Deposits of clastic carbonate-dominated (calciclastic) sedimentary slope systems in the rock record have been identified mostly as linearly-consistent carbonate apron deposits, even though most ancient clastic carbonate slope deposits fit the submarine fan systems better. Calciclastic submarine fans are consequently rarely described and are poorly understood. Subsequently, very little is known especially in mud-dominated calciclastic submarine fan systems. Presented in this study are a sedimentological core and petrographic characterisation of samples from eleven boreholes from the Lower Carboniferous of Bowland Basin (Northwest England) that reveals a >250 m thick calciturbidite complex deposited in a calciclastic submarine fan setting. Seven facies are recognised from core and thin section characterisation and are grouped into three carbonate turbidite sequences. They include: 1) Calciturbidites, comprising mostly of highto low-density, wavy-laminated bioclast-rich facies; 2) low-density densite mudstones which are characterised by planar laminated and unlaminated muddominated facies; and 3) Calcidebrites which are muddy or hyper-concentrated debrisflow deposits occurring as poorly-sorted, chaotic, mud-supported floatstones. These

Phd by thesis

3D shape is a crucial but heavily underutilized cue in today's computer vision systems, mostly due to the lack of a good generic shape representation. With the recent availability of inexpensive 2.5D depth sensors (e.g. Microsoft Kinect), it is becoming increasingly important to have a powerful 3D shape representation in the loop. Apart from category recognition, recovering full 3D shapes from view-based 2.5D depth maps is also a critical part of visual understanding. To this end, we propose to represent a geometric 3D shape as a probability distribution of binary variables on a 3D voxel grid, using a Convolutional Deep Belief Network. Our model, 3D ShapeNets, learns the distribution of complex 3D shapes across different object categories and arbitrary poses from raw CAD data, and discovers hierarchical compositional part representation automatically. It naturally supports joint object recognition and shape completion from 2.5D depth maps, and it enables active object recognition through view planning. To train our 3D deep learning model, we construct ModelNet - a large-scale 3D CAD model dataset. Extensive experiments show that our 3D deep representation enables significant performance improvement over the-state-of-the-arts in a variety of tasks.

/pdf/3d-shapenets-a-deep-representation-for-volumetric-shapes-1ii3phcu91.pdf

3D ShapeNets: A deep representation for volumetric shapes

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence

In this paper we present an automatic algorithm to detect basic shapes in unorganized point clouds. The algorithm decomposes the point cloud into a concise, hybrid structure of inherent shapes and a set of remaining points. Each detected shape serves as a proxy for a set of corresponding points. Our method is based on random sampling and detects planes, spheres, cylinders, cones and tori. For models with surfaces composed of these basic shapes only, for example, CAD models, we automatically obtain a representation solely consisting of shape proxies. We demonstrate that the algorithm is robust even in the presence of many outliers and a high degree of noise. The proposed method scales well with respect to the size of the input point cloud and the number and size of the shapes within the data. Even point sets with several millions of samples are robustly decomposed within less than a minute. Moreover, the algorithm is conceptually simple and easy to implement. Application areas include measurement of physical parameters, scan registration, surface compression, hybrid rendering, shape classification, meshing, simplification, approximation and reverse engineering.

Efficient RANSAC for Point-Cloud Shape Detection

Markov random field (MRF) theory provides a basis for modeling contextual constraints in visual processing and interpretation. It enables systematic development of optimal vision algorithms when used with optimization principles. This detailed and thoroughly enhanced third edition presents a comprehensive study / reference to theories, methodologies and recent developments in solving computer vision problems based on MRFs, statistics and optimisation. It treats various problems in low- and high-level computational vision in a systematic and unified way within the MAP-MRF framework. Among the main issues covered are: how to use MRFs to encode contextual constraints that are indispensable to image understanding; how to derive the objective function for the optimal solution to a problem; and how to design computational algorithms for finding an optimal solution. Easy-to-follow and coherent, the revised edition is accessible, includes the most recent advances, and has new and expanded sections on such topics as: Discriminative Random Fields (DRF) Strong Random Fields (SRF) Spatial-Temporal Models Total Variation Models Learning MRF for Classification (motivation + DRF) Relation to Graphic Models Graph Cuts Belief Propagation Features: Focuses on the application of Markov random fields to computer vision problems, such as image restoration and edge detection in the low-level domain, and object matching and recognition in the high-level domain Presents various vision models in a unified framework, including image restoration and reconstruction, edge and region segmentation, texture, stereo and motion, object matching and recognition, and pose estimation Uses a variety of examples to illustrate how to convert a specific vision problem involving uncertainties and constraints into essentially an optimization problem under the MRF setting Introduces readers to the basic concepts, important models and various special classes of MRFs on the regular image lattice and MRFs on relational graphs derived from images Examines the problems of parameter estimation and function optimization Includes an extensive list of references This broad-ranging and comprehensive volume is an excellent reference for researchers working in computer vision, image processing, statistical pattern recognition and applications of MRFs. It has been class-tested and is suitable as a textbook for advanced courses relating to these areas.

Markov Random Field Modeling in Image Analysis

Image thresholding is a common task in many computer vision and graphics applications. The goal of thresholding an image is to classify pixels as either "dark" or "light." Adaptive thresholding is a form of thresholding that takes into account spatial variations in illumination. We present a technique for real-time adaptive thresholding using the integral image of the input. Our technique is an extension of a previous method. However, our solution is more robust to illumination changes in the image. Additionally, our method is simple and easy to implement. Our technique is suitable for processing live video streams at a real-time frame-rate, making it a valuable tool for interactive applications such as augmented reality. Source code is available online.

/pdf/adaptive-thresholding-using-the-integral-image-5eekwog47k.pdf

Adaptive Thresholding using the Integral Image

Laser scanning range sensors are widely used for high-precision, high-density three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction and inspection of the surface of physical objects. The process typically involves planning a set of views, physically altering the relative object-sensor pose, taking scans, registering the acquired geometric data in a common coordinate frame of reference, and finally integrating range images into a nonredundant model. Efficiencies could be achieved by automating or semiautomating this process. While challenges remain, there are adequate solutions to semiautomate the scan-register-integrate tasks. On the other hand, view planning remains an open problem---that is, the task of finding a suitably small set of sensor poses and configurations for specified reconstruction or inspection goals. This paper surveys and compares view planning techniques for automated 3D object reconstruction and inspection by means of active, triangulation-based range sensors.

/pdf/view-planning-for-automated-three-dimensional-object-utnxfaxboz.pdf

View planning for automated three-dimensional object reconstruction and inspection

Extracting geometric primitives from geometric sensor data is an important problem in model-based vision. A minimal subset is the smallest number of points necessary to define a unique instance of a geometric primitive. A genetic algorithm based on a minimal subset representation is used to perform primitive extraction. It is shown that the genetic approach is an improvement over random search and is capable of extracting more complex primitives than the Hough transform. >

Geometric primitive extraction using a genetic algorithm

Extracting geometric primitives is an important task in model-based computer vision. The Hough transform is the most common method of extracting geometric primitives. Recently, methods derived from the field of robust statistics have been used for this purpose. We show that extracting a single geometric primitive is equivalent to finding the optimum value of a cost function which has potentially many local minima. Besides providing a unifying way of understanding different primitive extraction algorithms, this model also shows that for efficient extraction the true global minimum must be found with as few evaluations of the cost function as possible. In order to extract a single geometric primitive we choose a number of minimal subsets randomly from the geometric data. The cost function is evaluated for each of these, and the primitive defined by the subset with the best value of the cost function is extracted from the geometric data. To extract multiple primitives, this process is repeated on the geometric data that do not belong to the primitive. The resulting extraction algorithm can be used with a wide variety of geometric primitives and geometric data. It is easily parallelized, and we describe some possible implementations on a variety of parallel architectures. We make a detailed comparison with the Hough transform and show that it has a number of advantages over this classic technique.

Extracting geometric primitives

http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~roth/iit-publications-iti/docs/NRC-47140.pdf

Gerhard Roth

Papers

Adaptive Thresholding using the Integral Image

View planning for automated three-dimensional object reconstruction and inspection

Geometric primitive extraction using a genetic algorithm

Extracting geometric primitives

Nouse 'use your nose as a mouse' perceptual vision technology for hands-free games and interfaces