An important problem in image-based methods for particle analysis lies in segmenting the appropriate region of each particle. In this paper, an approach based on the morphological filter is proposed to estimate the region more precisely and analyze the characteristic parameters such as size and elongational viscosity of particles from observed microscopic images. At first, the initial segmentation with adaptive binarization is applied. The morphological filters with several structuring elements are designed to recover the contour of each particle and realize satisfactory segmentation. To estimate the deformable parameters of the particles of ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene), the elongation factor of target particles is evaluated by using an elliptical deformation model. The effectiveness of our approach has been demonstrated with actual data.

View full abstract

Searching video information, we have some problems that it takes a long time to calculate the video feature information and that if the matching precision is low, amount of search video results is large over networks. Therefore we propose a video search method using histogram in temporal domain. It is important for this method to reduce matching number and matching time. This method uses the structure information of temporal features based on the histogram correlation value. At first, we define the correlation value of the length in the structure among the groups in order to verify the matching precision. Especially, from the viewpoint of the correlation values in temporal structure, it is indicated that our proposed method is effective. Because correlation values are small according to increacing the number of structure. The precision of search method is high, moreover, from the viewpoint of search process, our method is faster than search methods using spatial characteristics, therefore our system is effective.

View full abstract

Expressions play an important role in human communication. Human expressions have long been studied in the fields of psychology and anthropology, but now with CG and CAD programs that can be used on personal computers, the subject is being pursued from an engineering perspective in such fields as medicine and CG as researchers examine the work of analyzing and recreating human expressions. The purpose of this study is the automatic generation of realistic expressions using CG. Numerical analyses in this work make it possible to quantify human expressions, for example, a “10% smile”. In this paper, as the first stage of the purpose, we report our work of generating laughing faces based on a method that utilizes FEM and the information of facial bone structures and muscle movements. From this work, we were able to create laughing faces as deformations of a finite element model of a face shape made of silicon rubber.

View full abstract

A new method is proposed for analyzing pedestrian behavior via image information through robust reference estimation and reliable subtraction. The method is based on subtraction between a reference image and each frame including objects, where an estimation based on the least median of squares (LMedS) is utilized for making the reference image. For extraction of pedestrian, the peripheral increment sign correlation (PISC) is used in order to descriminate stationary background pixels and pedestrians. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed with experiments with real image sequences. It is found that the density and the occupation rate obtained from the real data are consistent with the ones calculated manually. Based on the data, we can classify regions in the field of view into some meaningful categories.

View full abstract

A clustering Method with context information based on Genetic Algorithms(GA)is proposed. It is found that the proposed method allows to remove isolated clusters from clustered results which are usually occurred in the satellite image clustering. This is because of utilizing context information which derived from the image in concern, other than spectral information. On the other hand, context information may affect to clustering performance when the ground cover targets have a line likeness feature such as roads and rivers so that a specific treatment have to be done for such targets before applying the proposed contextual GA clustering. The clustering performance is evaluated through a comparison with a clustered result based on visual perception with Maximum Likelihood method for both simulated data and Landsat TM imagery data. It is found that the effectiveness of the proposed method depends on separeability or divergence between clusters.

View full abstract

For the three-dimensional image reconstruction from the images of multiple views, specular reflection often becomes obstacle in searching correspondent points. In this paper, we propose a technique to remove the influence of specular reflection in searching correspondent points using multi-band images captured with rotating an object. In this method, the captured multi-band images are divided into the spectral component of illumination and the orthogonal component, the orthogonal component which does not contain influences of specular reflection is used for searching correspondent points. In the experimental results, loci of correspondent point on spatial-temporal image are found, and it is shown that our method can work well whether the images contain specular reflection or not.

View full abstract

Colorimetric evaluation of a color image acquisition device is important to achieve device independent color reproduction. This paper derives a simple formula to evaluate colorimetric quality of the device in the presence of noise and provides simulation results for a variety set of colors and illuminants. It is shown that the simulation results agree quite well with the proposed formula and that mean square errors in the fundamental vectors has a linear relationship to the colorimetric quality at various noise levels.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a method to extract plural segments in binary images. The genetic algorithm is applied that the chromosome is represented by the start address and the last address of a segment. The fitness of an individual is evaluated by the matching degree in a distance transformed image. However, the general genetic algorithm can extract only one segment in an image. To solve the problem, the algorithm of the immune system that can search plural local solutions is applied in the proposed method. The population is evolved according to the immunity of each individual. The experimental results show that the proper plural segments with free locations and lengths were extracted successfully by the proposed method because the method can search plural local solutions by keeping varieties of individuals.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a method for estimating the surface orientation of a textured plane and the distance between the plane and a camera using the moments of its power spectrum. When a textured plane approaches a camera and hence the image enlarges, the 2-D power spectrum shrinks around lower frequencies. When the plane slants and rotates, the spectrum expands to the slant direction and rotates. The power spectral moments also make change correspondingly. Rotation angle, slant angle, slant direction and the distance can be derived from the comparison between three spectral moments and a rotaional moment of a standard image plane and those of an observed one. We show the validity of the method in simulations using synthesized images from Brodatz album and in experiments using real images taken with CCD camera. We also give a comparative study with an existing method.

View full abstract

In the early 1920's, the digital picture transmission system, so called Bartlane system, was developed, by which picture could be sent over any telegraph lines.
Picture signals from the Bartlane phototelegraph transmitter were translated into digital codes and they were recorded into telegraph-perforated tape, which was applied to an ordinary telegraph transmitter. At the telegraph receiving station, original perforated tape was reproduced. Original picture was reconstructed from this perforated tape as off line mode by using the Bartlane phototelegraph receiver.
The Batrtlane system handled nearly 500 pictures of important news over the Atlantic submarine cable between London and New York until 1939 when the outbreak of war in Europe.

View full abstract