In this paper, we compare the performance of descriptors computed for local interest regions, as, for example, extracted by the Harris-Affine detector [Mikolajczyk, K and Schmid, C, 2004]. Many different descriptors have been proposed in the literature. It is unclear which descriptors are more appropriate and how their performance depends on the interest region detector. The descriptors should be distinctive and at the same time robust to changes in viewing conditions as well as to errors of the detector. Our evaluation uses as criterion recall with respect to precision and is carried out for different image transformations. We compare shape context [Belongie, S, et al., April 2002], steerable filters [Freeman, W and Adelson, E, Setp. 1991], PCA-SIFT [Ke, Y and Sukthankar, R, 2004], differential invariants [Koenderink, J and van Doorn, A, 1987], spin images [Lazebnik, S, et al., 2003], SIFT [Lowe, D. G., 1999], complex filters [Schaffalitzky, F and Zisserman, A, 2002], moment invariants [Van Gool, L, et al., 1996], and cross-correlation for different types of interest regions. We also propose an extension of the SIFT descriptor and show that it outperforms the original method. Furthermore, we observe that the ranking of the descriptors is mostly independent of the interest region detector and that the SIFT-based descriptors perform best. Moments and steerable filters show the best performance among the low dimensional descriptors.

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A performance evaluation of local descriptors

We present a new method for synthesizing high-resolution photo-realistic images from semantic label maps using conditional generative adversarial networks (conditional GANs). Conditional GANs have enabled a variety of applications, but the results are often limited to low-resolution and still far from realistic. In this work, we generate 2048 A— 1024 visually appealing results with a novel adversarial loss, as well as new multi-scale generator and discriminator architectures. Furthermore, we extend our framework to interactive visual manipulation with two additional features. First, we incorporate object instance segmentation information, which enables object manipulations such as removing/adding objects and changing the object category. Second, we propose a method to generate diverse results given the same input, allowing users to edit the object appearance interactively. Human opinion studies demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms existing methods, advancing both the quality and the resolution of deep image synthesis and editing.

/pdf/high-resolution-image-synthesis-and-semantic-manipulation-2kquievgrf.pdf

High-Resolution Image Synthesis and Semantic Manipulation with Conditional GANs

In this paper we compare the performance of interest point descriptors. Many different descriptors have been proposed in the literature. However, it is unclear which descriptors are more appropriate and how their performance depends on the interest point detector. The descriptors should be distinctive and at the same time robust to changes in viewing conditions as well as to errors of the point detector. Our evaluation uses as criterion detection rate with respect to false positive rate and is carried out for different image transformations. We compare SIFT descriptors (Lowe, 1999), steerable filters (Freeman and Adelson, 1991), differential invariants (Koenderink ad van Doorn, 1987), complex filters (Schaffalitzky and Zisserman, 2002), moment invariants (Van Gool et al., 1996) and cross-correlation for different types of interest points. In this evaluation, we observe that the ranking of the descriptors does not depend on the point detector and that SIFT descriptors perform best. Steerable filters come second ; they can be considered a good choice given the low dimensionality.

/pdf/a-performance-evaluation-of-local-descriptors-q13343l6ti.pdf

The paper gives a snapshot of the state of the art in affine covariant region detectors, and compares their performance on a set of test images under varying imaging conditions. Six types of detectors are included: detectors based on affine normalization around Harris (Mikolajczyk and Schmid, 2002; Schaffalitzky and Zisserman, 2002) and Hessian points (Mikolajczyk and Schmid, 2002), a detector of `maximally stable extremal regions', proposed by Matas et al. (2002); an edge-based region detector (Tuytelaars and Van Gool, 1999) and a detector based on intensity extrema (Tuytelaars and Van Gool, 2000), and a detector of `salient regions', proposed by Kadir, Zisserman and Brady (2004). The performance is measured against changes in viewpoint, scale, illumination, defocus and image compression.

The objective of this paper is also to establish a reference test set of images and performance software, so that future detectors can be evaluated in the same framework.

/pdf/a-comparison-of-affine-region-detectors-tyudqpfaf1.pdf

A Comparison of Affine Region Detectors

This paper concerns the problem of fully automated panoramic image stitching. Though the 1D problem (single axis of rotation) is well studied, 2D or multi-row stitching is more difficult. Previous approaches have used human input or restrictions on the image sequence in order to establish matching images. In this work, we formulate stitching as a multi-image matching problem, and use invariant local features to find matches between all of the images. Because of this our method is insensitive to the ordering, orientation, scale and illumination of the input images. It is also insensitive to noise images that are not part of a panorama, and can recognise multiple panoramas in an unordered image dataset. In addition to providing more detail, this paper extends our previous work in the area (Brown and Lowe, 2003) by introducing gain compensation and automatic straightening steps.

/pdf/automatic-panoramic-image-stitching-using-invariant-features-qz6yy9ngai.pdf

Automatic Panoramic Image Stitching using Invariant Features

The problem considered in this paper is the fully automatic construction of panoramas. Fundamentally, this problem requires recognition, as we need to know which parts of the panorama join up. Previous approaches have used human input or restrictions on the image sequence for the matching step. In this work we use object recognition techniques based on invariant local features to select matching images, and a probabilistic model for verification. Because of this our method is insensitive to the ordering, orientation, scale and illumination of the images. It is also insensitive to 'noise' images which are not part of the panorama at all, that is, it recognises panoramas. This suggests a useful application for photographers: the system takes as input the images on an entire flash card or film, recognises images that form part of a panorama, and stitches them with no user input whatsoever.

Brown

Papers

Recognising panoramas