This paper presents a method for extracting distinctive invariant features from images that can be used to perform reliable matching between different views of an object or scene. The features are invariant to image scale and rotation, and are shown to provide robust matching across a substantial range of affine distortion, change in 3D viewpoint, addition of noise, and change in illumination. The features are highly distinctive, in the sense that a single feature can be correctly matched with high probability against a large database of features from many images. This paper also describes an approach to using these features for object recognition. The recognition proceeds by matching individual features to a database of features from known objects using a fast nearest-neighbor algorithm, followed by a Hough transform to identify clusters belonging to a single object, and finally performing verification through least-squares solution for consistent pose parameters. This approach to recognition can robustly identify objects among clutter and occlusion while achieving near real-time performance.

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Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints

Fiji is a distribution of the popular open-source software ImageJ focused on biological-image analysis. Fiji uses modern software engineering practices to combine powerful software libraries with a broad range of scripting languages to enable rapid prototyping of image-processing algorithms. Fiji facilitates the transformation of new algorithms into ImageJ plugins that can be shared with end users through an integrated update system. We propose Fiji as a platform for productive collaboration between computer science and biology research communities.

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Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis

We propose a deep convolutional neural network architecture codenamed Inception that achieves the new state of the art for classification and detection in the ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge 2014 (ILSVRC14). The main hallmark of this architecture is the improved utilization of the computing resources inside the network. By a carefully crafted design, we increased the depth and width of the network while keeping the computational budget constant. To optimize quality, the architectural decisions were based on the Hebbian principle and the intuition of multi-scale processing. One particular incarnation used in our submission for ILSVRC14 is called GoogLeNet, a 22 layers deep network, the quality of which is assessed in the context of classification and detection.

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Going deeper with convolutions

Deep learning is a form of machine learning that enables computers to learn from experience and understand the world in terms of a hierarchy of concepts. Because the computer gathers knowledge from experience, there is no need for a human computer operator to formally specify all the knowledge that the computer needs. The hierarchy of concepts allows the computer to learn complicated concepts by building them out of simpler ones; a graph of these hierarchies would be many layers deep. This book introduces a broad range of topics in deep learning. The text offers mathematical and conceptual background, covering relevant concepts in linear algebra, probability theory and information theory, numerical computation, and machine learning. It describes deep learning techniques used by practitioners in industry, including deep feedforward networks, regularization, optimization algorithms, convolutional networks, sequence modeling, and practical methodology; and it surveys such applications as natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, online recommendation systems, bioinformatics, and videogames. Finally, the book offers research perspectives, covering such theoretical topics as linear factor models, autoencoders, representation learning, structured probabilistic models, Monte Carlo methods, the partition function, approximate inference, and deep generative models. Deep Learning can be used by undergraduate or graduate students planning careers in either industry or research, and by software engineers who want to begin using deep learning in their products or platforms. A website offers supplementary material for both readers and instructors.

Deep Learning

The Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (or SIFT) algorithm is a highly robust method to extract and consequently match distinctive invariant features from images. These features can then be used to reliably match objects in diering images. The algorithm was rst proposed by Lowe [12] and further developed to increase performance resulting in the classic paper [13] that served as foundation for SIFT which has played an important role in robotic and machine vision in the past decade.

We present a novel Hough Transform algorithm referred to as Progressive Probabilistic Hough Transform (PPHT). Unlike the Probabilistic HT where Standard HT is performed on a pre-selected fraction of input points, PPHT minimises the amount of computation needed to detect lines by exploiting the difference an the fraction of votes needed to detect reliably lines with different numbers of supporting points. The fraction of points used for voting need not be specified ad hoc or using a priori knowledge, as in the probabilistic HT; it is a function of the inherent complexity of the input data. The algorithm is ideally suited for real-time applications with a fixed amount of available processing time, since voting and line detection is interleaved. The most salient features are likely to be detected first. Experiments show that in many circumstances PPHT has advantages over the Standard HT.

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Progressive probabilistic Hough transform for line detection

We propose a benchmark for 6D pose estimation of a rigid object from a single RGB-D input image. The training data consists of a texture-mapped 3D object model or images of the object in known 6D poses. The benchmark comprises of: (i) eight datasets in a unified format that cover different practical scenarios, including two new datasets focusing on varying lighting conditions, (ii) an evaluation methodology with a pose-error function that deals with pose ambiguities, (iii) a comprehensive evaluation of 15 diverse recent methods that captures the status quo of the field, and (iv) an online evaluation system that is open for continuous submission of new results. The evaluation shows that methods based on point-pair features currently perform best, outperforming template matching methods, learning-based methods and methods based on 3D local features. The project website is available at bop.felk.cvut.cz.

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BOP: Benchmark for 6D Object Pose Estimation

Template-based discriminative trackers are currently the dominant tracking paradigm due to their robustness, but are restricted to bounding box tracking and a limited range of transformation models, which reduces their localization accuracy. We propose a discriminative single-shot segmentation tracker - D3S, which narrows the gap between visual object tracking and video object segmentation. A single-shot network applies two target models with complementary geometric properties, one invariant to a broad range of transformations, including non-rigid deformations, the other assuming a rigid object to simultaneously achieve high robustness and online target segmentation. Without per-dataset finetuning and trained only for segmentation as the primary output, D3S outperforms all trackers on VOT2016, VOT2018 and GOT-10k benchmarks and performs close to the state-of-the-art trackers on the TrackingNet. D3S outperforms the leading segmentation tracker SiamMask on video segmentation benchmark and performs on par with top video object segmentation algorithms, while running an order of magnitude faster, close to real-time.

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D3S – A Discriminative Single Shot Segmentation Tracker

A method called, sigma-consensus, is proposed to eliminate the need for a user-defined inlier-outlier threshold in RANSAC. Instead of estimating the noise sigma, it is marginalized over a range of noise scales. The optimized model is obtained by weighted least-squares fitting where the weights come from the marginalization over sigma of the point likelihoods of being inliers. A new quality function is proposed not requiring sigma and, thus, a set of inliers to determine the model quality. Also, a new termination criterion for RANSAC is built on the proposed marginalization approach. Applying sigma-consensus, MAGSAC is proposed with no need for a user-defined sigma and improving the accuracy of robust estimation significantly. It is superior to the state-of-the-art in terms of geometric accuracy on publicly available real-world datasets for epipolar geometry (F and E) and homography estimation. In addition, applying sigma-consensus only once as a post-processing step to the RANSAC output always improved the model quality on a wide range of vision problems without noticeable deterioration in processing time, adding a few milliseconds.

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MAGSAC: Marginalizing Sample Consensus

Many computer vision algorithms include a robust estimation step where model parameters are computed from a data set containing a significant proportion of outliers. The RANSAC algorithm is possibly the most widely used robust estimator in the field of computer vision. In the paper we show that under a broad range of conditions, RANSAC efficiency is significantly improved if its hypothesis evaluation step is randomized. A new randomized (hypothesis evaluation) version of the RANSAC algorithm, R-RANSAC, is introduced. Computational savings are achieved by typically evaluating only a fraction of data points for models contaminated with outliers. The idea is implemented in a two-step evaluation procedure. A mathematically tractable class of statistical preverification tests for test samples is introduced. For this class of preverification test we derive an approximate relation for the optimal setting of its single parameter. The proposed pre-test is evaluated on both synthetic data and real-world problems and a significant increase in speed is shown.

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Jiri Matas

Papers

Progressive probabilistic Hough transform for line detection

BOP: Benchmark for 6D Object Pose Estimation

D3S – A Discriminative Single Shot Segmentation Tracker

MAGSAC: Marginalizing Sample Consensus

Randomized RANSAC with T(d, d) test.