Robust segmentation of tubular structures in 3-D medical images by parametric object detection and tracking

We present a novel approach to the coarse segmentation of tubular structures in three-dimensional (3-D) image data. Our algorithm, which requires only few initial values and minimal user interaction, can be used to initialize complex deformable models and is based on an extension of the randomized hough transform (RHT), a robust method for low-dimensional parametric object detection. Tubular structures are modeled as generalized cylinders. By means of a discrete Kalman filter, they are tracked through 3-D space. Our extensions to the RHT are a feature adaptive selection of the sample size, expectation-dependent weighting of the input data, and a novel 3-D parameterization for straight elliptical cylinders. Experimental results obtained for 3-D synthetic as well as for 3-D medical images demonstrate the robustness of our approach w.r.t. image noise. We present the successful segmentation of tubular anatomical structures such as the aortic arc and the spinal cord.     

Camera calibration by vanishing lines for 3-D computer vision

A novel approach to camera calibration by vanishing lines is proposed. Calibrated parameters include the orientation, position, and focal length of a camera. A hexagon is used as the calibration target to generate a vanishing line of the ground plane from its projected image. It is shown that the vanishing line includes useful geometric hints about the camera orientation parameters and the focal length, from which the orientation parameters can be solved easily and analytically. And the camera position parameters can be calibrated by the use of related geometric projective relationships. The simplicity of the target eliminates the complexity of the environment setup and simplifies the feature extraction in relevant image processing. The calibration formulas are also simple to compute. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed approach     

用格雷编码结构光法测量三维面形

采用以格雷编码结构光投影技术为基础的非接触式三维面形测量法构建了一个三维形貌测量系统,并进行了测量实验;该系统主要由一台LCD投影仪,一台LCD摄像机和一台PC机组成,LCD投影仪在计算机控制下向被测物表面投影一系列由黑白相间的条纹构成的图案,然后由CCD摄像机依次接收经被测物表面调制后的图案,并传送给计算机存储以等待处理,计算机接收完一组图像后,依次对其进行去阴影噪声、二值化、编码等处理,从中提取高度信息,最后根据提取的信息进行三维重构,结合实验,论述了系统的搭建及格雷编码三维测量方法的实现过程,对其中的系统调整和图像处理部分做了重点介绍,并给出了实验结果。     

Self-assembly of 3-D structures using 2-D folding tiles

Natural Computing - Self-assembly is a process which is ubiquitous in natural, especially biological systems. It occurs when groups of relatively simple components spontaneously combine to form...     

Vision-based 3-D trajectory tracking for unknown environments

This paper describes a vision-based system for 3-D localization of a mobile robot in a natural environment. The system includes a mountable head with three on-board charge-coupled device cameras that can be installed on the robot. The main emphasis of this paper is on the ability to estimate the motion of the robot independently from any prior scene knowledge, landmark, or extra sensory devices. Distinctive scene features are identified using a novel algorithm, and their 3-D locations are estimated with high accuracy by a stereo algorithm. Using new two-stage feature tracking and iterative motion estimation in a symbiotic manner, precise motion vectors are obtained. The 3-D positions of scene features and the robot are refined by a Kalman filtering approach with a complete error-propagation modeling scheme. Experimental results show that good tracking and localization can be achieved using the proposed vision system.     

利用提取边缘线的方法定位条形码

为解决基于图像处理方式识别条形码的问题,提出了利用图像边缘线来有效且快速定位条形码的方法。该方法首先用大津法对原始灰度图像获得一个阈值,并对图像中灰度小于此阈值的像素进行隔行隔列处理,提取边缘线。然后将图像分割成大小相等的水平条,依据质心的位置和水平条中边缘点的数量分布确定起始条。通过已知的离散直线中小阶梯最下端的边缘点来拟合直线,并得到直线倾斜角度。仿真实验比较了Sobel算子边缘检测方法和该方法提取边缘线,以及用检测直线的Hough变换方法和该方法进行直线拟合的处理效果和运行时间,结果表明了所提出算法的有效性、快速性和可靠性。     

边缘跟踪算法的图像线条画生成

给出一种基于边缘跟踪算法的图像线条画生成算法。该算法由边缘跟踪和线条画绘制两部分组成。在边缘跟踪中,提出基于相异性度量的边缘跟踪算法,以使利用边缘检测算子得到的边缘能够归类、连接;在线条画绘制过程中,引入非均匀B样条对不连续边缘进行插值并使用高斯平滑以获得连续光滑的边缘线条,然后以线条的曲率为依据,生成画笔,实现线条画的绘制。实验给出了本文方法生成的图像线条画的结果,实验结果表明,本文方法能够迅速快捷的生成较高质量的线条画。     

Orientation of 3-D structures in medical images

A tensor-based moment function method and a principal-axes method were investigated for registering 3-D test images to a standard image using translation, scale, and orientation. These methods were applied at two image resolutions to test discretization effects. At the higher resolution, both methods were found to perform well in cases where the test image could be described as an affine transform of the standard. At low resolutions, however, and when the test image was not an affine transform of the standard, only the principal-axes-based method performed adequately. The problem of quantifying the left ventricular function from gated blood pool single-photo emission computed tomographic images is considered     

小波变换三阈值多尺度融合边缘检测算法

充分利用边缘点和噪声点在梯度方向特征上的差异,提出了边缘点的梯度方向特征的概念。在不同尺度上对图像进行小波变换,得到每个像素点的梯度信息,利用双阈值的非极大值抑制法和边缘点的梯度方向特征提取每一尺度上的边缘点,最后用第三个阈值融合各尺度下的检测结果,得到图像边缘。实验结果证明,该算法与经典的Canny算子和Mallat小波算子相比,在保证边缘定位能力的同时,具有更强的抗噪声性,在强噪声干扰下仍可获得满意的边缘检测效果。     

Fast and reliable active appearance model search for 3-D face tracking

This paper addresses the three-dimensional (3-D) tracking of pose and animation of the human face in monocular image sequences using active appearance models. The major problem of the classical appearance-based adaptation is the high computational time resulting from the inclusion of a synthesis step in the iterative optimization. Whenever the dimension of the face space is large, a real-time performance cannot be achieved. In this paper, we aim at designing a fast and stable active appearance model search for 3-D face tracking. The main contribution is a search algorithm whose CPU-time is not dependent on the dimension of the face space. Using this algorithm, we show that both the CPU-time and the likelihood of a nonaccurate tracking are reduced. Experiments evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are reported, as well as method comparison and tracking synthetic and real image sequences.     

FEG structures for representation and recognition of 3-D polyhedral objects

The paper proposes a fast O(n ^2.5) recognition algorithm for partially occluded 3D polyhedral objects, where n is the number of the polyhedron vertices.Our approach is based on the generate and test mechanism using the alignment approach as its basic recognition tool. The first stage is to align one face of the unknown polyhedron with one face of one library model (generate). The second stage is a recursive test procedure that checks the matching of the remaining faces. A new structure called FEG—Face Edge Graph is introduced. This structure stores information about the 2D coordinates of each face and the identity of its adjacent faces.A very low complexity is achieved by using a divide and conquer strategy. Instead of trying to recognize the whole object at once, we divide it and conquer (recognize) it face by face. This is done by reducing the recognition problem to generalized subgraph matching problem in which two subgraphs are equal not only when they are isomorphic, but also when they represent the same part of the same object. A special mechanism handles false splitting and false merging of adjacent faces as a result of wrong segmentation.The process lends itself to hierarchical parallel processing in that the matching with each library model may be carried out independently, and also for each model—processing at the pixel level may also be done in parallel.We evaluated our approach with several real range data images as well as some synthetic objects. Four of these cases are reported here.     

CCD传感器在三维表面测量中的应用

本文采用电荷耦合成像的CCD摄像机获取立体图像,利用面积相关与灰暗度相关性,为精确地计算三维表面坐标、图像处理提供了一种新的测量三维表面的方法。     

Interactive 3D model acquisition and tracking of building block structures

We present a prototype system for interactive construction and modification of 3D physical models using building blocks. Our system uses a depth sensing camera and a novel algorithm for acquiring and tracking the physical models. The algorithm, Lattice-First, is based on the fact that building block structures can be arranged in a 3D point lattice where the smallest block unit is a basis in which to derive all the pieces of the model. The algorithm also makes it possible for users to interact naturally with the physical model as it is acquired, using their bare hands to add and remove pieces. We present the details of our algorithm, along with examples of the models we can acquire using the interactive system. We also show the results of an experiment where participants modify a block structure in the absence of visual feedback. Finally, we discuss two proof-of-concept applications: a collaborative guided assembly system where one user is interactively guided to build a structure based on another user's design, and a game where the player must build a structure that matches an on-screen silhouette.     

Online multi-object tracking using multi-function integration and tracking simulation training

Applied Intelligence - Recently, with the development of deep-learning, the performance of multi-object tracking algorithms based on deep neural networks has been greatly improved. However, most...     

A novel approach to 3-D gaze tracking using stereo cameras

A novel approach to three-dimensional (3-D) gaze tracking using 3-D computer vision techniques is proposed in this paper. This method employs multiple cameras and multiple point light sources to estimate the optical axis of user's eye without using any user-dependent parameters. Thus, it renders the inconvenient system calibration process which may produce possible calibration errors unnecessary. A real-time 3-D gaze tracking system has been developed which can provide 30 gaze measurements per second. Moreover, a simple and accurate calibration method is proposed to calibrate the gaze tracking system. Before using the system, each user only has to stare at a target point for a few (2-3) seconds so that the constant angle between the 3-D line of sight and the optical axis can be estimated. The test results of six subjects showed that the gaze tracking system is very promising achieving an average estimation error of under 1 degrees.     

Dynamic elastoplastic analysis of 3-D structures by the domain/boundary element method

The main objective of this paper is to present a general three-dimensional boundary element methodology for solving transient dynamic elastoplastic problems. The elastostatic fundamental solution is used in writing the integral representation and this creates in addition to the surface integrals, volume integrals due to inertia and inelasticity. Thus, an interior discretization in addition to the usual surface discretization is necessary. Isoparametric linear quadrilateral elements are used for the surface discretization and isoparametric linear hexahedra for the interior discretization. Advanced numerical integration techniques for singular and nearly singular integrals are employed. Houbolt's step-by-step numerical time integration algorithm is used to provide the dynamic response. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the method and demonstrate its accuracy.     

Tracking 3-D motion from straight lines with trifocal tensors

We present a novel approach to track the position and orientation of a stereo camera using line features in the images. The method combines the strengths of trifocal tensors and Bayesian filtering. The trifocal tensor provides a geometric constraint to lock line features among every three frames. It eliminates the explicit reconstruction of the scene even if the 3-D scene structure is not known. Such a trifocal constraint thus makes the algorithm fast and robust. The twist motion model is applied to further improve its computation efficiency. Another major contribution is that our approach can obtain the 3-D camera motion using as little as 2 line correspondences instead of 13 in the traditional approaches. This makes the approach attractive for realistic applications. The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated using both synthetic and real data with encouraging results. Our algorithm is able to estimate 3-D camera motion in real scenarios accurately having little drifting from an image sequence longer than a 1,000 frames.     

单目平行线约束下的空间点坐标恢复

提出一种从单目像机拍摄的二维投影图像中恢复空间点三维坐标的简化算法.假定摄像机与空间中的一对平行线的位置关系已知,同时摄像机坐标系下平行线所在平面中的任意空间点在像平面中的投影也已知,通过射影几何可得图像坐标到目标点三维空间坐标的转换系数,即坐标转换因数,从而估计出三维空间点的坐标.实验中通过对人体行走轨迹进行估计来测试算法性能,结果表明算法简单有效,计算开销小.     

三维视觉测量系统平台的软件设计及实现

主要阐述了三维视觉测量系统的软件设计及实现,包括4个部分：图像卡的二次开发、电移台运动控制、图像处理、摄像机标定;利用VC＋＋实现了图像卡的二次开发和电移台运动的实时控制;利用MATLAB强大的矩阵运算能力,与VC＋＋相结合,实现了图像处理和摄像机内外参数的标定;通过实验表明,本系统运行正常,为进一步研究三维视觉自标定、不标定理论和实现在线测量提供了一个好的平台。     

A Constraint-Satisfaction Approach for 3-D Object Recognition by Integrating 2-D and 3-D Data

We present a framework for recognition of 3D objects by integrating 2D and 3D sensory data. The major thrust of this work is to efficiently utilize all relevant data, both 2D and 3D, in the early stages of recognition, in order to reduce the computational requirements of the recognition process. To achieve this goal, we formulate the problem as a constraint–satisfaction problem (CSP). Rather than directly solving the CSP, a problem of exponential complexity, we only enforce local consistency in low-order polynomial time. This step of local-consistency enforcement can significantly decrease the computational load on subsequent recognition modules by (1) significantly reducing the uncertainty in the correspondence between scene and model features and (2) eliminating many erroneous model objects and irrelevant scene features. A novel method is presented for efficiently constructing a CSP corresponding to a combination of 2D and 3D scene features. Performance of the proposed framework is demonstrated using simulated and real experiments involving visual (2D) and tactile (3D) data.