A. Course objectives and preliminaries


This is the website for my Fall '08 seminar on computer vision. The purpose of the seminar is to explore (take a guess) current problems in computer vision: those issues, approaches and applications evoking notable current research interest and promise. At the end of the seminar, participants should be aware of trends and directions in current computer vision research, have explored at least one in some depth, and given a thorough tutorial presentation on it.

After 3-4 weeks of surveying the course topics by the course director Peter Scott (that's me), each registered student will select a topic from the list of selected topics (or propose a different topic which I approve), and deliver a presentation on that computer vision research topic.  This website will serve mainly as a repository of files, links and other information relevant to the course. As student presentations are completed, they will be added. The presentation, and attendance at most/all of the other student presentations, are the only course requirements for students registering for 1-2 credits. For those registering for 3 credits, at the end of the semester, each such student will submit a research paper, similar in scope, length and scholarship to a paper tendered to a good conference in the field. The paper should be built on the presentation, adding some original research ideas and results to the tutorial material of the presentation.

Enrollment is limited to grad students with at least one previous course in image processing or computer vision. The group will meet weekly for one 2 1/2 hour session at a time that fits into everyone's schedule. On the first day of class for the Fall semester, Monday Aug 25, I will email everyone who has registered for the course and ask their class and teaching schedules. After perhaps one or two iterations as students add and drop, I will then send a final email around indicating what our regular meeting time and place for the semester will be. If you are interested in attending but do not register for the course, please check my office door (Bell 136), I will post the time and place for our meetings as soon as this information is available.

I will have office hours in my office Bell 136 this semester 11:00AM Mondays, 10:00AM Thursdays and either 10:00AM or 12:30PM Wednesdays, the last still to be decided. I can be reached by email at peter@buffalo.edu or phone at 716-645-3180 x 137.

 

B. Syllabus

 

This is the current syllabus, with a useful introductory reference for each topic linked. Registered students are asked to review these references before the class in which they will be surveyed. These references are just basic tutorial  introductions, which give the flavor of the topic but should not be expected to supply detail and technical information adequate for a thorough understanding.



1. Image processing from still images


1.1 Segmentation: fast marching   http://math.berkeley.edu/%7Esethian/Explanations/fast_marching_explain.html

      Select Fast Marching Methods from frame.
1.2 Shape recovery: level sets  http://math.berkeley.edu/%7Esethian/Explanations/level_set_explain.html

      Select Level Set Methods from frame.
1.3 Segmentation: graph cuts  http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~jshi/GraphTutorial/Tutorial-ImageSegmentationGraph-cut1-Shi.pdf

      Select Part 1.
1.4 Registration: image transformations  http://www.cs.wright.edu/~agoshtas/CVPR04_Registration_Tutorial.html

      Select Transformation Functions
1.5 Registration of images with maps  Haala_2003.pdf
1.6 JPEG2000   Impoco_2004.pdf


2. Computer vision from still images

2.1 OR: SVM methods  http://www.support-vector.net/icml-tutorial.pdf
2.2 OR: Learning  LeCun_2004.pdf
2.3 Free-viewpoint rendering http://iphome.hhi.de/smolic/docs/Smolic_ICIP04_FVV.pdf
2.4 Multi-view 3D reconstruction  Vogiatzis_2005.pdf
2.5 Multi-sensor image fusion   http://www.ece.lehigh.edu/SPCRL/IF/image_fusion.htm
      Select Section 1: Introduction and Section 2: Review of Image Fusion Research

3. Video processing

3.1 Particle filters for tracking Li_2004.pdf
3.2 MPEG-4/H.264 video coding  http://www.m4if.org/resources/IEEESpectrum/mpeg-4.htm
3.3 Model-based tracking  http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/ismar/2003/2006/00/20060313.pdf
3.4 Tracking using Bayes' nets  Murphy_2003.pdf
3.5 Free-viewpoint video  http://www.merl.com/reports/docs/TR2003-137.pdf
3.6 Motion detection  http://lear.inrialpes.fr/people/triggs/events/iccv03/cdrom/iccv03/0734_viola.pdf
3.7 Motion segmentation Weiss_2003.pdf


4. Computer vision from video

4.1 Detecting surprises, abnormalities Koller_2002.pdf
4.2 Modelling, identifying behavior  Gong_2002.pdf
4.3 Detecting, tracking people  Cutler_2003.pdf
4.4 Wayfinding for the vis impaired  Nagarajan_2003.pdf


5. Mathematical foundations

5.1 Representation: wavelets http://www.amara.com/IEEEwave/IEEEwavelet.html

5.2 Superresolution  http://cmc.rice.edu/docs/docs/Wag2004Apr5ImageSuper.pdf

5.3 Learning Weng_2000.pdf

5.4 Modelling uncertainty: prob, belief, fuzzy, rough sets, intervals, etc. Smets_1999.pdf

5.5 Evaluation methods Martens_2002.pdf

5.6 Mosaicking Hsieh_2003.pdf

5.7 A contrario detection methods VISTA_2004.pdf

5.8 Belief and image uncertainty Sun_2003.pdf



6. Architectures and hardware

6.1 FPGA architectures http://www.us.design-reuse.com/articles/article10943.html

6.2 Vision on a chip http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Feb00/NPO20449.html

6.3 Smart cameras Leeser_2004.pdf



7. Miscellaneous

7.1 Watermarking  Perez_200X.pdf

7.2 Image steganography Johnson_1997.pdf

7.3 Inpainting methods http://www.math.ucla.edu/~imagers/htmls/inp.html



8. Topics not discussed (duplicates other courses)

1. Face recognition
2. Image indexing or retrieval
3. Biometrics (eg. fingerprints)
4. CV for bioinformatics
5. Active or animate vision

 

 Class Schedule

Student presenters and their topics will be filled in as they become scheduled.

 

Week

Presenter

Topic

Prep Readings

 1   08/25 - 08/29

 

No meeting

 

 2   09/01 - 09/05

Peter Scott

Organizational meeting

 

 3   09/08 - 09/12

Peter Scott

Overview of Topics I

1.1-2.5

 4   09/15 - 09/19

Peter Scott

Overview of Topics II

1.5-3.7

 5   09/22 - 09/26

Peter Scott

Overview of Topics III

4.1-7.3

 6   09/29 - 10/03


 7   10/06 - 10/10


 8   10/13 - 10/17


 9   10/20 - 10/24


10  10/27 - 10/31


11  11/03 - 11/07


12  11/10 - 11/14


13  11/17 - 11/21


14  11/24 - 11/28


15  12/01 - 12/08  Peter Scott  Wrap-Up