Although direct volume rendering is a powerful tool for visualizing complex structures within volume data, the size and complexity of the parameter space controlling the rendering process makes generating an informative rendering challenging. In particular, the specification of the transfer function --- the mapping from data values to renderable optical properties --- is frequently a time-consuming and unintuitive task. Ideally, the data being visualized should itself suggest an appropriate transfer function that brings out the features of interest without obscuring them with elements of little importance. We demonstrate that this is possible for a large class of scalar volume data, namely that where the regions of interest are the boundaries between different materials. A transfer function which makes boundaries readily visible can be generated from the relationship between three quantities: the data value and its first and second directional derivatives along the gradient direction. ...

: Almost all problems in computer vision are related in one form or another to the problem of estimating parameters from noisy data. In this tutorial, we present what is probably the most commonly used techniques for parameter estimation. These include linear least-squares (pseudo-inverse and eigen analysis); orthogonal least-squares; gradient-weighted least-squares; bias-corrected renormalization; Kalman øltering; and robust techniques (clustering, regression diagnostics, M-estimators, least median of squares). Particular attention has been devoted to discussions about the choice of appropriate minimization criteria and the robustness of the dioeerent techniques. Their application to conic øtting is described. Key-words: Parameter estimation, Least-squares, Bias correction, Kalman øltering, Robust regression (R#sum# : tsvp) Unite de recherche INRIA Sophia-Antipolis 2004 route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS Cedex (France) Telephone : (33) 93 65 77 77 -- Telecopie : (33) 9...

A general technique for the recovery of significant image features is presented. The technique is basedon the mean shift algorithm, a simple nonparametric procedure for estimating density gradients. Drawbacks of the current methods (including robust clustering) are avoided. Featurespace of any naturecan beprocessed, and as an example, color image segmentation is discussed. The segmentation is completely autonomous, only its class is chosen by the user. Thus, the same program can produce a high quality edge image, or provide, by extracting all the significant colors, a preprocessor for content-based query systems. A 512 x 512 color image is analyzed in less than 10 seconds on a standard workstation. Gray level images are handled as color images having only the lightness coordinate.

In this paper we describe a new technique for the creation of featurebased stochastic maps using standard Polaroid sonar sensors. The fundamental contributions of our proposal are: (1) a perceptual grouping process that permits the robust identification and localization of environmental features, such as straight segments and corners, from the sparse and noisy sonar data; (2) a map joining technique that allows the system to build a sequence of independent limited-size stochastic maps and join them in a globally consistent way; (3) a robust mechanism to determine which features in a stochastic map correspond to the same environment feature, allowing the system to update the stochastic map accordingly, and perform tasks such as revisiting and loop closing. We demonstrate the practicality of this approach by building a geometric map of a medium size, real indoor environment, with several people moving around the robot. Maps built from laser data for the same experiment are provided for comparison. Key words

Abstract. Estimation techniques in computer vision applications must estimate accurate model parameters despite small-scale noise in the data, occasional large-scale measurement errors (outliers), and measurements from multiple populations in the same data set. Increasingly, robust estimation techniques, some borrowed from the statistics literature and others described in the computer vision literature, have been used in solving these parameter estimation problems. Ideally, these techniques should effectively ignore the outliers and measurements from other populations, treating them as outliers, when estimating the parameters of a single population. Two frequently used techniques are least-median of

. This paper examines statistical approaches to model-based object recognition. Evidence is presented indicating that, in some domains, normal (Gaussian) distributions are more accurate than uniform distributions for modeling feature fluctuations. This motivates the development of new maximum-likelihood and MAP recognition formulations which are based on normal feature models. These formulations lead to an expression for the posterior probability of the pose and correspondences given an image. Several avenues are explored for specifying a recognition hypothesis. In the first approach, correspondences are included as a part of the hypotheses. Search for solutions may be ordered as a combinatorial search in correspondence space, or as a search over pose space, where the same criterion can equivalently be viewed as a robust variant of chamfer matching. In the second approach, correspondences are not viewed as being a part of the hypotheses. This leads to a criterion that is a smooth funct...

ii About the cover The figure on the cover shows a visualization of a symmetric tensor in three dimensions, G = λ1ê1ê T 1 + λ2ê2ê T 2 + λ3ê3ê T 3 The object in the figure is the sum of a spear, a plate and a sphere. The spear describes the principal direction of the tensor λ1ê1ê T 1, where the length is proportional to the largest eigenvalue, λ1. The plate describes the plane spanned by the eigenvectors corresponding to the two largest eigenvalues, λ2(ê1ê T 1 + ê2ê T 2). The sphere, with a radius proportional to the smallest eigenvalue, shows how isotropic the tensor is, λ3(ê1ê T 1 + ê2ê T 2 + ê3ê T 3). The visualization is done using AVS [WWW94]. I am very grateful to Johan Wiklund for implementing the tensor viewer module used. This thesis deals with filtering of multidimensional signals. A large part of the thesis is devoted to a novel filtering method termed “Normalized convolution”. The method performs local expansion of a signal in a chosen filter basis which

Model-based object recognition systems have rarely dealt directly with 3D perspective while matching models to images. The algorithms presented here use 3D pose recovery during matching to explicitly and quantitatively account for changes in model appearance associated with 3D perspective. These algorithms use random-start local search to find, with high probability, the globally optimal correspondence between model and image features in spaces containing over 2 100 possible matches. Three specific algorithms are compared on robot landmark recognition problems. A fullperspective algorithm uses the 3D pose algorithm in all stages of search while two hybrid algorithms use a computationally less demanding weak-perspective procedure to rank alternative matches and updates 3D pose only when moving to a new match. These hybrids successfully solve problems involving perspective, and in less time than required by the full-perspective algorithm.

The new therapeutic method of `scotoma-based photocoagulation' developed at the Vienna Eye Clinic for diagnosis and treatment of age-related macular degeneration requires retinal maps from scanning laser ophthalmoscope images. This paper describes in detail all necessary image analysis steps for map generation. A prototype software system for fully automatic map generation has been implemented and tested on a representative dataset selected from a clinical study with 50 patients. The map required for the scotoma-based photocoagulation treatment can be reliably extracted in all cases. Thus, algorithms presented in this paper should be directly applicable in daily clinical routine without major modifications. Keywords--- Ophthalmology, feature extraction, registration, visualization I. Motivation T HERE is a strong medical motivation for the work presented in this paper: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the main reason for often severe loss and lasting decrease in visual acu...

Gesture recognition pertains to recognizing meaningful expressions of motion by a human, involving the hands, arms, face, head, and/or body. It is of utmost importance in designing an intelligent and efficient human–computer interface. The applications of gesture recognition are manifold, ranging from sign language through medical rehabilitation to virtual reality. In this paper, we provide a survey on gesture recognition with particular emphasis on hand gestures and facial expressions. Applications involving hidden Markov models, particle filtering and condensation, finite-state machines, optical flow, skin color, and connectionist models are discussed in detail. Existing challenges and future research possibilities are also highlighted.