A symposium in anticipation of ACCVÕ10

 

CURRENT TRENDS IN COMPUTER VISION

 

8 December 2009

The University of Auckland, Tamaki campus, Building 731

 

Free attendance
RSVP by 1 Dec 09 to Mrs. May Dijkgraaf (m DOT dijkgraaf AT auckland DOT ac DOT nz)

 

 

10 Speakers from Japan, New Zealand, China, and The Netherlands

 

Takeshi Oishi    Tomokazu Sato    Micheal Cree   John Morris

 

Hongbin Zha    Brendan McCane   Akihiro Sugimoto   Luc Florack

 

Yasusu Yagi   :Reinhard Klette

 


09.30    Opening in 731.201 by Winston Byblow, Associate Dean Science Tamaki campus

 

SESSION 1: 3D Modeling at Large Scale (9.35 - 11.55)

Session chair: Sathiamoorthy Manoharan (Auckland)

 

9.35  

Takeshi Oishi (Tokyo, Japan)

e-Heritage Projects in Italy, Japan, and Cambodia

 

This talk introduces the Digital Bayon Project, conducted by The University of Tokyo team, with the cooperation of the Japanese Government team for Safeguarding Angkor, to scan the Bayon temple and to obtain 3D digital data of the temple. We have conducted over 1500 person-day scanning missions. During these missions, we obtained range data from more than 14,600 different directions using commercially available sensors, such as Cyrax and Z+F, as well as newly developed sensors for this scanning mission, such as the UTokyo Balloon and UTokyo climbing sensors. The total amount of the data approximates a quarter of a terabyte.
We have developed parallel alignment processing with merging software that run on a PC cluster a hundred times faster than previously available software. This cluster processes our massive range data into unified 3D digital data of the Bayon temple.
As a result of this effort, we have obtained the following 3D data:
1) The entire Bayon 3D structure: By using Cyrax, Z+F, balloon and climbing sensors, we have obtained a 3D model of the entire Bayon temple. From this model, we have created floor plans of the temple, and have confirmed that the Bayon temple is rotated 0.94 degrees counter-clockwise from the exact east-west lines.
2) 173 deity faces. We have scanned all the 173 faces of the deities on the exterior of the temple using Cyrax and Balloon sensors, analyzed these data, and verified that we can classify these faces into three categories: Dava, Davatar, and Asherah. It was also confirmed that there is sufficient resemblance among groups of faces to support the assumption that more than one worker group conducted the construction project in a parallel manner.
3) 16 hidden pediments. By using a newly created mirror range sensor, we obtained pictures of 16 hidden pediments, whose existence had not been previously known.
4) 8 wall reliefs. We obtained 3D digital data of all eight wall reliefs along the inner and outer corridors using a VIVID sensor.
We plan to continue our efforts to create finer models of the structure, to fill the holes still missing in parts of the structure, and to complete our models by adding texture to the 3D digital data.
For some illustration, see these
videos.

 

10.10  

Tomokazu Sato (Nara, Japan)

Vision-Based Augmented Reality and Applications

 

In this talk we introduce our recent activities concerning vision-based geometric registration between real and virtual worlds for real-time augmented reality (AR) as well as some AR applications. We have two approaches to geometric registration: One is based on marker tracking and the other is based on markerless natural feature tracking. In the former approach we use invisible visual markers made from retro-reflective materials which do not create undesirable visual effects in the environment. The latter is based on using a landmark database which is automatically constructed from omnidirectional image sequences in advance using a structure-from-motion technique. We have developed some prototype AR systems for such applications as indoor and outdoor navigation, augmented sightseeing of historical sites, and pre-visualization for filmmaking. These will be demonstrated using videos in this talk.

 

10.45  

Michael Cree (Hamilton, New Zealand)

Range Imaging Camera Technology

 

Time-of-flight range imaging is a relatively new technology for the simultaneous acquisition of 3D point data over a full field of view. Current technology provides for low resolution (fewer than 200x200 pixels) and suffers from limitations such as a fixed focal length and erroneous measurements due to multi-path reflections and mixed pixels. I discuss currently available commercial cameras, their limitations, and impacts those limitations have on applications. I also outline the advances in camera technology and the developments in signal and image processing techniques that are intended to move this technology to a stage where it will be useful in a wide variety of applications.

 

11.20  

John Morris (Auckland, New Zealand)

Real-Time Stereo Analysis

 

We have implemented a real time stereo vision system capable of processing high resolution (1Mpixel or more) images at 30 fps with disparity ranges of 100 pixels or more. This system has a fast rectification module associated with each camera which uses a look up table approach to remove lens distortion and correct camera misalignment in a single step. The corrected, aligned images are then passed to correspondence circuit which generates disparity and occlusion maps with a latency of two camera scan lines.

   The matching algorithm is a version of the Symmetric Dynamic Programming Stereo (SDPS) algorithm which has a small, compact hardware realization, permitting many copies to be instantiated to accommodate large disparity ranges. Snapshots from videos taken in our laboratory demonstrate that the system can produce precise depth maps in real time. The occlusion maps that the SDPS algorithm produces clearly outline distinct objects in scenes and present a powerful tool for segmenting scenes rapidly into objects of interest. A fast contouring procedure running in the host has been developed which produces contour maps from the disparity and occlusion maps in real time.

 

 

11.55  LUNCH BREAK: food and non-alcoholic beverages, demos and posters

 

 

 

Session 2: Shape and Matching (13.00 - 14.45)

Session chair: Enrico Haemmerle (Auckland, New Zealand)

 

13.00  

Hongbin Zha (Beijing, China)

3D Shape Representation, Matching and Recognition

 

Development of new methods for describing 3D shapes is an important topic in object recognition, model-based manipulation, and digital geometry processing. In the early days of computer vision, an object is usually modeled with global representations such as constructive solid geometry, generalized cylinders, or deformed superquadrics. Recently, more sophisticated representations such as shape distributions are developed, which allow for matching of objects under general similarity metrics. However, one drawback of such global schemes is that they are not suitable for matching with scenes where the target objects are only partially visible due to occlusion or limited view fields. At the same time, the representations are usually not compact, making it difficult to embed 3D objects in a shape space for efficient creation of shape deformation and animation.

   In the talk, I will report our efforts in developing new kinds of shape representations to find efficient methods for the partial object matching or human face animation. The topics include: a new shape representation scheme which uses a probabilistic bag-of-words model; a shape matching algorithm based on a dimension amnesic pyramid match kernel; a shape space approach to animation of 3D human faces.

 

13.35  

Brendan McCane (Dunedin, New Zealand)                                     

Curve Matching and Morphometrics

 

If we have a sample of several or many curves, how can we describe that sample in an efficient and meaningful way? This is a central question in the statistics of shape (morphometrics). Even more fundamentally, given only two such curves, how can those curves be aligned or matched? Morphometrics has been studied extensively for discrete structures where shape is defined by a finite set of well defined landmarks and finds application in many areas, although predominantly in the life sciences. However, well defined landmarks are usually very sparse and are therefore a rather poor descriptor of shape. In this talk I will give a brief introduction to morphometrics and show how it can be extended to smooth curves. I will also present results from the application area of describing variation in the shape of bone structures in the facial skeleton.

 

14.10  

Akihiro Sugimoto (Tokyo, Japan)

3D Shape Registration using Graph Kernel

 

This talk presents range image registration for 3D shape modeling where we formulate registration as a graph-based optimization problem. In this method, we independently evaluate each feature and consider only the order of point-to-point matching quality to generate a directed graph representing the matching problem. Then the maximum kernel of the graph gives the unique largest consistent matching of points. Our method thus does not require any good initial estimation and, at the same time, guarantees the global optimality.

 

 

 

14.45  COFFEE BREAK: tea, coffee and cake, demos and posters

 

 

 

Session 3: Three Areas of Applied Computer Vision (15.15 - 17.00)

Session chair: Yanxin Zhang (Auckland)

 

15.15  

Luc Florack (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)

Analyzing Magnetic Resonance Images

 

Progress in MRI imaging technology holds great promise for healthcare. However, successful exploitation of information contained in the resulting highly complex images is severely hampered by our limited conceptual understanding. Whereas traditional image analysis paradigms rely heavily on visual analogy (e.g. edge detection is basically an operationalization of visually (!) salient structures), new, ÒblindÓ paradigms are needed in order to quantify or visualize relevant information in Ònon-visualÓ images. That is, the analysis necessarily precedes any form of visual inspection. I will illustrate this shift of paradigm in the

context of diffusion MRI, and argue in favor of a theoretical approach.

 

15.50  

Yasushi Yagi (Osaka, Japan)

Gait Analysis and its Applications

 

In this talk, I address applications using gait analysis techniques in the fields of visual surveillance and digital entertainment. First, gait identification has recently gained attention as methods of identification of individuals at a distance from a camera. However, appearance changes due to view or walking direction changes cause difficulties for gait identification systems. We have developed a multi-view synchronized gait capturing system to construct a large-scale gait database, and proposed a method of gait identification from various view directions using frequency-domain features and a View Transformation Model (VTM). Second, ÒDive into the Movie (DIM)Ó is a name of project to aim to realize a world innovative entertainment system which can provide an immersion experience into the story by giving a chance to audience to share an impression with his family or friends by watching a movie in which all audience can participate in the story as movie casts. To realize this system, we are trying to model and capture the personal characteristics instantly and precisely in face, body, gait, hair and voice. I present the online method for measuring Êgait features from silhouette images.

 

16.25  

Reinhard Klette (Auckland, New Zealand)

Vision-Based Driver Assistance for Safer Roads

 

Vision-based driver assistance systems (DAS) are currently starting to be active safety components of cars (e.g., lane departure warning, blind spot supervision). The talk reviews a few current developments in this area (in particular within the .enpeda.. project at Tamaki campus, The University of Auckland) which aim at advanced solutions, using stereo or motion data as basic input for providing accurate lane or corridor data, for estimating ego-motion, for pedestrian detection, or for traffic sign recognition.

 

 

17.00  Closing: Finger food and drinks, demos and posters

 

 

 

 

Sponsors of the event

 

 

The Faculty of Science of The University of Auckland

 

Department of Computer Science, The University of Auckland

 

Next Window, Auckland

 

 

 

 

Related event

 

IVCNZ 2009