore, by extending well-known metrics, we are able to summarize
algorithm performance independent of the number of generated superpixels,
thereby overcoming a major limitation of available benchmarks. Furthermore, we
discuss runtime, robustness against noise, blur and affine transformations,
implementation details as well as aspects of visual quality. Finally, we
present an overall ranking of superpixel algorithms which redefines the
state-of-the-art and enables researchers to easily select appropriate
algorithms and the corresponding implementations which themselves are made
publicly available as part of our benchmark at
davidstutz.de/projects/superpixel-benchmark/
Finding Temporally Consistent Occlusion Boundaries in Videos using Geometric Context
We present an algorithm for finding temporally consistent occlusion
boundaries in videos to support segmentation of dynamic scenes. We learn
occlusion boundaries in a pairwise Markov random field (MRF) framework. We
first estimate the probability of an spatio-temporal edge being an occlusion
boundary by using appearance, flow, and geometric features. Next, we enforce
occlusion boundary continuity in a MRF model by learning pairwise occlusion
probabilities using a random forest. Then, we temporally smooth boundaries to
remove temporal inconsistencies in occlusion boundary estimation. Our proposed
framework provides an efficient approach for finding temporally consistent
occlusion boundaries in video by utilizing causality, redundancy in videos, and
semantic layout of the scene. We have developed a dataset with fully annotated
ground-truth occlusion boundaries of over 30 videos ($5000 frames). This
dataset is used to evaluate temporal occlusion boundaries and provides a much
needed baseline for future studies. We perform experiments to demonstrate the
role of scene layout, and temporal information for occlusion reasoning in
dynamic scenes.Comment: Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2015 IEEE Winter Conference
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Scalable Realtime Rendering and Interaction with Digital Surface Models of Landscapes and Cities
Interactive, realistic rendering of landscapes and cities differs substantially from classical terrain rendering. Due to the sheer size and detail of the data which need to be processed, realtime rendering (i.e. more than 25 images per second) is only feasible with level of detail (LOD) models. Even the design and implementation of efficient, automatic LOD generation is ambitious for such out-of-core datasets considering the large number of scales that are covered in a single view and the necessity to maintain screen-space accuracy for realistic representation. Moreover, users want to interact with the model based on semantic information which needs to be linked to the LOD model. In this thesis I present LOD schemes for the efficient rendering of 2.5d digital surface models (DSMs) and 3d point-clouds, a method for the automatic derivation of city models from raw DSMs, and an approach allowing semantic interaction with complex LOD models. The hierarchical LOD model for digital surface models is based on a quadtree of precomputed, simplified triangle mesh approximations. The rendering of the proposed model is proved to allow real-time rendering of very large and complex models with pixel-accurate details. Moreover, the necessary preprocessing is scalable and fast. For 3d point clouds, I introduce an LOD scheme based on an octree of hybrid plane-polygon representations. For each LOD, the algorithm detects planar regions in an adequately subsampled point cloud and models them as textured rectangles. The rendering of the resulting hybrid model is an order of magnitude faster than comparable point-based LOD schemes. To automatically derive a city model from a DSM, I propose a constrained mesh simplification. Apart from the geometric distance between simplified and original model, it evaluates constraints based on detected planar structures and their mutual topological relations. The resulting models are much less complex than the original DSM but still represent the characteristic building structures faithfully. Finally, I present a method to combine semantic information with complex geometric models. My approach links the semantic entities to the geometric entities on-the-fly via coarser proxy geometries which carry the semantic information. Thus, semantic information can be layered on top of complex LOD models without an explicit attribution step. All findings are supported by experimental results which demonstrate the practical applicability and efficiency of the methods
Biogeographic classification of the Caspian Sea
Like other inland seas, the Caspian Sea (CS) has been influenced by climate
change and anthropogenic disturbance during recent decades, yet the
scientific understanding of this water body remains poor. In this study, an
eco-geographical classification of the CS based on physical information
derived from space and in situ data is developed and tested against a set of
biological observations. We used a two-step classification procedure,
consisting of (i) a data reduction with self-organizing maps (SOMs) and (ii) a
synthesis of the most relevant features into a reduced number of marine
ecoregions using the hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) method. From
an initial set of 12 potential physical variables, 6 independent variables
were selected for the classification algorithm, i.e., sea surface temperature
(SST), bathymetry, sea ice, seasonal variation of sea surface salinity
(DSSS), total suspended matter (TSM) and its seasonal variation (DTSM). The
classification results reveal a robust separation between the northern and
the middle/southern basins as well as a separation of the shallow nearshore
waters from those offshore. The observed patterns in ecoregions can be
attributed to differences in climate and geochemical factors such as distance
from river, water depth and currents. A comparison of the annual and monthly
mean Chl <i>a</i> concentrations between the different ecoregions shows
significant differences (one-way ANOVA, <i>P</i> < 0.05). In particular, we
found differences in phytoplankton phenology, with differences in the date of
bloom initiation, its duration and amplitude between ecoregions. A first
qualitative evaluation of differences in community composition based on
recorded presence–absence patterns of 25 different species of plankton, fish
and benthic invertebrate also confirms the relevance of the ecoregions as
proxies for habitats with common biological characteristics
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