Joan Mas, Alicia Fornes, & Josep Llados. (2016). An Interactive Transcription System of Census Records using Word-Spotting based Information Transfer. In 12th IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (pp. 54–59).
Abstract: This paper presents a system to assist in the transcription of historical handwritten census records in a crowdsourcing platform. Census records have a tabular structured layout. They consist in a sequence of rows with information of homes ordered by street address. For each household snippet in the page, the list of family members is reported. The censuses are recorded in intervals of a few years and the information of individuals in each household is quite stable from a point in time to the next one. This redundancy is used to assist the transcriber, so the redundant information is transferred from the census already transcribed to the next one. Household records are aligned from one year to the next one using the knowledge of the ordering by street address. Given an already transcribed census, a query by string word spotting is applied. Thus, names from the census in time t are used as queries in the corresponding home record in time t+1. Since the search is constrained, the obtained precision-recall values are very high, with an important reduction in the transcription time. The proposed system has been tested in a real citizen-science experience where non expert users transcribe the census data of their home town.
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Josep Llados, Jaime Lopez-Krahe, & Enric Marti. (1996). Hand drawn document understanding using the straight line Hough transform and graph matching. In Proceedings of the 13th International Pattern Recognition Conference (ICPR’96) (Vol. 2, pp. 497–501). Vienna , Austria.
Abstract: This paper presents a system to understand hand drawn architectural drawings in a CAD environment. The procedure is to identify in a floor plan the building elements, stored in a library of patterns, and their spatial relationships. The vectorized input document and the patterns to recognize are represented by attributed graphs. To recognize the patterns as such, we apply a structural approach based on subgraph isomorphism techniques. In spite of their value, graph matching techniques do not recognize adequately those building elements characterized by hatching patterns, i.e. walls. Here we focus on the recognition of hatching patterns and develop a straight line Hough transform based method in order to detect the regions filled in with parallel straight fines. This allows not only to recognize filling patterns, but it actually reduces the computational load associated with the subgraph isomorphism computation. The result is that the document can be redrawn by editing all the patterns recognized
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Rafael E. Rivadeneira, Angel Sappa, Boris X. Vintimilla, & Riad I. Hammoud. (2022). A Novel Domain Transfer-Based Approach for Unsupervised Thermal Image Super-Resolution. SENS - Sensors, 22(6), 2254.
Abstract: This paper presents a transfer domain strategy to tackle the limitations of low-resolution thermal sensors and generate higher-resolution images of reasonable quality. The proposed technique employs a CycleGAN architecture and uses a ResNet as an encoder in the generator along with an attention module and a novel loss function. The network is trained on a multi-resolution thermal image dataset acquired with three different thermal sensors. Results report better performance benchmarking results on the 2nd CVPR-PBVS-2021 thermal image super-resolution challenge than state-of-the-art methods. The code of this work is available online.
Keywords: Thermal image super-resolution; unsupervised super-resolution; thermal images; attention module; semiregistered thermal images
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Arnau Ramisa, Adriana Tapus, David Aldavert, Ricardo Toledo, & Ramon Lopez de Mantaras. (2009). Robust Vision-Based Localization using Combinations of Local Feature Regions Detectors. AR - Autonomous Robots, 27(4), 373–385.
Abstract: This paper presents a vision-based approach for mobile robot localization. The model of the environment is topological. The new approach characterizes a place using a signature. This signature consists of a constellation of descriptors computed over different types of local affine covariant regions extracted from an omnidirectional image acquired rotating a standard camera with a pan-tilt unit. This type of representation permits a reliable and distinctive environment modelling. Our objectives were to validate the proposed method in indoor environments and, also, to find out if the combination of complementary local feature region detectors improves the localization versus using a single region detector. Our experimental results show that if false matches are effectively rejected, the combination of different covariant affine region detectors increases notably the performance of the approach by combining the different strengths of the individual detectors. In order to reduce the localization time, two strategies are evaluated: re-ranking the map nodes using a global similarity measure and using standard perspective view field of 45°.
In order to systematically test topological localization methods, another contribution proposed in this work is a novel method to see the degradation in localization performance as the robot moves away from the point where the original signature was acquired. This allows to know the robustness of the proposed signature. In order for this to be effective, it must be done in several, variated, environments that test all the possible situations in which the robot may have to perform localization.
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Carme Julia, Angel Sappa, Felipe Lumbreras, Joan Serrat, & Antonio Lopez. (2008). An Adapted Alternation Approach for Recommender Systems. In IEEE International Conference on e–Business Engineering, (128–135).
Abstract: This paper presents an adaptation of the alternation technique to tackle the prediction task in recommender systems. These systems are widely considered in electronic commerce to help customers to find products they will probably like or dislike. As the SVD-based approaches, the proposed adapted alternation technique uses all the information stored in the system to find the predictions. The main advantage of this technique with respect to the SVD-based ones is that it can deal with missing data. Furthermore, it has a smaller computational cost. Experimental results with public data sets are provided in order to show the viability of the proposed adapted alternation approach.
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Gioacchino Vino, & Angel Sappa. (2013). Revisiting Harris Corner Detector Algorithm: a Gradual Thresholding Approach. In 10th International Conference on Image Analysis and Recognition (Vol. 7950, pp. 354–363). LNCS. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive thresholding approach intended to increase the number of detected corners, while reducing the amount of those ones corresponding to noisy data. The proposed approach works by using the classical Harris corner detector algorithm and overcome the difficulty in finding a general threshold that work well for all the images in a given data set by proposing a novel adaptive thresholding scheme. Initially, two thresholds are used to discern between strong corners and flat regions. Then, a region based criteria is used to discriminate between weak corners and noisy points in the midway interval. Experimental results show that the proposed approach has a better capability to reject false corners and, at the same time, to detect weak ones. Comparisons with the state of the art are provided showing the validity of the proposed approach.
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Iban Berganzo-Besga, Hector A. Orengo, Felipe Lumbreras, Paloma Aliende, & Monica N. Ramsey. (2022). Automated detection and classification of multi-cell Phytoliths using Deep Learning-Based Algorithms. JArchSci - Journal of Archaeological Science, 148, 105654.
Abstract: This paper presents an algorithm for automated detection and classification of multi-cell phytoliths, one of the major components of many archaeological and paleoenvironmental deposits. This identification, based on phytolith wave pattern, is made using a pretrained VGG19 deep learning model. This approach has been tested in three key phytolith genera for the study of agricultural origins in Near East archaeology: Avena, Hordeum and Triticum. Also, this classification has been validated at species-level using Triticum boeoticum and dicoccoides images. Due to the diversity of microscopes, cameras and chemical treatments that can influence images of phytolith slides, three types of data augmentation techniques have been implemented: rotation of the images at 45-degree angles, random colour and brightness jittering, and random blur/sharpen. The implemented workflow has resulted in an overall accuracy of 93.68% for phytolith genera, improving previous attempts. The algorithm has also demonstrated its potential to automatize the classification of phytoliths species with an overall accuracy of 100%. The open code and platforms employed to develop the algorithm assure the method's accessibility, reproducibility and reusability.
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Joan M. Nuñez, Jorge Bernal, F. Javier Sanchez, & Fernando Vilariño. (2013). Blood Vessel Characterization in Colonoscopy Images to Improve Polyp Localization. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (Vol. 1, pp. 162–171). SciTePress.
Abstract: This paper presents an approach to mitigate the contribution of blood vessels to the energy image used at different tasks of automatic colonoscopy image analysis. This goal is achieved by introducing a characterization of endoluminal scene objects which allows us to differentiate between the trace of 2-dimensional visual objects,such as vessels, and shades from 3-dimensional visual objects, such as folds. The proposed characterization is based on the influence that the object shape has in the resulting visual feature, and it leads to the development of a blood vessel attenuation algorithm. A database consisting of manually labelled masks was built in order to test the performance of our method, which shows an encouraging success in blood vessel mitigation while keeping other structures intact. Moreover, by extending our method to the only available polyp localization
algorithm tested on a public database, blood vessel mitigation proved to have a positive influence on the overall performance.
Keywords: Colonoscopy; Blood vessel; Linear features; Valley detection
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Fadi Dornaika, & Bogdan Raducanu. (2010). Single Snapshot 3D Head Pose Initialization for Tracking in Human Robot Interaction Scenario. In 1st International Workshop on Computer Vision for Human-Robot Interaction (32–39).
Abstract: This paper presents an automatic 3D head pose initialization scheme for a real-time face tracker with application to human-robot interaction. It has two main contributions. First, we propose an automatic 3D head pose and person specific face shape estimation, based on a 3D deformable model. The proposed approach serves to initialize our realtime 3D face tracker. What makes this contribution very attractive is that the initialization step can cope with faces
under arbitrary pose, so it is not limited only to near-frontal views. Second, the previous framework is used to develop an application in which the orientation of an AIBO’s camera can be controlled through the imitation of user’s head pose.
In our scenario, this application is used to build panoramic images from overlapping snapshots. Experiments on real videos confirm the robustness and usefulness of the proposed methods.
Keywords: 1st International Workshop on Computer Vision for Human-Robot Interaction, in conjunction with IEEE CVPR 2010
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Laura Igual, Joan Carles Soliva, Antonio Hernandez, Sergio Escalera, Oscar Vilarroya, & Petia Radeva. (2012). Supervised Brain Segmentation and Classification in Diagnostic of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. In High Performance Computing and Simulation, International Conference on (pp. 182–187). IEEE Xplore.
Abstract: This paper presents an automatic method for external and internal segmentation of the caudate nucleus in Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) based on statistical and structural machine learning approaches. This method is applied in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis. The external segmentation method adapts the Graph Cut energy-minimization model to make it suitable for segmenting small, low-contrast structures, such as the caudate nucleus. In particular, new energy function data and boundary potentials are defined and a supervised energy term based on contextual brain structures is added. Furthermore, the internal segmentation method learns a classifier based on shape features of the Region of Interest (ROI) in MRI slices. The results show accurate external and internal caudate segmentation in a real data set and similar performance of ADHD diagnostic test to manual annotation.
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Adriana Romero, Carlo Gatta, & Gustavo Camps-Valls. (2014). Unsupervised Deep Feature Extraction Of Hyperspectral Images. In 6th Workshop on Hyperspectral Image and Signal Processing: Evolution in Remote Sensing.
Abstract: This paper presents an effective unsupervised sparse feature learning algorithm to train deep convolutional networks on hyperspectral images. Deep convolutional hierarchical representations are learned and then used for pixel classification. Features in lower layers present less abstract representations of data, while higher layers represent more abstract and complex characteristics. We successfully illustrate the performance of the extracted representations in a challenging AVIRIS hyperspectral image classification problem, compared to standard dimensionality reduction methods like principal component analysis (PCA) and its kernel counterpart (kPCA). The proposed method largely outperforms the previous state-ofthe-art results on the same experimental setting. Results show that single layer networks can extract powerful discriminative features only when the receptive field accounts for neighboring pixels. Regarding the deep architecture, we can conclude that: (1) additional layers in a deep architecture significantly improve the performance w.r.t. single layer variants; (2) the max-pooling step in each layer is mandatory to achieve satisfactory results; and (3) the performance gain w.r.t. the number of layers is upper bounded, since the spatial resolution is reduced at each pooling, resulting in too spatially coarse output features.
Keywords: Convolutional networks; deep learning; sparse learning; feature extraction; hyperspectral image classification
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Angel Sappa, Fadi Dornaika, Daniel Ponsa, David Geronimo, & Antonio Lopez. (2008). An Efficient Approach to Onboard Stereo Vision System Pose Estimation. TITS - IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 9(3), 476–490.
Abstract: This paper presents an efficient technique for estimating the pose of an onboard stereo vision system relative to the environment’s dominant surface area, which is supposed to be the road surface. Unlike previous approaches, it can be used either for urban or highway scenarios since it is not based on a specific visual traffic feature extraction but on 3-D raw data points. The whole process is performed in the Euclidean space and consists of two stages. Initially, a compact 2-D representation of the original 3-D data points is computed. Then, a RANdom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC) based least-squares approach is used to fit a plane to the road. Fast RANSAC fitting is obtained by selecting points according to a probability function that takes into account the density of points at a given depth. Finally, stereo camera height and pitch angle are computed related to the fitted road plane. The proposed technique is intended to be used in driverassistance systems for applications such as vehicle or pedestrian detection. Experimental results on urban environments, which are the most challenging scenarios (i.e., flat/uphill/downhill driving, speed bumps, and car’s accelerations), are presented. These results are validated with manually annotated ground truth. Additionally, comparisons with previous works are presented to show the improvements in the central processing unit processing time, as well as in the accuracy of the obtained results.
Keywords: Camera extrinsic parameter estimation, ground plane estimation, onboard stereo vision system
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Angel Sappa, Fadi Dornaika, David Geronimo, & Antonio Lopez. (2007). Efficient On-Board Stereo Vision Pose Estimation. In Computer Aided Systems Theory, Selected paper from (Vol. 4739, 1183–1190). LNCS.
Abstract: This paper presents an efficient technique for real time estimation of on-board stereo vision system pose. The whole process is performed in the Euclidean space and consists of two stages. Initially, a compact representation of the original 3D data points is computed. Then, a RANSAC based least squares approach is used for fitting a plane to the 3D road points. Fast RANSAC fitting is obtained by selecting points according to a probability distribution function that takes into account the density of points at a given depth. Finally, stereo camera position
and orientation—pose—is computed relative to the road plane. The proposed technique is intended to be used on driver assistance systems for applications such as obstacle or pedestrian detection. A real time performance is reached. Experimental results on several environments and comparisons with a previous work are presented.
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Fernando Barrera, Felipe Lumbreras, & Angel Sappa. (2012). Evaluation of Similarity Functions in Multimodal Stereo. In 9th International Conference on Image Analysis and Recognition (Vol. 7324, pp. 320–329). LNCS. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Abstract: This paper presents an evaluation framework for multimodal stereo matching, which allows to compare the performance of four similarity functions. Additionally, it presents details of a multimodal stereo head that supply thermal infrared and color images, as well as, aspects of its calibration and rectification. The pipeline includes a novel method for the disparity selection, which is suitable for evaluating the similarity functions. Finally, a benchmark for comparing different initializations of the proposed framework is presented. Similarity functions are based on mutual information, gradient orientation and scale space representations. Their evaluation is performed using two metrics: i) disparity error, and ii) number of correct matches on planar regions. In addition to the proposed evaluation, the current paper also shows that 3D sparse representations can be recovered from such a multimodal stereo head.
Keywords: Aveiro, Portugal
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Lluis Pere de las Heras, Ernest Valveny, & Gemma Sanchez. (2013). Combining structural and statistical strategies for unsupervised wall detection in floor plans. In 10th IAPR International Workshop on Graphics Recognition.
Abstract: This paper presents an evolution of the first unsupervised wall segmentation method in floor plans, that was presented by the authors in [1]. This first approach, contrarily to the existing ones, is able to segment walls independently to their notation and without the need of any pre-annotated data
to learn their visual appearance. Despite the good performance of the first approach, some specific cases, such as curved shaped walls, were not correctly segmented since they do not agree the strict structural assumptions that guide the whole methodology in order to be able to learn, in an unsupervised way, the structure of a wall. In this paper, we refine this strategy by dividing the
process in two steps. In a first step, potential wall segments are extracted unsupervisedly using a modification of [1], by restricting even more the areas considered as walls in a first moment. In a second step, these segments are used to learn and spot lost instances based on a modified version of [2], also presented by the authors. The presented combined method have been tested on
4 datasets with different notations and compared with the stateof-the-art applyed on the same datasets. The results show its adaptability to different wall notations and shapes, significantly outperforming the original approach.
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