Abstract: In this paper we present our image preprocessing methods as a key part of our automatic polyp localization scheme. These methods are used to assess the impact of different endoluminal scene elements when characterizing polyps. More precisely we tackle the influence of specular highlights, blood vessels and black mask surrounding the scene. Experimental results prove that the appropriate handling of these elements leads to a great improvement in polyp localization results.

Abstract: Many natural image sets, depicting objects whose appearance is changing due to motion, pose or light variations, can be considered samples of a low-dimension nonlinear manifold embedded in the high-dimensional observation space (the space of all possible images). The main contribution of our work is represented by a Supervised Laplacian Eigemaps (S-LE) algorithm, which exploits the class label information for mapping the original data in the embedded space. Our proposed approach benefits from two important properties: i) it is discriminative, and ii) it adaptively selects the neighbors of a sample without using any predefined neighborhood size. Experiments were conducted on four face databases and the results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms many linear and non-linear embedding techniques. Although we've focused on the face recognition problem, the proposed approach could also be extended to other category of objects characterized by large variance in their appearance.

Abstract: Segmentation in the surveillance domain has to deal with shadows to avoid distortions when detecting moving objects. Most segmentation approaches dealing with shadow detection are typically restricted to penumbra shadows. Therefore, such techniques cannot cope well with umbra shadows. Consequently, umbra shadows are usually detected as part of moving objects. In this paper we present a novel technique based on gradient and colour models for separating chromatic moving cast shadows from detected moving objects. Firstly, both a chromatic invariant colour cone model and an invariant gradient model are built to perform automatic segmentation while detecting potential shadows. In a second step, regions corresponding to potential shadows are grouped by considering “a bluish effect” and an edge partitioning. Lastly, (i) temporal similarities between textures and (ii) spatial similarities between chrominance angle and brightness distortions are analysed for all potential shadow regions in order to finally identify umbra shadows. Unlike other approaches, our method does not make any a-priori assumptions about camera location, surface geometries, surface textures, shapes and types of shadows, objects, and background. Experimental results show the performance and accuracy of our approach in different shadowed materials and illumination conditions.

Abstract: Object recoloring is one of the most popular photo-editing tasks. The problem of object recoloring is highly under-constrained, and existing recoloring methods limit their application to objects lit by a white illuminant. Application of these methods to real-world scenes lit by colored illuminants, multiple illuminants, or interreflections, results in unrealistic recoloring of objects. In this paper, we focus on the recoloring of single-colored objects presegmented from their background. The single-color constraint allows us to fit a more comprehensive physical model to the object. We demonstrate that this permits us to perform realistic recoloring of objects lit by non-white illuminants, and multiple illuminants. Moreover, the model allows for more realistic handling of illuminant alteration of the scene. Recoloring results captured by uncalibrated cameras demonstrate that the proposed framework obtains realistic recoloring for complex natural images. Furthermore we use the model to transfer color between objects and show that the results are more realistic than existing color transfer methods.

Abstract: This paper presents a novel formulation, which derives in a smooth minimization problem, to tackle the rigid registration between a given point set and a model set. Unlike most of the existing works, which are based on minimizing a point-wise correspondence term, we propose to describe the model set by means of an implicit representation. It allows a new definition of the registration error, which works beyond the point level representation. Moreover, it could be used in a gradient-based optimization framework. The proposed approach consists of two stages. Firstly, a novel formulation is proposed that relates the registration parameters with the distance between the model and data set. Secondly, the registration parameters are obtained by means of the Levengberg-Marquardt algorithm. Experimental results and comparisons with state of the art show the validity of the proposed framework.

Abstract: We propose an approach to multi-writer word spotting, where the goal is to find a query word in a dataset comprised of document images. We propose an attributes-based approach that leads to a low-dimensional, fixed-length representation of the word images that is fast to compute and, especially, fast to compare. This approach naturally leads to an unified representation of word images and strings, which seamlessly allows one to indistinctly perform query-by-example, where the query is an image, and query-by-string, where the query is a string. We also propose a calibration scheme to correct the attributes scores based on Canonical Correlation Analysis that greatly improves the results on a challenging dataset. We test our approach on two public datasets showing state-of-the-art results.

Abstract: 36.307
Many everyday behavioural uses of color vision depend on color naming ability, which is neither measured nor predicted by most standardized tests of color vision, for either normal or anomalous color vision. Here we demonstrate a new method to quantify color naming ability by deriving a compact computational description of individual 3D color spaces. Methods: Individual observers underwent standardized color vision diagnostic tests (including anomaloscope testing) and a series of custom-made color naming tasks using 500 distinct color samples, either CRT stimuli (“light”-based) or Munsell chips (“surface”-based), with both forced- and free-choice color naming paradigms. For each subject, we defined his/her color solid as the set of 3D convex hulls computed for each basic color category from the relevant collection of categorised points in perceptually uniform CIELAB space. From the parameters of the convex hulls, we derived several indices to characterise the 3D structure of the color solid and its inter-individual variations. Using a reference group of 25 normal trichromats (NT), we defined the degree of normality for the shape, location and overlap of each color region, and the extent of “light”-“surface” agreement. Results: Certain features of color perception emerge from analysis of the average NT color solid, e.g.: (1) the white category is slightly shifted towards blue; and (2) the variability in category border location across NT subjects is asymmetric across color space, with least variability in the blue/green region. Comparisons between individual and average NT indices reveal specific naming “deficits”, e.g.: (1) Category volumes for white, green, brown and grey are expanded for anomalous trichromats and dichromats; and (2) the focal structure of color space is disrupted more in protanopia than other forms of anomalous color vision. The indices both capture the structure of subjective color spaces and allow us to quantify inter-individual differences in color naming ability.