Publications | Perceiving Systems - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

15 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2000

Stochastic tracking of 3D human figures using 2D image motion

(Winner of the 2010 Koenderink Prize for Fundamental Contributions in Computer Vision)

Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J., Fleet, D.

In European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, pages: 702-718, LNCS 1843, Springer Verlag, Dublin, Ireland, June 2000 (inproceedings)

Abstract

A probabilistic method for tracking 3D articulated human figures in monocular image sequences is presented. Within a Bayesian framework, we define a generative model of image appearance, a robust likelihood function based on image gray level differences, and a prior probability distribution over pose and joint angles that models how humans move. The posterior probability distribution over model parameters is represented using a discrete set of samples and is propagated over time using particle filtering. The approach extends previous work on parameterized optical flow estimation to exploit a complex 3D articulated motion model. It also extends previous work on human motion tracking by including a perspective camera model, by modeling limb self occlusion, and by recovering 3D motion from a monocular sequence. The explicit posterior probability distribution represents ambiguities due to image matching, model singularities, and perspective projection. The method relies only on a frame-to-frame assumption of brightness constancy and hence is able to track people under changing viewpoints, in grayscale image sequences, and with complex unknown backgrounds.

pdf code [BibTex]

2000

Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J., Fleet, D. Stochastic tracking of 3D human figures using 2D image motion In European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, pages: 702-718, LNCS 1843, Springer Verlag, Dublin, Ireland, June 2000 (inproceedings)

pdf code [BibTex]

Functional analysis of human motion data

Ormoneit, D., Hastie, T., Black, M. J.

In In Proc. 5th World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Probability and Mathematical Statistics and 63rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Guanajuato, Mexico, May 2000 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Ormoneit, D., Hastie, T., Black, M. J. Functional analysis of human motion data In In Proc. 5th World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Probability and Mathematical Statistics and 63rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Guanajuato, Mexico, May 2000 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Stochastic modeling and tracking of human motion

Ormoneit, D., Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J., Hastie, T.

Learning 2000, Snowbird, UT, April 2000 (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

Ormoneit, D., Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J., Hastie, T. Stochastic modeling and tracking of human motion Learning 2000, Snowbird, UT, April 2000 (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

A framework for modeling the appearance of 3D articulated figures

Sidenbladh, H., De la Torre, F., Black, M. J.

In Int. Conf. on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, pages: 368-375, Grenoble, France, March 2000 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Sidenbladh, H., De la Torre, F., Black, M. J. A framework for modeling the appearance of 3D articulated figures In Int. Conf. on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, pages: 368-375, Grenoble, France, March 2000 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

1999

Edges as outliers: Anisotropic smoothing using local image statistics

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G.

In Scale-Space Theories in Computer Vision, Second Int. Conf., Scale-Space ’99, pages: 259-270, LNCS 1682, Springer, Corfu, Greece, September 1999 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Edges are viewed as statistical outliers with respect to local image gradient magnitudes. Within local image regions we compute a robust statistical measure of the gradient variation and use this in an anisotropic diffusion framework to determine a spatially varying "edge-stopping" parameter σ. We show how to determine this parameter for two edge-stopping functions described in the literature (Perona-Malik and the Tukey biweight). Smoothing of the image is related the local texture and in regions of low texture, small gradient values may be treated as edges whereas in regions of high texture, large gradient magnitudes are necessary before an edge is preserved. Intuitively these results have similarities with human perceptual phenomena such as masking and "popout". Results are shown on a variety of standard images.

pdf [BibTex]

1999

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G. Edges as outliers: Anisotropic smoothing using local image statistics In Scale-Space Theories in Computer Vision, Second Int. Conf., Scale-Space ’99, pages: 259-270, LNCS 1682, Springer, Corfu, Greece, September 1999 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Probabilistic detection and tracking of motion discontinuities

(Marr Prize, Honorable Mention)

Black, M. J., Fleet, D. J.

In Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV-99, pages: 551-558, ICCV, Corfu, Greece, September 1999 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Fleet, D. J. Probabilistic detection and tracking of motion discontinuities In Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV-99, pages: 551-558, ICCV, Corfu, Greece, September 1999 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Explaining optical flow events with parameterized spatio-temporal models

Black, M. J.

In IEEE Proc. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR’99, pages: 326-332, IEEE, Fort Collins, CO, 1999 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

Black, M. J. Explaining optical flow events with parameterized spatio-temporal models In IEEE Proc. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR’99, pages: 326-332, IEEE, Fort Collins, CO, 1999 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

1997

Robust anisotropic diffusion and sharpening of scalar and vector images

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D.

In Int. Conf. on Image Processing, ICIP, 1, pages: 263-266, Vol. 1, Santa Barbara, CA, October 1997 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Relations between anisotropic diffusion and robust statistics are described. We show that anisotropic diffusion can be seen as a robust estimation procedure that estimates a piecewise smooth image from a noisy input image. The "edge-stopping" function in the anisotropic diffusion equation is closely related to the error norm and influence function in the robust estimation framework. This connection leads to a new "edge-stopping" function based on Tukey's biweight robust estimator, that preserves sharper boundaries than previous formulations and improves the automatic stopping of the diffusion. The robust statistical interpretation also provides a means for detecting the boundaries (edges) between the piecewise smooth regions in the image. We extend the framework to vector-valued images and show applications to robust image sharpening.

pdf publisher site [BibTex]

1997

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D. Robust anisotropic diffusion and sharpening of scalar and vector images In Int. Conf. on Image Processing, ICIP, 1, pages: 263-266, Vol. 1, Santa Barbara, CA, October 1997 (inproceedings)

pdf publisher site [BibTex]

Robust anisotropic diffusion: Connections between robust statistics, line processing, and anisotropic diffusion

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D.

In Scale-Space Theory in Computer Vision, Scale-Space’97, pages: 323-326, LNCS 1252, Springer Verlag, Utrecht, the Netherlands, July 1997 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D. Robust anisotropic diffusion: Connections between robust statistics, line processing, and anisotropic diffusion In Scale-Space Theory in Computer Vision, Scale-Space’97, pages: 323-326, LNCS 1252, Springer Verlag, Utrecht, the Netherlands, July 1997 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Learning parameterized models of image motion

Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y., Jepson, A. D., Fleet, D. J.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR-97, pages: 561-567, Puerto Rico, June 1997 (inproceedings)

Abstract

A framework for learning parameterized models of optical flow from image sequences is presented. A class of motions is represented by a set of orthogonal basis flow fields that are computed from a training set using principal component analysis. Many complex image motions can be represented by a linear combination of a small number of these basis flows. The learned motion models may be used for optical flow estimation and for model-based recognition. For optical flow estimation we describe a robust, multi-resolution scheme for directly computing the parameters of the learned flow models from image derivatives. As examples we consider learning motion discontinuities, non-rigid motion of human mouths, and articulated human motion.

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y., Jepson, A. D., Fleet, D. J. Learning parameterized models of image motion In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR-97, pages: 561-567, Puerto Rico, June 1997 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Analysis of gesture and action in technical talks for video indexing

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Minneman, S., Kimber, D.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 595-601, CVPR-97, Puerto Rico, June 1997 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, we present an automatic system for analyzing and annotating video sequences of technical talks. Our method uses a robust motion estimation technique to detect key frames and segment the video sequence into subsequences containing a single overhead slide. The subsequences are stabilized to remove motion that occurs when the speaker adjusts their slides. Any changes remaining between frames in the stabilized sequences may be due to speaker gestures such as pointing or writing and we use active contours to automatically track these potential gestures. Given the constrained domain we define a simple ``vocabulary'' of actions which can easily be recognized based on the active contour shape and motion. The recognized actions provide a rich annotation of the sequence that can be used to access a condensed version of the talk from a web page.

pdf [BibTex]

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Minneman, S., Kimber, D. Analysis of gesture and action in technical talks for video indexing In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 595-601, CVPR-97, Puerto Rico, June 1997 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Modeling appearance change in image sequences

Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y., Fleet, D. J.

In Advances in Visual Form Analysis, pages: 11-20, Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Visual Form, Capri, Italy, May 1997 (inproceedings)

abstract [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y., Fleet, D. J. Modeling appearance change in image sequences In Advances in Visual Form Analysis, pages: 11-20, Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Visual Form, Capri, Italy, May 1997 (inproceedings)

abstract [BibTex]