[comp.ai.vision] VISION-LIST digest 10.17

Vision-List-Request@ADS.COM (Vision-List moderator Phil Kahn) (04/17/91)

VISION-LIST Digest    Tue Apr 16 13:23:14 PDT 91     Volume 10 : Issue 17

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Today's Topics:

 Re: stereo ground truth
 RE: Graphics ==> Modelling <== Vision
 Texure Image w/ Ground Truth Sought
 Handwritten character database
 Image Compression algorithms
 IRI D256 Image Processing System - Need Help
 FEX and LPEG
 Machine/computer vision for measurement
 LABOIMAGE v 3.1 available by ftp

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Date: Thu 4 Apr 91 15:50:37-PST
From: Marsha Jo Hannah <HANNAH@ai.sri.com>
Subject: Re: stereo ground truth

Michael McCool <mccool@dgp.toronto.edu> writes:
(regarding verified disparity maps, i.e. ground truth, for stereo pairs)
> Why can't artificial images be used?  Good reflectance models are now
> available in computer graphics. "Photorealistic" images, i.e. images
> with a large amount of complexity, can now be generated.  It might be
> argued that such images would not be as good as a test as real images,
> yet random-dot stereograms are commonly used as test cases, and are
> blatantly artificial.  Use of computer-generated imagery would allow
> precise control over image features and camera geometry, all without
> building photography jigs.  AND the ground truth would be trivially
> available.

Artificially generated stereo imagery does provide one way to test
stereo algorithms.  The problem is that no model can be as complex as
is the real world as seen by a real camera.  Artificial images tend to
be a little too smooth on surfaces and a little too jagged on depth
discontinuities.  Image generation keeps getting better, but it still
isn't "real".

There is also the problem of believability.  It is possible for
artificial imagery to be designed in a manner that a given algorithm
will do either much better or much worse than it would on real
imagery.  Sometimes this is done on purpose, to show off how good
one's algorithm is and how bad the competition is.  More often, it is
unintentional, resulting from simplifying assumptions on the part of a
researcher as to what the world really looks like---his image
generator is likely to use the same type of world model as his stereo
algorithm.  Most of the questions that I have heard about ground truth
were posed by people who fund research, and most of them were
decidedly leary of proposals to do the evaluation on artificial
imagery.

The ISPRS image matching data set did contain one image pair that was
generated---a single image (which resembled a blurry random-dot
stereogram) was projected onto a mathematical surface, thence to a
second artificial camera.  Everyone could do this image pair fairly
well, so it didn't really tell the test architects much.  The other 11
real image pairs went a lot further toward pointing up which algorithms
could handle what.

mjh

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1991 08:58:18 +0200
From: Thierry Pun <pun@cui.unige.ch>
Subject: RE: Graphics ==> Modelling <== Vision

There are more and more useful combinations of computer vision and 
graphics, in various subfields of CG as well as CV. In particular, I
am aware of several projects that have been going for some time in the
direction of what you called "cosmic derivative". 

The Eurographics association has a working group on this topic of
interactions between image synthesis and analysis. A paper has been
published which overviews these various relationships between the
two domains. For example, in terms of common theoretical basis and
concepts, the following topics are discussed: perception, light, 
quasi-linear paradigm, stochastic paradigm, geometry, physics, 
mathematics, computer science. Also addressed are common areas of
study and common applications (T. Pun and E. Blake, "Relationships
between image synthesis and analysis: towards unification?", Computer
Graphics Forum, 9, 2, July 1990, 149-163).

Thierry Pun

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 14:25:05 CDT
From: jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu (James Darrell McCauley)
Subject: Texure Image w/ Ground Truth Sought

I've coded up the algorithms to find textural features from:

   Haralick, R.M., K. Shanmugam, and I. Dinstein. 1973. Textural features
   for image classification.  IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and
   Cybertinetics, SMC-3(6):610-621.

I am looking for an image to test them on.  For those of you not 
familiar with that paper, he uses a cooccurence matrix to find:

     1  "Angular Second Moment "     2  "Contrast              "
     3  "Correlation           "     4  "Variance              "
     5  "Inverse Diff Moment   "     6  "Sum Average           "
     7  "Sum Variance          "     8  "Sum Entropy           "
     9  "Entropy               "     10 "Difference Variance   "
     11 "Difference Entropy    "     12 "Meas of Correlation   "
     13 "Meas of Correlation   "     14 "Max Correlation Coeff "

I only need to see if my coding is correct.  Any pointers appreciated.
If you have *anything* close to this, please send it to me. I've 
just about exhausted all other avenues (short of buying an image)
and am desperate (and short on time).

Thanks,

James Darrell McCauley, Grad Res Asst, Spatial Analysis Lab 
Dept of Ag Engr, Texas A&M Univ, College Station, TX 77843-2117, USA
(jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu, jdm5548@tamagen.bitnet)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 19:44:26 GMT
From: drolet@wiener.ino.qc.ca (Jean-Jacques Drolet)
Subject: Handwritten character database
Organization: National Optics Institute, Quebec, Canada

The National Optics Institute of Canada plans to study pattern recognition
problems involving handwritten characters. Does anyone know where we could
find a large database of digitized handwritten characters?

Many thanks!

Jean-Jacques Drolet            |    Snail: 2631 boul. Liegeois, Sainte-Foy
National Optics Institute      |           Quebec, Canada, G1W 1Z5
Phone:         +1 418 657 7006 | Internet: drolet@drolet.CAM.ORG
Home phone:    +1 418 651 3796 |     UUCP: uunet!drolet!drolet

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 13:47:53 EST
From: perry@dewey.CSS.GOV (John Perry)
Subject: Image Compression algorithms

Take a look at the JPEG ISO imaging compression standard that will be
completed by this fall. 
	Joint Photographics Experts Group
	ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG8
	CCITT SGVIII

It uses frequency domain transformations (Adaptive Discrete Cosing Transform)
to reach lossless compression levels of at least 20:1 and decimated 
compression of 40:1. If your looking for something simpler, there are lots
of public domain tools to reach a compression of 2:1 or so. 

Several companies are working on chips to speed the JPEG up. We have
almost got our software implementation finished for the DECstation and
Sparkstation. Mail if you need more....

	Richard Hubert
	Interactive Objects Software GmbH (iO)
	Nikolausstrasse 20
	7807 Elzach, Germany
        Tel: (+49)-7682-6375 or -6374
	FAX: (+49)-7682-6375 (yes, it's an automatic FAX/Telephone)
	Email: hubert@iobj.uucp
	Email from DEC VAXmail: decum::"hubert%iobj.uucp@unido.uucp"
	Email long forms: 
	  Internet: hubert%iobj.uucp@unido.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
	  uucp: uunet!unido!iobj!hubert
          uucp: ...!{decvax,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!unido!iobj!hubert

------------------------------

Date: 9 Apr 91 22:10:20 GMT
From: dsmith@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Guess Who)
Organization: Portland State University, Portland, OR
Keywords: image processing vision
Subject: IRI D256 Image Processing System - Need Help

Hello,
	We have an IRI D256 image processing system.  IRI sold
a few of these systems before they went out of business.  During a
move we lost a piece of documentation for the color retrofit board.

The color retrofit board comes with a non-sync RGB camera.  I know
that there is a set up command at the debug level and some iUNIX
commands which are required for the system and the monitor to work
correctly without a camera sync signal.  We lost the list of commands.

If anyone knows the command sequence, we would appreciate the 
information.

David Smith, EE Dept., Portland State University

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Apr 91 22:05:49 +0100
From: A.Etemadi@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Subject: FEX and LPEG

I have written a couple of packages which maybe of interest to people.

FEX:: is a package for extracting straight lines and curves from an edge
detected image. The edges should first be converted to ASCII strings of 
pixels. A utility written by Rosin and West is available for performing
this opertation. FEX has only been tested on data from 256x256 images. 
It is very simple to use. There are no thresholds to set. I Generally
find that I can reconstruct the Canny edge map analytically. The 
execution time is on average better than 0.05 seconds per string on a 
Sun 4 Sparc. FEX may also serve for compressing edge data for transmission
since you generally get better than an order of magnitude data compression 
factor. Finally it also allows the detection of points of high curvature 
within the edgemap. 

LPEG:: is a package for perceptual grouping of straight line segments
It accepts FEX output directly. There is also a simple routine for the 
converting the end points of a line segment to the format accepted by LPEG. 
The output is in the form of ASCII lists of the following:

	Overlapping Parallel lines
	Non-overlapping parallel lines
	Collinear lines
	L and V junctions
	T and Lambda junctions

The execution time is between 0.6 and 120 seconds on a Sun4 Sparc for lists 
of between 40 and 150 line segments (actually the time is mostly taken up
by IO).

Both packages are available by request for evaluation purposes only and
come with the usual speel about waranties and distribution. These packages 
are NOT for distribution to companies however interested parties should 
contact me directly.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the BMVC in Glasgow.
	
	ciao
		Ata <(|)>.

Dr. A. Etemadi,                         | Phone: (0483) 571-281 Ext. 2311
V.S.S.P. Group,                         | Fax  : (0483) 300-803
Dept. of Electronic and Electrical Eng.,| Email:
University of Surrey,                   |   Janet: a.etemadi@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Guildford,                              |          ata@c.mssl.ucl.ac.uk
Surrey GU2 5XH                          |   SPAN : ata@mssl
United Kingdom                          |          ata@msslc

------------------------------

Date: 06 Apr 91 16:09:18 EDT
From: ZHAO@umde.dbrn.umich.edu
Subject:  Machine/computer vision for measurement

Dear Net:comp.ai.vision Readers:

  I am asked to compile a report on machine/computer vision techniques/
algorithms for industrial measurements.  I appreciate your response to
this inquiry to the following specifics:
  1. The methodologies used for industrial tool measurement by machine/
computer vision and imaging technology.
  2. The current available instrumentations: products using machine/computer
vision and imaging technology for industrial measurement.
  3. Current research/development efforts.

  Please send your response to the e-mail address:
      zhao@umde.dbrn.umich.edu
(or to :  dzhao@caip.rutgers.edu)

  Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Dongming Zhao
  ECE Dept.
  Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn
  Dearborn, MI 48128-1491
  zhao@umde.dbrn.umich.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1991 09:49:30 +0200
From: Alain Jacot-Descombes <jacot@cui.unige.ch>
Subject: LABOIMAGE v 3.1 available by ftp

[ LaboImage is now avilable in the Vision List SHAREWARE archives. 
  (Additionally, the newest version of NIH Image for the Mac has been added.) 
  Hope this code is of interest and use to you...
					phil...		]


LABOIMAGE

Original notice
T. Pun, March 8th, 1989 (LaboImage 2.0)
Updated April 5th, 1989
Updated September 1st, 1989
Updated March 8th, 1990
Updated August 24th, 1990 (new version LaboImage 3.0)
Updated March 19th, 1991 (new version LaboImage 3.1)
Computer Science Center, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Thank you for your interest in Labo Image!


GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Labo Image is a window based software for image processing and analysis. It
contains a comprehensive set of operators as well as general utilities. It
is designed to be open-ended; new modules can easily be added. The software
is written in C, and currently runs on Sun 3/xxx, Sun 4/xxx (OS3.5, 4.0 and
4.0.3) under SunView. The expert system for image segmentation is written in
Allegro Common Lisp. LaboImage has been extensively used by students as well
as researchers from various domains: computer science (image analysis), 
medicine, biology, physics. It is distributed free of charge (source code).

STATUS

Version 0 has been released in January 1988, version 1 in November 1988, 
version 2 in May 1989, version 3.0 in August 1990, version 3.1 in March 1991.
    - hosts: Sun 3/xxx, Sun 4/xxx;
    - OS: Sun OS 3.5, 4.0, 4.0.3;
    - window system: SunView, X11/MOTIF as soon as possible;
    - language: C (Allegro Common Lisp for the expert system);
    - approx. code size: source 2MB (70'000 lines), executable 2MB under
      SunView/OS4.0.3;
    - documentation: manuals (english)

MEANS OF DISTRIBUTIONS

LaboImage source code is available by anonymous ftp at ads.com, login name
anonymous, in pub/VISION-LIST-ARCHIVE/SHAREWARE. If you have no access to ftp,
please contact the author.
If you wish to be kept current with update, error reports, ..., please send
us a mail with your full name, regular and electronic addresses.

DISTRIBUTION POLICY

In essence:
    - this is a non-profit software, but it is our property and the copyright
      notice must appear;
    - the reference to cite in case of published results obtained with Labo
      Image is: "A. Jacot-Descombes, K. Todorov, D.F. Hochstrasser,
      C. Pellegrini and T. Pun: `LaboImage: a Workstation Environment for
      Research in Image Processing and Analysis', Computer Applications in
      the Biosciences, 7(2), IRL Press Limited, 1991";
    - no responsibility is assumed;
    - not to be used for profit making purposes;
    - bugs will usually be corrected since we use intensively the software;
    - modifications should be communicated to us, with (normally) allowance
      for redistribution.

PAYMENT

Athough LaboImage has undergone many upgrades and suffered in the hands of 
many users, the current version is certainly not bug free. For the time being,
we require NO prepayment, return postage or anything. 
We may however change this policy in the future, and ask for nominal fees to
cover material expenditures. HOWEVER, if you are satisfied with the product,
why not send us some "souvenir" (edible or not) from your country...??!!

CAPABILITIES

Labo Image is an interactive software, whose interface is menu, mouse and 
windows based. It can work on monochrome (binary) or color workstations. Its
main features are:
    - input-output: LaboImage format file, SUN raster file, screen, 
	    postscript;
    - display: mono, RGB, dithering, 3-D perspective display, color table
	    editor;
    - preprocessing: filters (median, high pass, low pass: hamming, gauss, etc),
	    background subtraction, histogram equalization;
    - processing: thresholding, Fourier transforms, edge extractions: various
	    operators, ridge-riding, zero-crossing; segmentation into regions,
	    binary and gray tone mathematical morphology;
    - measures: histograms, image statistics, power, region outlining, 
	    object counting;
    - auxiliary: conversions, arithmetic & logical operations, noise addition,
	    image generation, magnification, convolution/correlation with
	    masks, image; padding;
    - elementary interactive operations: region outlining, statistics and
	    histogram computation, etc.;
    - special tools: 
	    - modify image at pixel level interactively,
	    - one-dimensional gel analysis,
	    - expert system for image segmentation,
    - macros definitions, save and replay;
    - on line documentation.

IMAGE FORMATS

Own format: descriptor file + data file (binary, byte, int, float, complex;
mono or RGB). Supports also Sun raster format. Conversions to various other 
formats.
Constructs:
    - iconic (pixel-based), with each image having its own parameter list;
    - vectors (histograms, look-up tables);
    - graphs (for regions; being implemented);
    - strings (for macros).

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS (answers to commonly asked questions)

 - FILE FORMAT: we decided to go for: 1) a machine independant format; 2) a
   simple, data (ie. signal) oriented format. At the beginning of the
   development (summer 1987), we were not aware of any image format used by
   the whole community. There seems now to be some progress on the matter
   (TIFF, etc.), but they are still not that widely used in the community.
   Also, due to development priorities we consider conversion routines a more
   secondary issue as long as our format is simple. 
   In addition, the menu ACQUISITION/LTS is fairly versatile. Also, the SUN 
   raster images can now be read into LaboImage and likewise images on system
   may be stored in SUN raster format.
   However.. we would welcome any software contribution!

 - SUN 3 and SUN 4: Labo Image currently runs on SUN 3/xxx and SUN 4/xxx under
   SunOS 4.0.3. As long as you can compile on these machines, it should run.

 - 3D IMAGE PROCESSING: nothing special for such images.

 - REGIONAL DESCRIPTION: work is underway to develop region segmentation
   algorithms. These regions will be described by a graph data structure.

 - ON LINE HELP: available!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

More than 10 people have so far participated in this project, and their
contribution is gratefully acknowledged.
Staff: Pierre-Yves Burgi, Claudia Coiteux-Rosu, Ziping Hu, Alain Jacot-
Descombes, Rene Lutz, Christian Pellegrini, Thierry Pun, Marianne Rupp,
Krassimir Todorov.
Students: Anne Bobillier, Alain Brunner, Markus Buchi, Christian Girard, Rene
Perrier, Vrinda Shukla. 
Amongst them, Ziping Hu is responsible for the expert system for image
segmentation, A. Jacot-Descombes is responsible for general design issues, 
and is the keystone for implementation; R. Lutz is responsible for display
manipulations (Color Table Editor,etc.); T. Pun is responsible for the 
original layout and general design issues; V. Shukla is responsible for the
upgrade from LaboImage 2.0 to LaboImage 3.0. 

CONTACTS

Particular problems will be redirected to relevant persons, but we prefer
that all communications be made to the same address:
e-mail: "pun@uni2a.unige.ch" or pun@cgeuge51.bitnet (if this fails,
	"pun@cui.unige.ch").
tel.: +(4122) 787 65 82 (T. Pun), 787 65 84 (A. Jacot-Descombes).
fax:  +(4122) 735 39 05.
postal address: Thierry Pun
                LaboImage
                Computing Science Center, University of Geneva
                12, rue du Lac
                CH - 1207 Geneva  SWITZERLAND

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End of VISION-LIST digest 10.17
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