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27 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2017

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Learning a model of facial shape and expression from 4D scans

Li, T., Bolkart, T., Black, M. J., Li, H., Romero, J.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, 36(6):194:1-194:17, November 2017, Two first authors contributed equally (article)

Abstract
The field of 3D face modeling has a large gap between high-end and low-end methods. At the high end, the best facial animation is indistinguishable from real humans, but this comes at the cost of extensive manual labor. At the low end, face capture from consumer depth sensors relies on 3D face models that are not expressive enough to capture the variability in natural facial shape and expression. We seek a middle ground by learning a facial model from thousands of accurately aligned 3D scans. Our FLAME model (Faces Learned with an Articulated Model and Expressions) is designed to work with existing graphics software and be easy to fit to data. FLAME uses a linear shape space trained from 3800 scans of human heads. FLAME combines this linear shape space with an articulated jaw, neck, and eyeballs, pose-dependent corrective blendshapes, and additional global expression from 4D face sequences in the D3DFACS dataset along with additional 4D sequences.We accurately register a template mesh to the scan sequences and make the D3DFACS registrations available for research purposes. In total the model is trained from over 33, 000 scans. FLAME is low-dimensional but more expressive than the FaceWarehouse model and the Basel Face Model. We compare FLAME to these models by fitting them to static 3D scans and 4D sequences using the same optimization method. FLAME is significantly more accurate and is available for research purposes (http://flame.is.tue.mpg.de).

data/model video code chumpy code tensorflow paper supplemental Project Page [BibTex]

2017

Li, T., Bolkart, T., Black, M. J., Li, H., Romero, J. Learning a model of facial shape and expression from 4D scans ACM Transactions on Graphics, 36(6):194:1-194:17, November 2017, Two first authors contributed equally (article)

data/model video code chumpy code tensorflow paper supplemental Project Page [BibTex]

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Investigating Body Image Disturbance in Anorexia Nervosa Using Novel Biometric Figure Rating Scales: A Pilot Study

Mölbert, S. C., Thaler, A., Streuber, S., Black, M. J., Karnath, H., Zipfel, S., Mohler, B., Giel, K. E.

European Eating Disorders Review, 25(6):607-612, November 2017 (article)

Abstract
This study uses novel biometric figure rating scales (FRS) spanning body mass index (BMI) 13.8 to 32.2 kg/m2 and BMI 18 to 42 kg/m2. The aims of the study were (i) to compare FRS body weight dissatisfaction and perceptual distortion of women with anorexia nervosa (AN) to a community sample; (ii) how FRS parameters are associated with questionnaire body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms and appearance comparison habits; and (iii) whether the weight spectrum of the FRS matters. Women with AN (n = 24) and a community sample of women (n = 104) selected their current and ideal body on the FRS and completed additional questionnaires. Women with AN accurately picked the body that aligned best with their actual weight in both FRS. Controls underestimated their BMI in the FRS 14–32 and were accurate in the FRS 18–42. In both FRS, women with AN desired a body close to their actual BMI and controls desired a thinner body. Our observations suggest that body image disturbance in AN is unlikely to be characterized by a visual perceptual disturbance, but rather by an idealization of underweight in conjunction with high body dissatisfaction. The weight spectrum of FRS can influence the accuracy of BMI estimation.

publisher DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Embodied Hands: Modeling and Capturing Hands and Bodies Together

Romero, J., Tzionas, D., Black, M. J.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia), 36(6):245:1-245:17, 245:1–245:17, ACM, November 2017 (article)

Abstract
Humans move their hands and bodies together to communicate and solve tasks. Capturing and replicating such coordinated activity is critical for virtual characters that behave realistically. Surprisingly, most methods treat the 3D modeling and tracking of bodies and hands separately. Here we formulate a model of hands and bodies interacting together and fit it to full-body 4D sequences. When scanning or capturing the full body in 3D, hands are small and often partially occluded, making their shape and pose hard to recover. To cope with low-resolution, occlusion, and noise, we develop a new model called MANO (hand Model with Articulated and Non-rigid defOrmations). MANO is learned from around 1000 high-resolution 3D scans of hands of 31 subjects in a wide variety of hand poses. The model is realistic, low-dimensional, captures non-rigid shape changes with pose, is compatible with standard graphics packages, and can fit any human hand. MANO provides a compact mapping from hand poses to pose blend shape corrections and a linear manifold of pose synergies. We attach MANO to a standard parameterized 3D body shape model (SMPL), resulting in a fully articulated body and hand model (SMPL+H). We illustrate SMPL+H by fitting complex, natural, activities of subjects captured with a 4D scanner. The fitting is fully automatic and results in full body models that move naturally with detailed hand motions and a realism not seen before in full body performance capture. The models and data are freely available for research purposes at http://mano.is.tue.mpg.de.

website youtube paper suppl video link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Romero, J., Tzionas, D., Black, M. J. Embodied Hands: Modeling and Capturing Hands and Bodies Together ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia), 36(6):245:1-245:17, 245:1–245:17, ACM, November 2017 (article)

website youtube paper suppl video link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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An Online Scalable Approach to Unified Multirobot Cooperative Localization and Object Tracking

Ahmad, A., Lawless, G., Lima, P.

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 33, pages: 1184 - 1199, October 2017 (article)

Abstract
In this article we present a unified approach for multi-robot cooperative simultaneous localization and object tracking based on particle filters. Our approach is scalable with respect to the number of robots in the team. We introduce a method that reduces, from an exponential to a linear growth, the space and computation time requirements with respect to the number of robots in order to maintain a given level of accuracy in the full state estimation. Our method requires no increase in the number of particles with respect to the number of robots. However, in our method each particle represents a full state hypothesis, leading to the linear dependency on the number of robots of both space and time complexity. The derivation of the algorithm implementing our approach from a standard particle filter algorithm and its complexity analysis are presented. Through an extensive set of simulation experiments on a large number of randomized datasets, we demonstrate the correctness and efficacy of our approach. Through real robot experiments on a standardized open dataset of a team of four soccer playing robots tracking a ball, we evaluate our method's estimation accuracy with respect to the ground truth values. Through comparisons with other methods based on i) nonlinear least squares minimization and ii) joint extended Kalman filter, we further highlight our method's advantages. Finally, we also present a robustness test for our approach by evaluating it under scenarios of communication and vision failure in teammate robots.

Published Version link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Parameterized Model of 2D Articulated Human Shape

Black, M. J., Freifeld, O., Weiss, A., Loper, M., Guan, P.

September 2017, U.S.~Patent 9,761,060 (misc)

Abstract
Disclosed are computer-readable devices, systems and methods for generating a model of a clothed body. The method includes generating a model of an unclothed human body, the model capturing a shape or a pose of the unclothed human body, determining two-dimensional contours associated with the model, and computing deformations by aligning a contour of a clothed human body with a contour of the unclothed human body. Based on the two-dimensional contours and the deformations, the method includes generating a first two-dimensional model of the unclothed human body, the first two-dimensional model factoring the deformations of the unclothed human body into one or more of a shape variation component, a viewpoint change, and a pose variation and learning an eigen-clothing model using principal component analysis applied to the deformations, wherein the eigen-clothing model classifies different types of clothing, to yield a second two-dimensional model of a clothed human body.

Google Patents [BibTex]

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Crowdshaping Realistic 3D Avatars with Words

Streuber, S., Ramirez, M. Q., Black, M., Zuffi, S., O’Toole, A., Hill, M. Q., Hahn, C. A.

August 2017, Application PCT/EP2017/051954 (misc)

Abstract
A method for generating a body shape, comprising the steps: - receiving one or more linguistic descriptors related to the body shape; - retrieving an association between the one or more linguistic descriptors and a body shape; and - generating the body shape, based on the association.

Google Patents [BibTex]

Streuber, S., Ramirez, M. Q., Black, M., Zuffi, S., O’Toole, A., Hill, M. Q., Hahn, C. A. Crowdshaping Realistic 3D Avatars with Words August 2017, Application PCT/EP2017/051954 (misc)

Google Patents [BibTex]

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System and method for simulating realistic clothing

Black, M. J., Guan, P.

June 2017, U.S.~Patent 9,679,409 B2 (misc)

Abstract
Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for simulating realistic clothing. The system generates a clothing deformation model for a clothing type, wherein the clothing deformation model factors a change of clothing shape due to rigid limb rotation, pose-independent body shape, and pose-dependent deformations. Next, the system generates a custom-shaped garment for a given body by mapping, via the clothing deformation model, body shape parameters to clothing shape parameters. The system then automatically dresses the given body with the custom- shaped garment.

Google Patents pdf [BibTex]

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Early Stopping Without a Validation Set

Mahsereci, M., Balles, L., Lassner, C., Hennig, P.

arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.09580, 2017 (article)

Abstract
Early stopping is a widely used technique to prevent poor generalization performance when training an over-expressive model by means of gradient-based optimization. To find a good point to halt the optimizer, a common practice is to split the dataset into a training and a smaller validation set to obtain an ongoing estimate of the generalization performance. In this paper we propose a novel early stopping criterion which is based on fast-to-compute, local statistics of the computed gradients and entirely removes the need for a held-out validation set. Our experiments show that this is a viable approach in the setting of least-squares and logistic regression as well as neural networks.

link (url) Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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Data-Driven Physics for Human Soft Tissue Animation

Kim, M., Pons-Moll, G., Pujades, S., Bang, S., Kim, J., Black, M. J., Lee, S.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 36(4):54:1-54:12, 2017 (article)

Abstract
Data driven models of human poses and soft-tissue deformations can produce very realistic results, but they only model the visible surface of the human body and cannot create skin deformation due to interactions with the environment. Physical simulations can generalize to external forces, but their parameters are difficult to control. In this paper, we present a layered volumetric human body model learned from data. Our model is composed of a data-driven inner layer and a physics-based external layer. The inner layer is driven with a volumetric statistical body model (VSMPL). The soft tissue layer consists of a tetrahedral mesh that is driven using the finite element method (FEM). Model parameters, namely the segmentation of the body into layers and the soft tissue elasticity, are learned directly from 4D registrations of humans exhibiting soft tissue deformations. The learned two layer model is a realistic full-body avatar that generalizes to novel motions and external forces. Experiments show that the resulting avatars produce realistic results on held out sequences and react to external forces. Moreover, the model supports the retargeting of physical properties from one avatar when they share the same topology.

video paper link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

Kim, M., Pons-Moll, G., Pujades, S., Bang, S., Kim, J., Black, M. J., Lee, S. Data-Driven Physics for Human Soft Tissue Animation ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 36(4):54:1-54:12, 2017 (article)

video paper link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

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Sparse Inertial Poser: Automatic 3D Human Pose Estimation from Sparse IMUs

(Best Paper, Eurographics 2017)

Marcard, T. V., Rosenhahn, B., Black, M., Pons-Moll, G.

Computer Graphics Forum 36(2), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics (Eurographics), pages: 349-360 , 2017 (article)

Abstract
We address the problem of making human motion capture in the wild more practical by using a small set of inertial sensors attached to the body. Since the problem is heavily under-constrained, previous methods either use a large number of sensors, which is intrusive, or they require additional video input. We take a different approach and constrain the problem by: (i) making use of a realistic statistical body model that includes anthropometric constraints and (ii) using a joint optimization framework to fit the model to orientation and acceleration measurements over multiple frames. The resulting tracker Sparse Inertial Poser (SIP) enables motion capture using only 6 sensors (attached to the wrists, lower legs, back and head) and works for arbitrary human motions. Experiments on the recently released TNT15 dataset show that, using the same number of sensors, SIP achieves higher accuracy than the dataset baseline without using any video data. We further demonstrate the effectiveness of SIP on newly recorded challenging motions in outdoor scenarios such as climbing or jumping over a wall

video pdf Project Page [BibTex]

Marcard, T. V., Rosenhahn, B., Black, M., Pons-Moll, G. Sparse Inertial Poser: Automatic 3D Human Pose Estimation from Sparse IMUs Computer Graphics Forum 36(2), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics (Eurographics), pages: 349-360 , 2017 (article)

video pdf Project Page [BibTex]

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Efficient 2D and 3D Facade Segmentation using Auto-Context

Gadde, R., Jampani, V., Marlet, R., Gehler, P.

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2017 (article)

Abstract
This paper introduces a fast and efficient segmentation technique for 2D images and 3D point clouds of building facades. Facades of buildings are highly structured and consequently most methods that have been proposed for this problem aim to make use of this strong prior information. Contrary to most prior work, we are describing a system that is almost domain independent and consists of standard segmentation methods. We train a sequence of boosted decision trees using auto-context features. This is learned using stacked generalization. We find that this technique performs better, or comparable with all previous published methods and present empirical results on all available 2D and 3D facade benchmark datasets. The proposed method is simple to implement, easy to extend, and very efficient at test-time inference.

arXiv Project Page [BibTex]

Gadde, R., Jampani, V., Marlet, R., Gehler, P. Efficient 2D and 3D Facade Segmentation using Auto-Context IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2017 (article)

arXiv Project Page [BibTex]

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ClothCap: Seamless 4D Clothing Capture and Retargeting

Pons-Moll, G., Pujades, S., Hu, S., Black, M.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 36(4):73:1-73:15, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2017, Two first authors contributed equally (article)

Abstract
Designing and simulating realistic clothing is challenging and, while several methods have addressed the capture of clothing from 3D scans, previous methods have been limited to single garments and simple motions, lack detail, or require specialized texture patterns. Here we address the problem of capturing regular clothing on fully dressed people in motion. People typically wear multiple pieces of clothing at a time. To estimate the shape of such clothing, track it over time, and render it believably, each garment must be segmented from the others and the body. Our ClothCap approach uses a new multi-part 3D model of clothed bodies, automatically segments each piece of clothing, estimates the naked body shape and pose under the clothing, and tracks the 3D deformations of the clothing over time. We estimate the garments and their motion from 4D scans; that is, high-resolution 3D scans of the subject in motion at 60 fps. The model allows us to capture a clothed person in motion, extract their clothing, and retarget the clothing to new body shapes. ClothCap provides a step towards virtual try-on with a technology for capturing, modeling, and analyzing clothing in motion.

video project_page paper link (url) DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Pons-Moll, G., Pujades, S., Hu, S., Black, M. ClothCap: Seamless 4D Clothing Capture and Retargeting ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 36(4):73:1-73:15, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2017, Two first authors contributed equally (article)

video project_page paper link (url) DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

2014

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MoSh: Motion and Shape Capture from Sparse Markers

Loper, M. M., Mahmood, N., Black, M. J.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia), 33(6):220:1-220:13, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2014 (article)

Abstract
Marker-based motion capture (mocap) is widely criticized as producing lifeless animations. We argue that important information about body surface motion is present in standard marker sets but is lost in extracting a skeleton. We demonstrate a new approach called MoSh (Motion and Shape capture), that automatically extracts this detail from mocap data. MoSh estimates body shape and pose together using sparse marker data by exploiting a parametric model of the human body. In contrast to previous work, MoSh solves for the marker locations relative to the body and estimates accurate body shape directly from the markers without the use of 3D scans; this effectively turns a mocap system into an approximate body scanner. MoSh is able to capture soft tissue motions directly from markers by allowing body shape to vary over time. We evaluate the effect of different marker sets on pose and shape accuracy and propose a new sparse marker set for capturing soft-tissue motion. We illustrate MoSh by recovering body shape, pose, and soft-tissue motion from archival mocap data and using this to produce animations with subtlety and realism. We also show soft-tissue motion retargeting to new characters and show how to magnify the 3D deformations of soft tissue to create animations with appealing exaggerations.

pdf video data pdf from publisher link (url) DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

2014

Loper, M. M., Mahmood, N., Black, M. J. MoSh: Motion and Shape Capture from Sparse Markers ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia), 33(6):220:1-220:13, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2014 (article)

pdf video data pdf from publisher link (url) DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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Can I recognize my body’s weight? The influence of shape and texture on the perception of self

Piryankova, I., Stefanucci, J., Romero, J., de la Rosa, S., Black, M., Mohler, B.

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception for the Symposium on Applied Perception, 11(3):13:1-13:18, September 2014 (article)

Abstract
The goal of this research was to investigate women’s sensitivity to changes in their perceived weight by altering the body mass index (BMI) of the participants’ personalized avatars displayed on a large-screen immersive display. We created the personalized avatars with a full-body 3D scanner that records both the participants’ body geometry and texture. We altered the weight of the personalized avatars to produce changes in BMI while keeping height, arm length and inseam fixed and exploited the correlation between body geometry and anthropometric measurements encapsulated in a statistical body shape model created from thousands of body scans. In a 2x2 psychophysical experiment, we investigated the relative importance of visual cues, namely shape (own shape vs. an average female body shape with equivalent height and BMI to the participant) and texture (own photo-realistic texture or checkerboard pattern texture) on the ability to accurately perceive own current body weight (by asking them ‘Is the avatar the same weight as you?’). Our results indicate that shape (where height and BMI are fixed) had little effect on the perception of body weight. Interestingly, the participants perceived their body weight veridically when they saw their own photo-realistic texture and significantly underestimated their body weight when the avatar had a checkerboard patterned texture. The range that the participants accepted as their own current weight was approximately a 0.83 to −6.05 BMI% change tolerance range around their perceived weight. Both the shape and the texture had an effect on the reported similarity of the body parts and the whole avatar to the participant’s body. This work has implications for new measures for patients with body image disorders, as well as researchers interested in creating personalized avatars for games, training applications or virtual reality.

pdf DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Piryankova, I., Stefanucci, J., Romero, J., de la Rosa, S., Black, M., Mohler, B. Can I recognize my body’s weight? The influence of shape and texture on the perception of self ACM Transactions on Applied Perception for the Symposium on Applied Perception, 11(3):13:1-13:18, September 2014 (article)

pdf DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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3D to 2D bijection for spherical objects under equidistant fisheye projection

Ahmad, A., Xavier, J., Santos-Victor, J., Lima, P.

Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 125, pages: 172-183, August 2014 (article)

Abstract
The core problem addressed in this article is the 3D position detection of a spherical object of known-radius in a single image frame, obtained by a dioptric vision system consisting of only one fisheye lens camera that follows equidistant projection model. The central contribution is a bijection principle between a known-radius spherical object’s 3D world position and its 2D projected image curve, that we prove, thus establishing that for every possible 3D world position of the spherical object, there exists a unique curve on the image plane if the object is projected through a fisheye lens that follows equidistant projection model. Additionally, we present a setup for the experimental verification of the principle’s correctness. In previously published works we have applied this principle to detect and subsequently track a known-radius spherical object.

DOI [BibTex]

Ahmad, A., Xavier, J., Santos-Victor, J., Lima, P. 3D to 2D bijection for spherical objects under equidistant fisheye projection Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 125, pages: 172-183, August 2014 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

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Breathing Life into Shape: Capturing, Modeling and Animating 3D Human Breathing

Tsoli, A., Mahmood, N., Black, M. J.

ACM Transactions on Graphics, (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 33(4):52:1-52:11, ACM, New York, NY, July 2014 (article)

Abstract
Modeling how the human body deforms during breathing is important for the realistic animation of lifelike 3D avatars. We learn a model of body shape deformations due to breathing for different breathing types and provide simple animation controls to render lifelike breathing regardless of body shape. We capture and align high-resolution 3D scans of 58 human subjects. We compute deviations from each subject’s mean shape during breathing, and study the statistics of such shape changes for different genders, body shapes, and breathing types. We use the volume of the registered scans as a proxy for lung volume and learn a novel non-linear model relating volume and breathing type to 3D shape deformations and pose changes. We then augment a SCAPE body model so that body shape is determined by identity, pose, and the parameters of the breathing model. These parameters provide an intuitive interface with which animators can synthesize 3D human avatars with realistic breathing motions. We also develop a novel interface for animating breathing using a spirometer, which measures the changes in breathing volume of a “breath actor.”

pdf video link (url) DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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3D Traffic Scene Understanding from Movable Platforms

Geiger, A., Lauer, M., Wojek, C., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R.

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), 36(5):1012-1025, published, IEEE, Los Alamitos, CA, May 2014 (article)

Abstract
In this paper, we present a novel probabilistic generative model for multi-object traffic scene understanding from movable platforms which reasons jointly about the 3D scene layout as well as the location and orientation of objects in the scene. In particular, the scene topology, geometry and traffic activities are inferred from short video sequences. Inspired by the impressive driving capabilities of humans, our model does not rely on GPS, lidar or map knowledge. Instead, it takes advantage of a diverse set of visual cues in the form of vehicle tracklets, vanishing points, semantic scene labels, scene flow and occupancy grids. For each of these cues we propose likelihood functions that are integrated into a probabilistic generative model. We learn all model parameters from training data using contrastive divergence. Experiments conducted on videos of 113 representative intersections show that our approach successfully infers the correct layout in a variety of very challenging scenarios. To evaluate the importance of each feature cue, experiments using different feature combinations are conducted. Furthermore, we show how by employing context derived from the proposed method we are able to improve over the state-of-the-art in terms of object detection and object orientation estimation in challenging and cluttered urban environments.

pdf link (url) [BibTex]

Geiger, A., Lauer, M., Wojek, C., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R. 3D Traffic Scene Understanding from Movable Platforms IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), 36(5):1012-1025, published, IEEE, Los Alamitos, CA, May 2014 (article)

pdf link (url) [BibTex]

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Adaptive Offset Correction for Intracortical Brain Computer Interfaces

Homer, M. L., Perge, J. A., Black, M. J., Harrison, M. T., Cash, S. S., Hochberg, L. R.

IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 22(2):239-248, March 2014 (article)

Abstract
Intracortical brain computer interfaces (iBCIs) decode intended movement from neural activity for the control of external devices such as a robotic arm. Standard approaches include a calibration phase to estimate decoding parameters. During iBCI operation, the statistical properties of the neural activity can depart from those observed during calibration, sometimes hindering a user’s ability to control the iBCI. To address this problem, we adaptively correct the offset terms within a Kalman filter decoder via penalized maximum likelihood estimation. The approach can handle rapid shifts in neural signal behavior (on the order of seconds) and requires no knowledge of the intended movement. The algorithm, called MOCA, was tested using simulated neural activity and evaluated retrospectively using data collected from two people with tetraplegia operating an iBCI. In 19 clinical research test cases, where a nonadaptive Kalman filter yielded relatively high decoding errors, MOCA significantly reduced these errors (10.6 ± 10.1\%; p < 0.05, pairwise t-test). MOCA did not significantly change the error in the remaining 23 cases where a nonadaptive Kalman filter already performed well. These results suggest that MOCA provides more robust decoding than the standard Kalman filter for iBCIs.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Homer, M. L., Perge, J. A., Black, M. J., Harrison, M. T., Cash, S. S., Hochberg, L. R. Adaptive Offset Correction for Intracortical Brain Computer Interfaces IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 22(2):239-248, March 2014 (article)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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A physically-based approach to reflection separation: from physical modeling to constrained optimization

Kong, N., Tai, Y., Shin, J. S.

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), 36(2):209-221, IEEE Computer Society, Febuary 2014 (article)

Abstract
We propose a physically-based approach to separate reflection using multiple polarized images with a background scene captured behind glass. The input consists of three polarized images, each captured from the same view point but with a different polarizer angle separated by 45 degrees. The output is the high-quality separation of the reflection and background layers from each of the input images. A main technical challenge for this problem is that the mixing coefficient for the reflection and background layers depends on the angle of incidence and the orientation of the plane of incidence, which are spatially varying over the pixels of an image. Exploiting physical properties of polarization for a double-surfaced glass medium, we propose a multiscale scheme which automatically finds the optimal separation of the reflection and background layers. Through experiments, we demonstrate that our approach can generate superior results to those of previous methods.

Publisher site [BibTex]

Kong, N., Tai, Y., Shin, J. S. A physically-based approach to reflection separation: from physical modeling to constrained optimization IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), 36(2):209-221, IEEE Computer Society, Febuary 2014 (article)

Publisher site [BibTex]

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Simpler, faster, more accurate melanocytic lesion segmentation through MEDS

Peruch, F., Bogo, F., Bonazza, M., Cappelleri, V., Peserico, E.

IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 61(2):557-565, February 2014 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

Peruch, F., Bogo, F., Bonazza, M., Cappelleri, V., Peserico, E. Simpler, faster, more accurate melanocytic lesion segmentation through MEDS IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 61(2):557-565, February 2014 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

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A freely-moving monkey treadmill model

Foster, J., Nuyujukian, P., Freifeld, O., Gao, H., Walker, R., Ryu, S., Meng, T., Murmann, B., Black, M., Shenoy, K.

J. of Neural Engineering, 11(4):046020, 2014 (article)

Abstract
Objective: Motor neuroscience and brain-machine interface (BMI) design is based on examining how the brain controls voluntary movement, typically by recording neural activity and behavior from animal models. Recording technologies used with these animal models have traditionally limited the range of behaviors that can be studied, and thus the generality of science and engineering research. We aim to design a freely-moving animal model using neural and behavioral recording technologies that do not constrain movement. Approach: We have established a freely-moving rhesus monkey model employing technology that transmits neural activity from an intracortical array using a head-mounted device and records behavior through computer vision using markerless motion capture. We demonstrate the excitability and utility of this new monkey model, including the fi rst recordings from motor cortex while rhesus monkeys walk quadrupedally on a treadmill. Main results: Using this monkey model, we show that multi-unit threshold-crossing neural activity encodes the phase of walking and that the average ring rate of the threshold crossings covaries with the speed of individual steps. On a population level, we find that neural state-space trajectories of walking at diff erent speeds have similar rotational dynamics in some dimensions that evolve at the step rate of walking, yet robustly separate by speed in other state-space dimensions. Significance: Freely-moving animal models may allow neuroscientists to examine a wider range of behaviors and can provide a flexible experimental paradigm for examining the neural mechanisms that underlie movement generation across behaviors and environments. For BMIs, freely-moving animal models have the potential to aid prosthetic design by examining how neural encoding changes with posture, environment, and other real-world context changes. Understanding this new realm of behavior in more naturalistic settings is essential for overall progress of basic motor neuroscience and for the successful translation of BMIs to people with paralysis.

pdf Supplementary DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Foster, J., Nuyujukian, P., Freifeld, O., Gao, H., Walker, R., Ryu, S., Meng, T., Murmann, B., Black, M., Shenoy, K. A freely-moving monkey treadmill model J. of Neural Engineering, 11(4):046020, 2014 (article)

pdf Supplementary DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Detection and Tracking of Occluded People

Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Schiele, B.

International Journal of Computer Vision, 110, pages: 58-69, 2014 (article)

PDF [BibTex]

Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Schiele, B. Detection and Tracking of Occluded People International Journal of Computer Vision, 110, pages: 58-69, 2014 (article)

PDF [BibTex]

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Segmentation of Biomedical Images Using Active Contour Model with Robust Image Feature and Shape Prior

S. Y. Yeo, X. Xie, I. Sazonov, P. Nithiarasu

International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering, 30(2):232- 248, 2014 (article)

Abstract
In this article, a new level set model is proposed for the segmentation of biomedical images. The image energy of the proposed model is derived from a robust image gradient feature which gives the active contour a global representation of the geometric configuration, making it more robust in dealing with image noise, weak edges, and initial configurations. Statistical shape information is incorporated using nonparametric shape density distribution, which allows the shape model to handle relatively large shape variations. The segmentation of various shapes from both synthetic and real images depict the robustness and efficiency of the proposed method.

[BibTex]

S. Y. Yeo, X. Xie, I. Sazonov, P. Nithiarasu Segmentation of Biomedical Images Using Active Contour Model with Robust Image Feature and Shape Prior International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering, 30(2):232- 248, 2014 (article)

[BibTex]

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A Quantitative Analysis of Current Practices in Optical Flow Estimation and the Principles behind Them

Sun, D., Roth, S., Black, M. J.

International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), 106(2):115-137, 2014 (article)

Abstract
The accuracy of optical flow estimation algorithms has been improving steadily as evidenced by results on the Middlebury optical flow benchmark. The typical formulation, however, has changed little since the work of Horn and Schunck. We attempt to uncover what has made recent advances possible through a thorough analysis of how the objective function, the optimization method, and modern implementation practices influence accuracy. We discover that "classical'' flow formulations perform surprisingly well when combined with modern optimization and implementation techniques. One key implementation detail is the median filtering of intermediate flow fields during optimization. While this improves the robustness of classical methods it actually leads to higher energy solutions, meaning that these methods are not optimizing the original objective function. To understand the principles behind this phenomenon, we derive a new objective function that formalizes the median filtering heuristic. This objective function includes a non-local smoothness term that robustly integrates flow estimates over large spatial neighborhoods. By modifying this new term to include information about flow and image boundaries we develop a method that can better preserve motion details. To take advantage of the trend towards video in wide-screen format, we further introduce an asymmetric pyramid downsampling scheme that enables the estimation of longer range horizontal motions. The methods are evaluated on Middlebury, MPI Sintel, and KITTI datasets using the same parameter settings.

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Automatic 4D Reconstruction of Patient-Specific Cardiac Mesh with 1- to-1 Vertex Correspondence from Segmented Contours Lines

C. W. Lim, Y. Su, S. Y. Yeo, G. M. Ng, V. T. Nguyen, L. Zhong, R. S. Tan, K. K. Poh, P. Chai,

PLOS ONE, 9(4), 2014 (article)

Abstract
We propose an automatic algorithm for the reconstruction of patient-specific cardiac mesh models with 1-to-1 vertex correspondence. In this framework, a series of 3D meshes depicting the endocardial surface of the heart at each time step is constructed, based on a set of border delineated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of the whole cardiac cycle. The key contribution in this work involves a novel reconstruction technique to generate a 4D (i.e., spatial–temporal) model of the heart with 1-to-1 vertex mapping throughout the time frames. The reconstructed 3D model from the first time step is used as a base template model and then deformed to fit the segmented contours from the subsequent time steps. A method to determine a tree-based connectivity relationship is proposed to ensure robust mapping during mesh deformation. The novel feature is the ability to handle intra- and inter-frame 2D topology changes of the contours, which manifests as a series of merging and splitting of contours when the images are viewed either in a spatial or temporal sequence. Our algorithm has been tested on five acquisitions of cardiac MRI and can successfully reconstruct the full 4D heart model in around 30 minutes per subject. The generated 4D heart model conforms very well with the input segmented contours and the mesh element shape is of reasonably good quality. The work is important in the support of downstream computational simulation activities.

[BibTex]

C. W. Lim, Y. Su, S. Y. Yeo, G. M. Ng, V. T. Nguyen, L. Zhong, R. S. Tan, K. K. Poh, P. Chai, Automatic 4D Reconstruction of Patient-Specific Cardiac Mesh with 1- to-1 Vertex Correspondence from Segmented Contours Lines PLOS ONE, 9(4), 2014 (article)

[BibTex]

2004

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On the variability of manual spike sorting

Wood, F., Black, M. J., Vargas-Irwin, C., Fellows, M., Donoghue, J. P.

IEEE Trans. Biomedical Engineering, 51(6):912-918, June 2004 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

2004

Wood, F., Black, M. J., Vargas-Irwin, C., Fellows, M., Donoghue, J. P. On the variability of manual spike sorting IEEE Trans. Biomedical Engineering, 51(6):912-918, June 2004 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

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Modeling and decoding motor cortical activity using a switching Kalman filter

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Mumford, D., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P.

IEEE Trans. Biomedical Engineering, 51(6):933-942, June 2004 (article)

Abstract
We present a switching Kalman filter model for the real-time inference of hand kinematics from a population of motor cortical neurons. Firing rates are modeled as a Gaussian mixture where the mean of each Gaussian component is a linear function of hand kinematics. A “hidden state” models the probability of each mixture component and evolves over time in a Markov chain. The model generalizes previous encoding and decoding methods, addresses the non-Gaussian nature of firing rates, and can cope with crudely sorted neural data common in on-line prosthetic applications.

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Mumford, D., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P. Modeling and decoding motor cortical activity using a switching Kalman filter IEEE Trans. Biomedical Engineering, 51(6):933-942, June 2004 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]