14540904
Camera calibration with a motorized zoom lens
This paper presents a simple and efficient method of calibrating the intrinsic camera parameters for all the lens settings of a motorized zoom lens. We fix the aperture setting and perform the camera calibration, adaptively, over the ranges of the room and focus settings. Bilinear interpolation is used to provide the values of the intrinsic camera parameters for those lens settings where no observations are taken. Our experiments show that the proposed method can provide accurate intrinsic camera parameters for all the lens settings, even though camera calibration is performed only for a small number of sampled lens settings. A calibration object suitable for zoom lens calibration is also presented.
7506034
Fast Algorithm for Nearest Neighbor Search Based on a Lower Bound Tree
This paper presents a novel algorithm for fast nearest neighbor search. At the preprocessing stage, the proposed algorithm constructs a lower bound tree by agglomeratively clustering the sample points in the database. Calculation of the distance between the query and the sample points can be avoided ifthe lower bound of the distance is already larger than the minimum distance. The search process can thus be accelerated because the computational cost of the lower bound, which can be calculated by using the internal node of the lower bound tree, is less than that of the distance. To reduce the number of the lower bounds actually calculated, the winner-update search strategy is used for traversing the tree. Moreover; the query and the sample points can be transformed for further efficiency improvement. Our experiments show that the proposed algorithm can greatly speed up the nearest neighbor search process. When applying to the real database used in Nayar’s object recognition system, the proposed algorithm is about one thousand times faster than the exhaustive search.
2968797
Ego-motion estimation using optical flow fields observed from multiple cameras
In this paper, we consider a multi-camera vision system mounted on a moving object in a static three-dimensional environment. By using the motion flow fields seen by all of the cameras, an algorithm which does not need to solve the point-correspondence problem among the cameras is proposed to estimate the 3D ego-motion parameters of the moving object. Our experiments have shown that using multiple optical flow fields obtained from different cameras can be very helpful for ego-motion estimation.
14744012
Winner-update algorithm for nearest neighbor search
This paper presents an algorithm, called the winner-update algorithm, for accelerating the nearest neighbor search. By constructing a hierarchical structure for each feature point in the l/sub p/ metric space, this algorithm can save a large amount of computation at the expense of moderate preprocessing and twice the memory storage. Given a query point, the cost for computing the distances from this point to all the sample points can be reduced by using a lower bound list of the distance established from Minkowski's inequality. Our experiments have shown that the proposed algorithm can save a large amount of computation, especially when the distance between the query point and its nearest neighbor is relatively small. With slight modification, the winner-update algorithm can also speed up the search for k nearest neighbors, neighbors within a specified distance threshold, and neighbors close to the nearest neighbor.
16787369
Fast block matching algorithm based on the winner-update strategy
Block matching is a widely used method for stereo vision, visual tracking, and video compression. Many fast algorithms for block matching have been proposed in the past, but most of them do not guarantee that the match found is the globally optimal match in a search range. This paper presents a new fast algorithm based on the winner-update strategy which utilizes an ascending lower bound list of the matching error to determine the temporary winner. Two lower bound lists derived by using partial distance and by using Minkowski's inequality are described. The basic idea of the winner-update strategy is to avoid, at each search position, the costly computation of the matching error when there exists a lower bound larger than the global minimum matching error. The proposed algorithm can significantly speed up the computation of the block matching because: 1) computational cost of the lower bound we use is less than that of the matching error itself; 2) an element in the ascending lower bound list will be calculated only when its preceding element has already been smaller than the minimum matching error computed so far; 3) for many search positions, only the first several lower bounds in the list need to be calculated. Our experiments have shown that, when applying to motion vector estimation for several widely-used test videos, 92% to 98% of operations can be saved while still guaranteeing the global optimality. Moreover, the proposed algorithm can be easily modified either to meet the limited time requirement or to provide an ordered list of best candidate matches. Our source codes of the proposed algorithm are available at http://smart.iis.sinica.edu.tw/html/winup.html.
16186547
Specification-based regression test selection with risk analysis
Regression testing is essential to ensure software quality. The test team applies a regression test suite to ensure that new or modified features do not regress (make worse) existing features. Although existing research has addressed many problems and put forward solutions, most regression test techniques are code-based. Code-based regression test selection is good for unit testing, but it has a scalability problem. When the size of the subject under test grows, it becomes hard to manage all the information and to create corresponding traceability matrices. In this paper, we describe a specification-based method for regression test selection.The basic model we use for describing requirements based on customer features or behaviors is the activity diagram, which is a notation of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). A process for identifying the affected test cases is presented. To summarize our approach, we select two kinds of regression tests: i) Targeted Tests, which ensure that important current customer features are still supported adequately in the new release and ii) Safety Tests, which are risk-directed, and ensure that potential problem areas are properly handled. Our test selection technique will be based on a practical risk analysis model.
19799763
An approach to isochronous slot reuse for multimedia services on DQDB network
This paper discusses an isochronous connection management protocol and its slot-reuse scheme for multimedia services on DQDB network. For asynchronous services, slot-reuse improves slot utilization, which has already been discussed in depth. However only few literature addressed the slot-reuse for synchronous services. Our proposed scheme reuses video slots for either synchronous or asynchronous services according to the need of downstream nodes. Simulation shows that the scheme significantly increases the maximum number of video connections as well as reduces the failure rate of connection request comparing with that without slot-reuse.
18628154
A Family of Simplified Geometric Distortion Models for Camera Calibration
The commonly used radial distortion model for camera calibration is in fact an assumption or a restriction. In practice, camera distortion could happen in a general geometrical manner that is not limited to the radial sense. This paper proposes a simplified geometrical distortion modeling method by using two different radial distortion functions in the two image axes. A family of simplified geometric distortion models is proposed, which are either simple polynomials or the rational functions of polynomials. Analytical geometric undistortion is possible using two of the distortion functions discussed in this paper and their performance can be improved by applying a piecewise fitting idea. Our experimental results show that the geometrical distortion models always perform better than their radial distortion counterparts. Furthermore, the proposed geometric modeling method is more appropriate for cameras whose distortion is not perfectly radially symmetric around the center of distortion.
14171562
Enhancing the Memory Performance of Embedded Systems with the Flexible Sequential and Random Access Memory
The on-chip memory performance of embedded systems directly affects the system designers’ decision about how to allocate expensive silicon area. We investigate a novel memory architecture, flexible sequential and random access memory (FSRAM), for embedded systems. To realize sequential accesses, small “links” are added to each row in the RAM array to point to the next row to be prefetched. The potential cache pollution is ameliorated by a small sequential access buffer (SAB). To evaluate the architecture-level performance of FSRAM, we run the Mediabench benchmark programs [1] on a modified version of the Simplescalar simulator [2]. Our results show that the FSRAM improves the performance of a baseline processor with a 16KB data cache up to 55%, with an average of 9%. We also designed RTL and SPICE models of the FSRAM [3], which show that the FSRAM significantly improves memory access time, while reducing power consumption, with negligible area overhead.
669399
Camera Calibration: a USU Implementation
The task of camera calibration is to estimate the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of a camera model. Though there are some restricted techniques to infer the 3-D information about the scene from uncalibrated cameras, effective camera calibration procedures will open up the possibility of using a wide range of existing algorithms for 3-D reconstruction and recognition. The applications of camera calibration include vision-based metrology, robust visual platooning and visual docking of mobile robots where the depth information is important.