Novel hierarchical coding scheme based on polar mass distribution

A novel method for coding arbitrarily shaped binary objects is presented. The main idea is expressing the binary object in terms of radial closed curves, that is, closed curves for which radius versus angle is a function. These functions and the simple rules for combining them uniquely represent the object. The data compaction property of the method and the flexibility of the introduced loss are shown. Experimental results are presented, with a comparison to G3 fax standard. Possible application areas are discussed

New high-resolution display device for holographic three-dimensional video: principles and simulations

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A new acousto-optical holographic display device, which is expected to solve the display resolution and refresh problems that are common to available holographic displays, is proposed. The device is based on the reproduction of a hologram as a surface pattern using traveling surface acoustic waves (SAWs). There is an array of electrodes attached to the SAW device. An electrical signal applied to any one of these electrodes generates an acoustical wave propagating on the surface of the crystal. If signals are applied to all of the electrodes simultaneously, propagating waves from the electrodes superpose to form a time-varying SAW pattern on the crystal. This pattern forms the hologram at a specific time. The signals that should be applied to the electrodes are found through a mathematical inversion relation that is derived from the underlying physics. The inversion relation is checked by computer simulations. Simulations also show that the image quality of the proposed 3-D TV display is satisfactory

Joint estimation and optimum encoding of depth field for 3-D object-based video coding

3-D motion models can be used to remove temporal redundancy between image frames. For efficient encoding using 3-D motion information, apart from the 3-D motion parameters, a dense depth field must also be encoded to achieve 2-D motion compensation on the image plane. Inspiring from Rate-Distortion Theory, a novel method is proposed to optimally encode the dense depth fields of the moving objects in the scene. Using two intensity frames and 3-D motion parameters as inputs, an encoded depth field can be obtained by jointly minimizing a distortion criteria and a bit-rate measure. Since the method gives directly an encoded field as an output, it does not require an estimate of the field to be encoded. By efficiently encoding the depth field during the experiments, it is shown that the 3-D motion models can be used in object-based video compression algorithms

Gibbs random field model based 3D motion estimation from video sequences

In contrast to previous global 3D motion concept, a Gibbs random field based method, which models local interactions between motion parameters defined at each point on the object, is proposed. An energy function which gives the joint probability distribution of motion vectors, is constructed. The energy function is minimized in order to find the most likely motion vector set. Some convergence problems, due to ill-posedness of the problem, are overcome by using the concept of hierarchical rigidity. In hierarchical rigidity, the objects are assumed to be almost rigid in the coarsest level and this rigidness is weakened at each level until the finest level is reached. The propagation of motion information between levels, is encouraged. At the finest level, each point have a motion vector associated with it and the interaction between these vectors are described by the energy function. The minimization of the energy function is achieved by using hierarchical rigidity, without trapping into a local minimum. The results are promising

An automated system for design-rule-based visual inspection of printed circuit boards

The design and the implementation of an automated, design-rule-based, visual printed circuit board (PCB) inspection system are presented. The system employs mathematical-morphology-based image processing algorithms. This system detects PCB defects related to the conducting structures on PCBs by checking a set of geometric design rules. For this purpose, an image segmentation algorithm and a defect detection algorithm are designed. The defect detection algorithm is capable of verifying the minimum conductor spacing, minimum conductor trace width, and the minimum land width requirements on digital binary PCB images. Also, an existing defect detection algorithm is modified for its implementation in the system

DIGITAL DECODING OF IN-LINE HOLOGRAMS.

Digitally sampled in-line holograms may be linearly filtered to reconstruct a representation of the original object distribution, thereby decoding the information contained in the hologram. The decoding process is performed by digital computation rather than optically. Substitution of digital for optical decoding has several advantages, including selective suppression of the twin-image artifact, elimination of the far-field requirement, and automation of the data reduction and analysis process. The proposed filter is a truncated series expansion of the inverse of that operator that maps object opacity function to hologram intensity. The first term of the expansion is shown to be equivalent to conventional (optical) reconstruction, with successive terms increasingly suppressing the twin image. The algorithm is computationally efficient, requiring only a single fast Fourier transform pair

Capture, processing, and display of real-world 3D objects using digital holography

"Digital holography for 3D and 4D real-world objects' capture, processing, and display" (acronym "Real 3D") is a research project funded under the Information and Communication Technologies theme of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, and brings together nine participants from academia and industry (see www.digitalholography.eu).This three-year project marks the beginning a long-term effort to facilitate the entry of a new technology (digital holography) into the three-dimensional capture and display markets. Its progress at the end of year 2 is summarised

Processing of optically-captured digital holograms for three-dimensional display

In digital holography, holograms are usually optically captured and then two-dimensional slices of the reconstruction volume are reconstructed by computer and displayed on a two-dimensional display. When the recording is of a three-dimensional scene then such two-dimensional display becomes restrictive. We outline our progress on capturing larger ranges of perspectives of three-dimensional scenes, and our progress on four approaches to better visualise this three-dimensional information encoded in the digital holograms. The research has been performed within a European Commission funded research project dedicated the capture, processing, transmission, and display of real-world 3D and 4D scenes using digital holography

Design and implementation of a general purpose VLSI median filter unit and its applications

A VLSI median filter unit has been designed and implemented in 3-μ m M2 CMOS, using full-custom VLSI design techniques. The unit consists of two single-chip median filters, one extensible and one real-time. The chips are bit-level pipelined systolic structures based on odd/even transposition sorting. The extensible chip is designed for applications requiring variable window sizes and variable word-lengths, whereas the other one is for real-time applications. Various median filtering techniques are easily realized by using the designed chips together with reasonable external hardware

Iterative technique for 3-D motion estimation in videophone applications

In object based coding of facial images, the accuracy of motion and depth parameter estimates strongly affects the coding efficiency. We propose an improved algorithm based on stochastic relaxation for 3-D motion and depth estimation that converges to true motion and depth parameters even in the presence of 50% error in the initial depth estimates. The proposed method is compared with an existing algorithm (MBASIC) in case of different number of point correspondences. The simulation results show that the proposed method provides significantly better results than the MBASIC algorithm