Adaptive Training of Video Sets for Image Recognition on Mobile Phones

We present an enhancement towards adaptive video training for PhoneGuide, a digital museum guidance system for ordinary camera–equipped mobile phones. It enables museum visitors to identify exhibits by capturing photos of them. In this article, a combined solution of object recognition and pervasive tracking is extended to a client–server–system for improving data acquisition and for supporting scale–invariant object recognition

Adaptive Image Classification on Mobile Phones

The advent of high-performance mobile phones has opened up the opportunity to develop new context-aware applications for everyday life. In particular, applications for context-aware information retrieval in conjunction with image-based object recognition have become a focal area of recent research. In this thesis we introduce an adaptive mobile museum guidance system that allows visitors in a museum to identify exhibits by taking a picture with their mobile phone. Besides approaches to object recognition, we present different adaptation techniques that improve classification performance. After providing a comprehensive background of context-aware mobile information systems in general, we present an on-device object recognition algorithm and show how its classification performance can be improved by capturing multiple images of a single exhibit. To accomplish this, we combine the classification results of the individual pictures and consider the perspective relations among the retrieved database images. In order to identify multiple exhibits in pictures we present an approach that uses the spatial relationships among the objects in images. They make it possible to infer and validate the locations of undetected objects relative to the detected ones and additionally improve classification performance. To cope with environmental influences, we introduce an adaptation technique that establishes ad-hoc wireless networks among the visitors’ mobile devices to exchange classification data. This ensures constant classification rates under varying illumination levels and changing object placement. Finally, in addition to localization using RF-technology, we present an adaptation technique that uses user-generated spatio-temporal pathway data for person movement prediction. Based on the history of previously visited exhibits, the algorithm determines possible future locations and incorporates these predictions into the object classification process. This increases classification performance and offers benefits comparable to traditional localization approaches but without the need for additional hardware. Through multiple field studies and laboratory experiments we demonstrate the benefits of each approach and show how they influence the overall classification rate.Die Einführung von Mobiltelefonen mit eingebauten Sensoren wie Kameras, GPS oder Beschleunigungssensoren, sowie Kommunikationstechniken wie Bluetooth oder WLAN ermöglicht die Entwicklung neuer kontextsensitiver Anwendungen für das tägliche Leben. Insbesondere Applikationen im Bereich kontextsensitiver Informationsbeschaffung in Verbindung mit bildbasierter Objekterkennung sind in den Fokus der aktuellen Forschung geraten. Der Beitrag dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung eines bildbasierten, mobilen Museumsführersystems, welches unterschiedliche Adaptionstechniken verwendet, um die Objekterkennung zu verbessern. Es wird gezeigt, wie Ojekterkennungsalgorithmen auf Mobiltelefonen realisiert werden können und wie die Erkennungsrate verbessert wird, indem man zum Beispiel ad-hoc Netzwerke einsetzt oder Bewegungsvorhersagen von Personen berücksichtigt

Phone-to-Phone Communication for Adaptive Image Classification

In this paper, we present a novel technique for adapting local image classifiers that are applied for object recognition on mobile phones through ad-hoc network communication between the devices. By continuously accumulating and exchanging collected user feedback among devices that are located within signal range, we show that our approach improves the overall classification rate and adapts to dynamic changes quickly. This technique is applied in the context of PhoneGuide – a mobile phone based museum guidance framework that combines pervasive tracking and local object recognition for identifying a large number of objects in uncontrolled museum environments

Mobile Phone Enabled Museum Guidance with Adaptive Classification

Although audio guides are widely established in many museums, they suffer from several drawbacks compared to state-of-the-art multimedia technologies: First, they provide only audible information to museum visitors, while other forms of media presentation, such as reading text or video could be beneficial for museum guidance tasks. Second, they are not very intuitive. Reference numbers have to be manually keyed in by the visitor before information about the exhibit is provided. These numbers are either displayed on visible tags that are located near the exhibited objects, or are printed in brochures that have to be carried. Third, offering mobile guidance equipment to visitors leads to acquisition and maintenance costs that have to be covered by the museum. With our project PhoneGuide we aim at solving these problems by enabling the application of conventional camera-equipped mobile phones for museum guidance purposes. The advantages are obvious: First, today’s off-the-shelf mobile phones offer a rich pallet of multimedia functionalities ---ranging from audio (over speaker or head-set) and video (graphics, images, movies) to simple tactile feedback (vibration). Second, integrated cameras, improvements in processor performance and more memory space enable supporting advanced computer vision algorithms. Instead of keying in reference numbers, objects can be recognized automatically by taking non-persistent photographs of them. This is more intuitive and saves museum curators from distributing and maintaining a large number of physical (visible or invisible) tags. Together with a few sensor-equipped reference tags only, computer vision based object recognition allows for the classification of single objects; whereas overlapping signal ranges of object-distinct active tags (such as RFID) would prevent the identification of individuals that are grouped closely together. Third, since we assume that museum visitors will be able to use their own devices, the acquisition and maintenance cost for museum-owned devices decreases

Subobject Detection through Spatial Relationships on Mobile Phones

We present a novel image classification technique for detecting multiple objects (called subobjects) in a single image. In addition to image classifiers, we apply spatial relationships among the subobjects to verify and to predict locations of detected and undetected subobjects, respectively. By continuously refining the spatial relationships throughout the detection process, even locations of completely occluded exhibits can be determined. Finally, all detected subobjects are labeled and the user can select the object of interest for retrieving corresponding multimedia information. This approach is applied in the context of PhoneGuide, an adaptive museum guidance system for camera-equipped mobile phones. We show that the recognition of subobjects using spatial relationships is up to 68% faster than related approaches without spatial relationships. Results of a field experiment in a local museum illustrate that unexperienced users reach an average recognition rate for subobjects of 85.6% under realistic conditions

Enabling Mobile Phones To Support Large-Scale Museum Guidance

We present a museum guidance system called PhoneGuide that uses widespread camera equipped mobile phones for on-device object recognition in combination with pervasive tracking. It provides additional location- and object-aware multimedia content to museum visitors, and is scalable to cover a large number of museum objects

Fast and Reliable CAMShift Tracking

CAMShift is a well-established and fundamental algorithm for kernel-based visual object tracking. While it performs well with objects that have a simple and constant appearance, it is not robust in more complex cases. As it solely relies on back projected probabilities it can fail in cases when the object's appearance changes (e.g. due to object or camera movement, or due to lighting changes), when similarly colored objects have to be re-detected or when they cross their trajectories. We propose extensions to CAMShift that address and resolve all of these problems. They allow the accumulation of multiple histograms to model more complex object appearance and the continuous monitoring of object identi- ties to handle ambiguous cases of partial or full occlusion. Most steps of our method are carried out on the GPU for achieving real-time tracking of multiple targets simultaneously. We explain an ecient GPU implementations of histogram generation, probability back projection, im- age moments computations, and histogram intersection. All of these techniques make full use of a GPU's high parallelization

Verwertungssysteme im Ruhrgebiet: Darstellung, Analyse und Beurteilung

SIGLEAvailable from Bibliothek des Instituts fuer Weltwirtschaft, ZBW, Duesternbrook Weg 120, D-24105 Kiel C 199766 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

A GCM study of future climate response to aerosol pollution reductions

We use the global atmospheric GCM aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM to asses possible impacts of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate. Air quality control strategies focus on the reduction of aerosol emissions. Here we investigate the extreme case of a maximum feasible end-of-pipe abatement of aerosols in the near term future (2030) in combination with increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. The temperature response of increasing GHG concentrations and reduced aerosol emissions leads to a global annual mean equilibrium temperature response of 2.18 K. When aerosols are maximally abated only in the Industry and Powerplant sector, while other sectors stay with currently enforced regulations, the temperature response is 1.89 K. A maximum feasible abatement applied in the Domestic and Transport sector, while other sectors remain with the current legislation, leads to a temperature response of 1.39 K. Increasing GHG concentrations alone lead to a temperature response of 1.20 K. We also simulate 2–5% increases in global mean precipitation among all scenarios considered, and the hydrological sensitivity is found to be significantly higher for aerosols than for GHGs. Our study, thus highlights the huge potential impact of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate and supports the need for urgent GHG emission reductions. GHG and aerosol forcings are not independent as both affect and are influenced by changes in the hydrological cycle. However, within the given range of changes in aerosol emissions and GHG concentrations considered in this study, the climate response towards increasing GHG concentrations and decreasing aerosols emissions is additive.ISSN:0930-7575ISSN:1432-089