770365
Robust head motion computation by taking advantage of physical properties
Head motion determination is an important problem for many applications including face modeling and tracking. We present a new algorithm to compute the head motion between two views from the correspondences of five feature points (eye corners, mouth corners and nose tip), and zero or more additional image point matches. The algorithm takes advantage of the physical properties of the feature points, such as symmetry, and it significantly improves the robustness of head motion estimation. This is achieved by reducing the number of unknowns to be estimated, thus increasing information redundancy. This idea can be easily extended to any number of feature point correspondences.
1313086
Image-based surface detail transfer
Changing an object's appearance by adding geometric details is desirable in many real-world applications. Bump mapping has acted as an alternative to adding geometrical details, to an otherwise smooth object. But constructing visually interesting bump maps requires practice and artistic skills. Computer vision techniques have helped for modeling real-world objects and their surface details. In our approach, for cases where we only want to transfer geometrical details from one object to another, we might not need to explicitly compute 3D structures. In particular, our novel technique captures the geometrical details of an object from a single image in a way that is independent of the object's reflectance property. We can then transfer geometrical details to another surface, producing the appearance of a new surface with added geometrical details while preserving the object's reflectance property. Our method's advantages are that it's simple to implement, requires only a single image for each object, and produces effective results.
5771284
Face relighting with radiance environment maps
A radiance environment map pre-integrates a constant surface reflectance with the lighting environment. It has been used to generate photo-realistic rendering at interactive speed. However, one of its limitations is that each radiance environment map can only render the object, which has the same surface reflectance as what it integrates. We present a ratio-image based technique to use a radiance environment map to render diffuse objects with different surface reflectance properties. This method has the advantage that it does not require the separation of illumination from reflectance, and it is simple to implement and runs at interactive speed. In order to use this technique for human face relighting, we have developed a technique that uses spherical harmonics to approximate the radiance environment map for any given image of a face. Thus we are able to relight face images when the lighting environment rotates. Another benefit of the radiance environment map is that we can interactively modify lighting by changing the coefficients of the spherical harmonics basis. Finally we can modify the lighting condition of one person's face so that it matches the new lighting condition of a different person's face image assuming the two faces have similar skin albedos.
15783652
Low bit-rate video streaming for face-to-face teleconference
Face-to-face video teleconferencing is very important for real time communication. Current teleconferencing applications use standard video codecs, such as MPEG 1/2/4, for the compression of face video. Either a high bandwidth is required for high quality video transmission, or the transmitted face video is blurred at low bitrates. We present a system for real-time coding of face video at low bit-rate. There are two main contributions. First, we improve the technique of long term memory prediction by selecting frames into the database in an optimal way. A new frame is selected into the database only when it is significantly different from those frames which are already in the database. In this way, the database can cover a wider range of images. Second, we incorporate prior knowledge about faces into the long term memory prediction framework. The prior knowledge includes: (1) facial motions are repetitive such that most of them can be reconstructed from multiple reference frames; (2) different components of the face and the background can tolerate different levels of error because of different perceptual importance. Experiments show that, at similar PSNR, the proposed system works much faster and achieves better visual quality than the standard H.264/JVT codec.
6930232
Expressive expression mapping with ratio images
Facial expressions exhibit not only facial feature motions, but also subtle changes in illumination and appearance (e.g., facial creases and wrinkles). These details are important visual cues, but they are difficult to synthesize. Traditional expression mapping techniques consider feature motions while the details in illumination changes are ignored. In this paper, we present a novel technique for facial expression mapping. We capture the illumination change of one person's expression in what we call an expression ratio image (ERI). Together with geometric warping, we map an ERI to any other person's face image to generate more expressive facial expressions.
3137419
Subtle Facial Expression Modeling with Vector Field Decomposition
Facial expression means not only the feature motions but also the subtle appearance changes in the face. The details are important to facial expression synthesis. In this paper, a novel method based on vector field decomposition is presented to model subtle facial expressions. The intensity change of facial expression image is represented by Helmholtz-Hodge vector field decomposition. Based on this method, subtle facial expression mapping is carried out much faster and better. Experiment results show that our method is robust and convincible to model the subtle facial expression.
774892
Single Machine Scheduling Subject To Precedence Delays
Abstract A single-machine scheduling problem with precedence delays is analyzed. A set of n tasks is to be scheduled on the machine in such a way that the makespan is minimized. The executions of the tasks are constrained by precedence delays, i.e., a task can start its execution only after any of its predecessors has completed and the delay between the two tasks has elapsed. In the case of unit execution times and integer lengths of delays, the problem is shown to be NP-hard in the strong sense. In the case of integer execution times and unit length of delays, the problem is polynomial, and an O(n2) optimal algorithm is provided. Both preemptive and non-preemptive cases are considered.
11845096
Integration of audio and visual information for content-based video segmentation
A video sequence usually consists of separate scenes, and each scene includes many shots. For video understanding purposes, it is most important to detect scene breaks. To analyze the content of each scene, detection of shot breaks is also required. Usually, a scene break is associated with a simultaneous change of image, motion, and audio characteristics, while a shot break is only accompanied with changes in image or motion or both. We propose to use audio information along with image and motion information to accomplish segmentation at different levels. Promising results have been obtained with videos digitized from TV programs.
5135154
Linking UML models of design and requirement
Both a UML model of requirement and a UML model of a design are defined as a pair of class diagram and a family of sequence diagrams. We then give an unified semantics for models of requirements and designs. We define the consistency between a design class diagram and the interaction diagrams and show how the removal of inconsistency can be treated as a model refinement. We then formally define the correctness of UML model of design with respect to the model of requirement.
29068512
Perceptions of credibility of scholarly information on the web
The purpose of this study is to investigate factors influencing students' perception of the credibility of scholarly information on the web. In addition to the four types of source credibility proposed by previous studies (presumed credibility, reputed credibility, surface credibility, and experienced credibility), this study shows that two other types of source credibility (verifiable credibility and cost-effort credibility) play a significant role in shaping students' perceptions of credibility. Circumstances that affect students' willingness to accept scholarly information on the web are identified. Implications for web system design are also discussed.
6770113
Image magnification method using joint diffusion
In this paper a new algorithm for image magnification is presented. Because linear magnification/interpolation techniques diminish the contrast and produce sawtooth effects, in recent years, many nonlinear interpolation methods, especially nonlinear diffusion based approaches, have been proposed to solve these problems. Two recently proposed techniques for interpolation by diffusion, forward and backward diffusion (FAB) and level-set reconstruction (LSR), cannot enhance the contrast and smooth edges simultaneously. In this article, a novel Partial Differential Equations (PDE) based approach is presented. The contributions of the paper include: firstly, a unified form of diffusion joining FAB and LSR is constructed to have all of their virtues; secondly, to eliminate artifacts of the joint diffusion, soft constraint takes the place of hard constraint presented by LSR; thirdly, the determination of joint coefficients, criterion for stopping time and color image processing are also discussed. The results demonstrate that the method is visually and quantitatively better than Bicubic, FAB and LSR.