Virtual viewpoint three-dimensional panorama

Conventional panoramic images are known to provide for an enhanced field of view in which the scene always has a fixed appearance. The idea presented in this paper focuses on the use of the concept of virtual viewpoint creation to generate different panoramic images of the same scene with three-dimensional component. Three-dimensional effect in a resultant panorama is realized by superimposing a stereo-pair of panoramic images

Feature extraction for speech and music discrimination

Driven by the demand of information retrieval, video editing and human-computer interface, in this paper we propose a novel spectral feature for music and speech discrimination. This scheme attempts to simulate a biological model using the averaged cepstrum, where human perception tends to pick up the areas of large cepstral changes. The cepstrum data that is away from the mean value will be exponentially reduced in magnitude. We conduct experiments of music/speech discrimination by comparing the performance of the proposed feature with that of previously proposed features in classification. The dynamic time warping based classification verifies that the proposed feature has the best quality of music/speech classification in the test database

3D inference and modelling for video retrieval

A new scheme is proposed for extracting planar surfaces from 2D image sequences. We firstly perform feature correspondence over two neighboring frames, followed by the estimation of disparity and depth maps, provided a calibrated camera. We then apply iterative Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) plane fitting to the generated 3D points to find a dominant plane in a maximum likelihood estimation style. Object points on or off this dominant plane are determined by measuring their Euclidean distance to the plane. Experimental work shows that the proposed scheme leads to better plane fitting results than the classical RANSAC method

Automatic human face detection for content-based image annotation

In this paper, an automatic human face detection approach using colour analysis is applied for content-based image annotation. In the face detection, the probable face region is detected by adaptive boosting algorithm, and then combined with a colour filtering classifier to enhance the accuracy in face detection. The initial experimental benchmark shows the proposed scheme can be efficiently applied for image annotation with higher fidelity

Design and evaluation of novel scalability techniques for adaptation over heterogeneous networks

This paper addresses the issues concerned with the provision of scalable video services over heterogeneous networks particularly with regards to dynamic adaptation and user’s acceptable quality of service. In order to provide and sustain an adaptive and network friendly multimedia communication service, a suite of techniques that achieved automatic scalability and adaptation are developed using H.264/AVC Extension codec platform. The objective, subjective and real time performances of the techniques are evaluated to assess the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to diverse users with variable constraints and dynamic resources. The techniques are further evaluated with view to establish their performance against state of the art scalable and none-scalable techniques. Several experiments and simulations revealed that the proposed techniques outperformed state-of- the-art and none-scalable(SL) techniques. The designed techniques provide an automated scalability adaptation on the video stream and showed up to 50% gain in scalability adaptation against single layer (SL) and none-combined scalability techniques

Error resilient video transcoding for robust inter-network communications using GPRS

A novel fully comprehensive mobile video communications system is proposed in this paper. This system exploits the useful rate management features of the video transcoders and combines them with error resilience for transmissions of coded video streams over general packet radio service (GPRS) mobileaccess networks. The error-resilient video transcoding operation takes place at a centralized point, referred to as a video proxy, which provides the necessary output transmission rates with the required amount of robustness. With the use of this proposed algorithm, error resilience can be added to an already compressed video stream at an intermediate stage at the edge of two or more different networks through two resilience schemes, namely the adaptive intra refresh (AIR) and feedback control signaling (FCS) methods. Both resilience tools impose an output rate increase which can also be prevented with the proposed novel technique in this paper. Thus, an error-resilient video transcoding scheme is presented to give robust video outputs at near target transmission rates that only require the same number of GPRS timeslots as the nonresilient schemes. Moreover, an ultimate robustness is also accomplished with the combination of the two resilience algorithms at the video proxy. Extensive computer simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system

Multiple description video coding for stereoscopic 3D

In this paper, we propose an MDC schemes for stereoscopic 3D video. In the literature, MDC has previously been applied in 2D video but not so much in 3D video. The proposed algorithm enhances the error resilience of the 3D video using the combination of even and odd frame based MDC while retaining good temporal prediction efficiency for video over error-prone networks. Improvements are made to the original even and odd frame MDC scheme by adding a controllable amount of side information to improve frame interpolation at the decoder. The side information is also sent according to the video sequence motion for further improvement. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in error free and error prone environments especially for wireless channels. Simulation results show improved performance using the proposed MDC at high error rates compared to the single description coding (SDC) and the original even and odd frame MDC

User requirements for multimedia indexing and retrieval of unedited audio-visual footage - RUSHES

Multimedia analysis and reuse of raw un-edited audio visual content known as rushes is gaining acceptance by a large number of research labs and companies. A set of research projects are considering multimedia indexing, annotation, search and retrieval in the context of European funded research, but only the FP6 project RUSHES is focusing on automatic semantic annotation, indexing and retrieval of raw and un-edited audio-visual content. Even professional content creators and providers as well as home-users are dealing with this type of content and therefore novel technologies for semantic search and retrieval are required. As a first result of this project, the user requirements and possible user-scenarios are presented in this paper. These results lay down the foundation for the research and development of a multimedia search engine particularly dedicated to the specific needs of the users and the content

A pecking order of capital inflows and international tax principles

Even though financial markets today show a high degree of integration, the world capital market is still far from the textbook story of high capital mobility. The purpose of this paper is to highlight key sources of market failure in the context of international capital flows and to provide guidelines for efficient tax structure in the presence of capital market imperfections. The analysis distinguishes three types of international capital flows: foreign portfolio debt investment, foreign portfolio equity investment and foreign direct investment. The paper emphasizes the efficiency of a non-uniform tax treatment of the various vehicles of international capital flows. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.preprin