Semantic Perceptual Image Compression using Deep Convolution Networks

It has long been considered a significant problem to improve the visual quality of lossy image and video compression. Recent advances in computing power together with the availability of large training data sets has increased interest in the application of deep learning cnns to address image recognition and image processing tasks. Here, we present a powerful cnn tailored to the specific task of semantic image understanding to achieve higher visual quality in lossy compression. A modest increase in complexity is incorporated to the encoder which allows a standard, off-the-shelf jpeg decoder to be used. While jpeg encoding may be optimized for generic images, the process is ultimately unaware of the specific content of the image to be compressed. Our technique makes jpeg content-aware by designing and training a model to identify multiple semantic regions in a given image. Unlike object detection techniques, our model does not require labeling of object positions and is able to identify objects in a single pass. We present a new cnn architecture directed specifically to image compression, which generates a map that highlights semantically-salient regions so that they can be encoded at higher quality as compared to background regions. By adding a complete set of features for every class, and then taking a threshold over the sum of all feature activations, we generate a map that highlights semantically-salient regions so that they can be encoded at a better quality compared to background regions. Experiments are presented on the Kodak PhotoCD dataset and the MIT Saliency Benchmark dataset, in which our algorithm achieves higher visual quality for the same compressed size.Comment: Accepted to Data Compression Conference, 11 pages, 5 figure

Enhanced Characterness for Text Detection in the Wild

Text spotting is an interesting research problem as text may appear at any random place and may occur in various forms. Moreover, ability to detect text opens the horizons for improving many advanced computer vision problems. In this paper, we propose a novel language agnostic text detection method utilizing edge enhanced Maximally Stable Extremal Regions in natural scenes by defining strong characterness measures. We show that a simple combination of characterness cues help in rejecting the non text regions. These regions are further fine-tuned for rejecting the non-textual neighbor regions. Comprehensive evaluation of the proposed scheme shows that it provides comparative to better generalization performance to the traditional methods for this task

Saliency-guided integration of multiple scans

we present a novel method..

MapSnapper: Engineering an Efficient Algorithm for Matching Images of Maps from Mobile Phones

The MapSnapper project aimed to develop a system for robust matching of low-quality images of a paper map taken from a mobile phone against a high quality digital raster representation of the same map. The paper presents a novel methodology for performing content-based image retrieval and object recognition from query images that have been degraded by noise and subjected to transformations through the imaging system. In addition the paper also provides an insight into the evaluation-driven development process that was used to incrementally improve the matching performance until the design specifications were met