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Andrew B. Watson

Bio: Andrew B. Watson is an academic researcher from Ames Research Center. The author has contributed to research in topics: Spatial frequency & Discrete cosine transform. The author has an hindex of 56, co-authored 151 publications receiving 15473 citations. Previous affiliations of Andrew B. Watson include University of Pennsylvania & Stanford University.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An adaptive psychometric procedure that places each trial at the current most probable Bayesian estimate of threshold is described, taking advantage of the common finding that the human psychometric function is invariant in form when expressed as a function of log intensity.
Abstract: An adaptive psychometric procedure that places each trial at the current most probable Bayesian estimate of threshold is described. The procedure takes advantage of the common finding that the human psychometric function is invariant in form when expressed as a function of log intensity. The procedure is simple, fast, and efficient, and may be easily implemented on any computer.

2,334 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A model of how humans sense the velocity of moving images, using a set of spatial-frequency-tuned, direction-selective linear sensors, agrees qualitatively with human perception.
Abstract: We propose a model of how humans sense the velocity of moving images. The model exploits constraints provided by human psychophysics, notably that motion-sensing elements appear tuned for two-dimensional spatial frequency, and by the frequency spectrum of a moving image, namely, that its support lies in the plane in which the temporal frequency equals the dot product of the spatial frequency and the image velocity. The first stage of the model is a set of spatial-frequency-tuned, direction-selective linear sensors. The temporal frequency of the response of each sensor is shown to encode the component of the image velocity in the sensor direction. At the second stage, these components are resolved in order to measure the velocity of image motion at each of a number of spatial locations and spatial frequencies. The model has been applied to several illustrative examples, including apparent motion, coherent gratings, and natural image sequences. The model agrees qualitatively with human perception.

1,227 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
08 Sep 1993
TL;DR: Here I show how to compute a matrix that is optimized for a particular image, and custom matrices for a number of images show clear improvement over image-independent matrices.
Abstract: This presentation describes how a vision model incorporating contrast sensitivity, contrast masking, and light adaptation is used to design visually optimal quantization matrices for Discrete Cosine Transform image compression. The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) underlies several image compression standards (JPEG, MPEG, H.261). The DCT is applied to 8x8 pixel blocks, and the resulting coefficients are quantized by division and rounding. The 8x8 'quantization matrix' of divisors determines the visual quality of the reconstructed image; the design of this matrix is left to the user. Since each DCT coefficient corresponds to a particular spatial frequency in a particular image region, each quantization error consists of a local increment or decrement in a particular frequency. After adjustments for contrast sensitivity, local light adaptation, and local contrast masking, this coefficient error can be converted to a just-noticeable-difference (jnd). The jnd's for different frequencies and image blocks can be pooled to yield a global perceptual error metric. With this metric, we can compute for each image the quantization matrix that minimizes the bit-rate for a given perceptual error, or perceptual error for a given bit-rate. Implementation of this system demonstrates its advantages over existing techniques. A unique feature of this scheme is that the quantization matrix is optimized for each individual image. This is compatible with the JPEG standard, which requires transmission of the quantization matrix.

776 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A mathematical model is constructed for DWT noise detection thresholds that is a function of level, orientation, and display visual resolution that allows calculation of a "perceptually lossless" quantization matrix for which all errors are in theory below the visual threshold.
Abstract: The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) decomposes an image into bands that vary in spatial frequency and orientation. It is widely used for image compression, measures of the visibility of DWT quantization errors are required to achieve optimal compression. Uniform quantization of a single band of coefficients results in an artifact that we call DWT uniform quantization noise; it is the sum of a lattice of random amplitude basis functions of the corresponding DWT synthesis filter. We measured visual detection thresholds for samples of DWT uniform quantization noise in Y, Cb, and Cr color channels. The spatial frequency of a wavelet is r2/sup -/spl lambda//, where r is the display visual resolution in pixels/degree, and /spl lambda/ is the wavelet level. Thresholds increase rapidly with wavelet spatial frequency. Thresholds also increase from Y to Cr to Cb, and with orientation from lowpass to horizontal/vertical to diagonal. We construct a mathematical model for DWT noise detection thresholds that is a function of level, orientation, and display visual resolution. This allows calculation of a "perceptually lossless" quantization matrix for which all errors are in theory below the visual threshold. The model may also be used as the basis for adaptive quantization schemes.

649 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Frequency-of-seeing and sensitivity-duration curves were collected for temporal signals of limited spectral extent and suggest that a stimulus is detected whenever the excursions of its linearly filtered, noise-perturbed temporal waveform exceed some fixed magnitude.

579 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a structural similarity index is proposed for image quality assessment based on the degradation of structural information, which can be applied to both subjective ratings and objective methods on a database of images compressed with JPEG and JPEG2000.
Abstract: Objective methods for assessing perceptual image quality traditionally attempted to quantify the visibility of errors (differences) between a distorted image and a reference image using a variety of known properties of the human visual system. Under the assumption that human visual perception is highly adapted for extracting structural information from a scene, we introduce an alternative complementary framework for quality assessment based on the degradation of structural information. As a specific example of this concept, we develop a structural similarity index and demonstrate its promise through a set of intuitive examples, as well as comparison to both subjective ratings and state-of-the-art objective methods on a database of images compressed with JPEG and JPEG2000. A MATLAB implementation of the proposed algorithm is available online at http://www.cns.nyu.edu//spl sim/lcv/ssim/.

40,609 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that the difference of information between the approximation of a signal at the resolutions 2/sup j+1/ and 2 /sup j/ (where j is an integer) can be extracted by decomposing this signal on a wavelet orthonormal basis of L/sup 2/(R/sup n/), the vector space of measurable, square-integrable n-dimensional functions.
Abstract: Multiresolution representations are effective for analyzing the information content of images. The properties of the operator which approximates a signal at a given resolution were studied. It is shown that the difference of information between the approximation of a signal at the resolutions 2/sup j+1/ and 2/sup j/ (where j is an integer) can be extracted by decomposing this signal on a wavelet orthonormal basis of L/sup 2/(R/sup n/), the vector space of measurable, square-integrable n-dimensional functions. In L/sup 2/(R), a wavelet orthonormal basis is a family of functions which is built by dilating and translating a unique function psi (x). This decomposition defines an orthogonal multiresolution representation called a wavelet representation. It is computed with a pyramidal algorithm based on convolutions with quadrature mirror filters. Wavelet representation lies between the spatial and Fourier domains. For images, the wavelet representation differentiates several spatial orientations. The application of this representation to data compression in image coding, texture discrimination and fractal analysis is discussed. >

20,028 citations

Book
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: An introduction to a Transient World and an Approximation Tour of Wavelet Packet and Local Cosine Bases.
Abstract: Introduction to a Transient World. Fourier Kingdom. Discrete Revolution. Time Meets Frequency. Frames. Wavelet Zoom. Wavelet Bases. Wavelet Packet and Local Cosine Bases. An Approximation Tour. Estimations are Approximations. Transform Coding. Appendix A: Mathematical Complements. Appendix B: Software Toolboxes.

17,693 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Psychophysics Toolbox is a software package that supports visual psychophysics and its routines provide an interface between a high-level interpreted language and the video display hardware.
Abstract: The Psychophysics Toolbox is a software package that supports visual psychophysics. Its routines provide an interface between a high-level interpreted language (MATLAB on the Macintosh) and the video display hardware. A set of example programs is included with the Toolbox distribution.

16,594 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These comparisons are primarily empirical, and concentrate on the accuracy, reliability, and density of the velocity measurements; they show that performance can differ significantly among the techniques the authors implemented.
Abstract: While different optical flow techniques continue to appear, there has been a lack of quantitative evaluation of existing methods. For a common set of real and synthetic image sequences, we report the results of a number of regularly cited optical flow techniques, including instances of differential, matching, energy-based, and phase-based methods. Our comparisons are primarily empirical, and concentrate on the accuracy, reliability, and density of the velocity measurements; they show that performance can differ significantly among the techniques we implemented.

4,771 citations