30091801
The extraction and linking of brink points in an image
In this paper, we present a new 2-D approach to extract brink points in an image. These brink points can efficiently represent the image and can be used for various purposes. These extracted brink points are further linked into brink curves and the B-spline approximation is used to compactly represent these linked curves.
14614060
A feature-based scalable codec for image compression
This paper presents a feature-based scheme for image compression. In the proposed method, the features in an image are recorded by three-dimensional verge points, which are defined as high curvature points on the image surface. The verge point representation can be further condensed using B-spline control point approximation. By encoding and transmitting these control points, the features in an image could be revealed at the decoder side. Furthermore, by selecting different coding modes, the proposed method can offer diversified scalabilities, including SNR scalability, spatial scalability, and shape scalability. In addition, this coding technique is suitable for region of interest selection and transmission. Experimental results are provided to present the scalability and interactivity of the proposed method.
15462956
Generalized Histogram Equalization Based on Local Characteristics
Histogram equalization (HE) and its variations have been widely used in image enhancement. Even though these approaches may enhance image contrast in an effective and efficient way, they usually face some undesired drawbacks, like loss of image details, noise amplification and over-enhancement. In this paper, we propose a generalized histogram equalization technique based on localized image analysis. Starting from designing two measures f1 and f2 to measure local characteristics around each pixel, the global statistics of these two local measures are then recorded into an extended histogram. Based on this extended histogram, we develop a procedure to generate suitable intensity transfer functions for various applications, like contrast enhancement and shadow enhancement. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm provides a flexible and efficient way for image enhancement.
15695627
Representing images using points on image surfaces
This paper presents a new approach to represent an image by "verge points," which are defined as high-curvature points on the image surface. This representation offers a compact and reversible way to preserve the essence of the original image. Various applications, such as compression, edge detection, image enhancement, and image editing, can be achieved based on this representation. In this paper, the whole procedure for verge point representation is presented. Based on these verge points, image reconstruction can be easily achieved via iterative linear interpolation. These extracted verge points with compatible properties are further linked into verge curves to offer more compact representation. Progressive representation is also developed based on a multiscale extraction scheme. Some potential applications are then presented to demonstrate the versatility of this representation.
4791224
Image Segmentation with Minimum Mean Cut
We introduce a new graph-theoretic approach to image segmentation based on minimizing a novel class of ‘mean cut’ cost functions. Minimizing these cost functions corre sponds to finding a cut with minimum mean edge weight in a connected planar graph. This approach has several advantages over prior approaches to image segmentation. First, it allows cuts with both open and closed boundaries. Second, it guarantees that the partitions are connected. Third , the cost function does not introduce an explicit bias, such as a preference for large-area foregrounds, smooth or short boundaries, or similar-weight partitions. This lack of bia s allows it to produce segmentations that are better aligned with image edges, even in the presence of long thin regions. Finally, the global minimum of this cost function is largely insensitive to the precise choice of edge-weight function. In particular, we show that the global minimum is invariant under a linear transformation of the edge weights and thus insensitive to image contrast. Building on algorithms by Ahuja, Magnanti, and Orlin (1993), we present a polynomial-time algorithm for finding a global minimum of the mean-cut cost function and illustrate the results of applying that algorithm to several synthetic and real images.
14423228
A New Median Graph Algorithm
Median graph is an important new concept introduced to represent a set of graphs by a representative graph. Computing the median graph is an NP-Complete problem. In this paper, we propose an approximate algorithm for computing the median graph. Our algorithm performs in two steps. It first carries out a node reduction process using a clustering method to extract a subset of most representative node labels. It then searches for the median graph candidates from the reduced subset of node labels according to a deterministic strategy to explore the candidate space. Comparison with the genetic search based algorithm will be reported. This algorithm can be used to build a graph clustering algorithm.
6827646
Design and implementation of QoS-provisioning system for voice over IP
In this paper, we address issues in implementing voice over IP (VoIP) services in packet switching networks. VoIP has been identified as a critical real-time application in the network QoS research community and has been implemented in commercial products. To provide competent quality of service for VoIP systems comparable to traditional PSTN systems, a call admission control (CAC) mechanism has to be introduced to prevent packet loss and over-queuing. Several well-designed CAC mechanisms, such as the site-utilization-based CAC-and the link-utilization-based CAC mechanisms have been in place. However, the existing commercial VoIP systems have not been able to adequately apply and support these CAC mechanisms and, hence, have been unable to provide QoS guarantees to voice over IP networks. We have designed and implemented a QoS-provisioning system that can be seamlessly integrated with the existing VoIP systems to overcome their weakness in offering QoS guarantees. A practical implementation of our QoS-provisioning system has been realized.
40909266
Exploiting Syntactic, Semantic, and Lexical Regularities in Language Modeling via Directed Markov Random Fields
We present a directed Markov random field (MRF) model that combines n-gram models, probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs), and probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) for the purpose of statistical language modeling. Even though the composite directed MRF model potentially has an exponential number of loops and becomes a context-sensitive grammar, we are nevertheless able to estimate its parameters in cubic time using an efficient modified Expectation-Maximization (EM) method, the generalized inside–outside algorithm, which extends the inside–outside algorithm to incorporate the effects of the n-gram and PLSA language models. We generalize various smoothing techniques to alleviate the sparseness of n-gram counts in cases where there are hidden variables. We also derive an analogous algorithm to find the most likely parse of a sentence and to calculate the probability of initial subsequence of a sentence, all generated by the composite language model. Our experimental results on the Wall Street Journal corpus show that we obtain significant reductions in perplexity compared to the state-of-the-art baseline trigram model with Good–Turing and Kneser–Ney smoothing techniques.
12782129
Computational measures corresponding to perceptual textural features
Texture is a very important image feature extremely used in various image processing problems. It has been shown that humans use some perceptual textural features to distinguish between textured images or regions. Some of the most important features are coarseness, contrast, direction and busyness. In this paper a new method based on the autocovariance function to estimate quantitatively these features is shown and the correspondence between these computational measures and the psychological ones made by human subjects is shown using some psychometric method.