Image-based Street-side City Modeling

International audienceWe propose an automatic approach to generate street-side 3D photo-realistic models from images captured along the streets at ground level. We first develop a multi-view semantic segmentation method that recognizes and segments each image at pixel level into semantically meaningful areas, each labeled with a specific object class, such as building, sky, ground, vegetation and car. A partition scheme is then introduced to separate buildings into independent blocks using the major line structures of the scene. Finally, for each block, we propose an inverse patch-based orthographic composition and structure analysis method for facade modeling that efficiently regularizes the noisy and missing reconstructed 3D data. Our system has the distinct advantage of producing visually compelling results by imposing strong priors of building regularity. We demonstrate the fully automatic system on a typical city example tovalidate our methodology

Association between homocysteine, vitamin B₁₂, folic acid and erectile dysfunction:a cross-sectional study in China

Abstract Objectives: Erectile dysfunction (ED) affects up to 53.4% of men aged 30–80 years. In this study, we aimed to examine the association between homocysteine (HCY), vitamin B₁₂ (B12), folic acid (FA) and ED. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Guangxi, China. Participants: A total of 1381 participants who completed questionnaires were included, between September 2009 and December 2009. Measures: ED was evaluated by the International Index of Erectile Function scores. Also, the values of HCY, B12 and FA were acquired. Then, regression and between-group analyses were performed. Results: No association between FA and ED was found. Significant correlations between HCY and ED were found—the relationships between these two parameters were most notable in men aged over 60 years and in men living alone (bachelors or bachelorhood). B12 levels were higher in men with ED (718.53±234.37 pg/mL vs 688.74±229.68, p=0.015). Using multinomial logistic regression analyses, B12 levels were related to mild ED (multivariate adjusted analysis: OR 1.620, 95% CI 1.141 to 2.300, p=0.007), especially among men aged 40–49 years (OR 2.907, 95% CI 1.402 to 6.026, p=0.004). Conclusions: We report, for the first time, a relationship between B12 levels and ED. We also found specific cohorts of men for whom the relationship between HCY levels and ED is most prominent. Further studies are required to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these relationships—these may ultimately result in new therapies for ED

Single image tree modeling

10.1145/1409060.1409061ACM Transactions on Graphics275-ATGR