Artificial Vision
INTRODUCTION
Dr. Christian Micheloni
Department of Computer Science
University of Udine, ITALY
Artificial Vision
The origins of vision
• People of the ancient world have tried to
understand the nature of the light and the origins of
the vision.
• The ancient philosopher Greeks formulate two
different theories on the nature of the light:
EMISSIONIST THEORY
INTROMISSIONIST THEORY
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The emissionist theory
• The emissionist theory (Pitagora 582 B.C., Empedocle 460
B.C., Euclide 295 B.C.) is based on the hypothesis that the
eye emits a sheaf of light for exploring the environment and
allowing the knowledge.
Pitagora
Empedocle
Euclide
Technology Museum of Thessaloniki
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The intromissionist theory
• The intromissionist theory (Democrito 400 B.C., Aristotele
350 B.C., Epicuro 320 B.C.) is based on the hypothesis of
the transmission of the light from the visible object to the
observer’s eye.
Democrito
Epicuro
Aristotele
Technology Museum of Thessaloniki
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Islamic contributions
• Starting from the results of the Greek optical tradition, the
Islamic researchers belief that the world was a vast network
of radiations, of which light was the easiest to study because
of its visibility.
• Al-Kindı made an original contribution to the theory of
radiation by challenging the ancient assumption that light
emanates from luminous objects as a single unit. He argued
that light radiates in all directions from every point of a
luminous or illuminated object.
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Reneissance
• At the beginning of the six hundred, the problems related to
the nature of the light still remain open.
• Researchers
followed
both
emissionist and intromissionist
theories.
• Leonardo Da Vinci in a first time
followed
the
intromissionist
theory, but then changes his idea.
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The modern optic
• The father of the modern optic is without any doubt Giovanni
Keplero (1571-1630) who, on the basis of the dissection of
the eye of the ox, formulated the hypothesis that the
crystalline lens allow to focalize the light rays inside the eye.
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The modern optic (2)
• Other important researchers have
done one’s bit to the study of the
vision process:
• Descartes (1596-1650),
• Huygens (1629-1695),
• Newton (1643-1727).
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The human vision
• The vision process is in charge of determine the content of
a scene by pointing out the spatio-temporal relationships
among the objects.
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2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The eye’s model
LIGHT
BRIGHTNESS
CORNEA / IRIS
L( x, y,  )
LENS
I ( x, y,  )
H LPF (1 ,  2 )
V ( )
f ( x, y)
V ( )
H LPF (1 ,  2 )


2
Luminosity
function of
human’s
eye

f ( x, y )   I ( x, y,  ) V ( )d
0
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The eye’s model (2)
NEURAL
SIGNAL
CONTRAST
BRIGHTNESS
CONES / RODS
LATERAL INHIBITION
c( x, y)
g(  )
f ( x, y)
b( x, y)
H (1 ,0)
c
f
c( x, y)   f ( x, y)
1
n
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H (1 ,  2 )
1

  2  2
2
H (1 ,  2 )     1

0



2011
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
 e


  2  2

 1 2
0







Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The artificial vision
• The artificial vision is a whole of processes that cooperate
to build an approximated model of the 3D world starting from
2D images.
road
Vehicle
Traffic
lights
road
Traffic
sign
road
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
The artificial vision (2)
• The main objective of the artificial vision is to reproduce the
human vision process.
1
3
1
Stato
0
2
2
Stato
1
3
Stato
2
3
1
2
1
ARTIFICIAL
VISION
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Applications of artificial vision
• Industrial applications
• Visual inspection for quality control
• Control of industrial robots
• Autonomous vehicle guidance (AVG)
• Robots for marine and spatial exploration
• Augmented reality
• Trasport - Security
• Traffic analysis
• Remote monitoring of railway stations and airports
• Anomalous event analysis
• Face detection and recognition
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2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Visual inspection
• Artificial vision allows to automatically detect defects during
the normal industrial production cycle
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Industrial robots
• Artificial vision allows the control of robots in several
industrial applications.
(courtesy of Cambridge University)
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Autonomous guidance vehicles
• The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) has financed several research projects in the field of
autonomous guidance vehicles. In 2005-06, tests were done
on desert zone, while in November 2007 an urban area has
been selected as test site.
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Autonomous guidance vehicles (2)
• From January 2004, the two robots Spirit and Opportunity
have reached Mars and now are still active.
After a trip of 9 Km, 18 months
long, Opportunity has reached
the Victoria crater.
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Autonomous guidance vehicles (3)
• The autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) are employed
to visually inspect the bottom of the sea, gasoline pipelines
and off-shore structures.
MIT project ORCA
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
ATLAS project MARIDAN
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Augmented reality
• The observation of a real scene is integrated (augmented)
with data and contextual information acquired by other
sensors.
(courtesy of EPFL)
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Transports
• The artificial vision is applied to analyze the traffic flow on
roads, motorways, etc.
Courtesy of ETISEO project
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Security
• The artificial vision is applied to
monitor public areas (parking lots,
streets, squares, etc.) and to
detect and recognize face in
complex environments.
People detection
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Face detection
2011
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Face recognition
Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine
Artificial Vision
Security – Face Detection
Klagenfurt 6-11 April
2011
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Prof. Micheloni Christian
Università Degli Studi di Udine