Planning algorithms are impacting technical disciplines and industries around the world, including robotics, computer-aided design, manufacturing, computer graphics, aerospace applications, drug design, and protein folding. This coherent and comprehensive book unifies material from several sources, including robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, and algorithms. The treatment is centered on robot motion planning but integrates material on planning in discrete spaces. A major part of the book is devoted to planning under uncertainty, including decision theory, Markov decision processes, and information spaces, which are the “configuration spaces” of all sensor-based planning problems. The last part of the book delves into planning under differential constraints that arise when automating the motions of virtually any mechanical system. Developed from courses taught by the author, the book is intended for students, engineers, and researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control theory as well as computer graphics, algorithms, and computational biology.

Planning Algorithms: Introductory Material

We conduct an exhaustive survey of image thresholding methods, categorize them, express their formulas under a uniform notation, and finally carry their performance comparison. The thresholding methods are categorized according to the information they are exploiting, such as histogram shape, measurement space clustering, entropy, object attributes, spatial correlation, and local gray-level surface. 40 selected thresholding methods from various categories are compared in the context of nondestructive testing applications as well as for document images. The comparison is based on the combined performance measures. We identify the thresholding algorithms that perform uniformly better over nonde- structive testing and document image applications. © 2004 SPIE and IS&T. (DOI: 10.1117/1.1631316)

/pdf/survey-over-image-thresholding-techniques-and-quantitative-2ekadyqjhj.pdf

Survey over image thresholding techniques and quantitative performance evaluation

This paper describes a new approach to low level image processing; in particular, edge and corner detection and structure preserving noise reduction.

Non-linear filtering is used to define which parts of the image are closely related to each individual pixel; each pixel has associated with it a local image region which is of similar brightness to that pixel. The new feature detectors are based on the minimization of this local image region, and the noise reduction method uses this region as the smoothing neighbourhood. The resulting methods are accurate, noise resistant and fast.

Details of the new feature detectors and of the new noise reduction method are described, along with test results.

SUSAN—A New Approach to Low Level Image Processing

Digital watermarking is a key ingredient to copyright protection. It provides a solution to illegal copying of digital material and has many other useful applications such as broadcast monitoring and the recording of electronic transactions. Now, for the first time, there is a book that focuses exclusively on this exciting technology. Digital Watermarking covers the crucial research findings in the field: it explains the principles underlying digital watermarking technologies, describes the requirements that have given rise to them, and discusses the diverse ends to which these technologies are being applied. As a result, additional groundwork is laid for future developments in this field, helping the reader understand and anticipate new approaches and applications.

Digital Watermarking

In digital image processing, thresholding is a well-known technique for image segmentation. Because of its wide applicability to other areas of the digital image processing, quite a number of thresholding methods have been proposed over the years. In this paper, we present a survey of thresholding techniques and update the earlier survey work by Weszka (Comput. Vision Graphics & Image Process 7, 1978 , 259–265) and Fu and Mu (Pattern Recognit. 13, 1981 , 3–16). We attempt to evaluate the performance of some automatic global thresholding methods using the criterion functions such as uniformity and shape measures. The evaluation is based on some real world images.

http://pequan.lip6.fr/~bereziat/pima/2012/seuillage/sahoo88.pdf

A survey of thresholding techniques

The problem of detecting step edge points which fall on curves (called curved edge points) is solved. Based on the moment‐preserving principle, the solution can be used to estimate curved edge locations to subpixel accuracy. The locations are approximated by parabolic equations. Experimental results, which show that the proposed detector is more effective for detecting curved edges and boundary corners than conventional line‐type edge detectors, are included.

Location of curved edges to subpixel values

The fact that there exists a large number of homonyms in Chinese characters is a problem for the phonetic input method which is favored by most casual users for Chinese input into computers. A new approach to solving the problem is proposed. The input method is regarded as a process of assigning syllables to words. The proposed approach makes use of the fact that little or even no ambiguity exists in determining the characters in a multi-syllabic word. The formation relationships among the words in an input sentence are utilized to perform a relaxation-based word identification process. An advantage of the approach is that once the composing words of the sentence are identified, the desired characters are also correctly selected. Experiments have been conducted with a hit rate of over 96%, thus showing the feasibility of this approach.

Relaxation-based word identification for removing the ambiguity in phonetic Chinese input

A secret communication method with a self-authentication capability is provided, which comprises steps of dividing a secret message into a plurality of secret segments; converting each of the secret segments into (k+1) shares, wherein k is a positive integer; embedding the shares into a media carrier; selecting every k shares among the (k+1) ones to compute (k+1) copies in value; and checking if the (k+1) copies in value are the same If the (k+1) copies in value are the same, then the secret message is shown Otherwise, at least one mark will be utilized to replace the secret message while the part of the secret message which is not falsified can still be correctly shown By employing the method, the integrity and fidelity of the hidden secret message can thus be verified, thereby achieving a new covert communication process performing both information hiding and self-authentication capability

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/122864/1/20150067870.pdf

Secret communication method with self-authentication capability

A new approach to hiding secret binary images behind noise images for covert communication with a capability of secret authentication is proposed. A secret image to be transmitted is transformed into a random noise image at a sender site with a given key, with the aim of both covering the secret and cheating illicit interceptors. Authentication bits are also embedded imperceptibly in the noise image. At the receiver site, the secret image is recovered from the noise image with the same key and verified by checking the existence of the authentication bits. Experimental results show the feasibility of the approach for real applications.

Hiding binary images behind noise with authentication capability: a new approach to covert communication

A unified approach to unwarping of omni-images into panoramic or perspective-view images is proposed. The approach does not adopt the conventional technique of calibrating the related parameters of an omni-camera. Instead, it is based on a new concept of pano-mapping table, which is created once forever by a simple learning process for an omni-camera of any kind as a summary of the information conveyed by all the camera parameters. The learning process takes as input a set of landmark point pairs in the world space and in a given image. With the help of the pano-mapping table, any panoramic or perspective-view image can be created from an input omni-image taken by the omni-camera according to an analytic computation process proposed in this study. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed approach.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/17232/1/000248078502106.pdf

Wen-Hsiang Tsai

Papers

Location of curved edges to subpixel values

Relaxation-based word identification for removing the ambiguity in phonetic Chinese input

Secret communication method with self-authentication capability

Hiding binary images behind noise with authentication capability: a new approach to covert communication

A Unified Approach to Unwarping of Omni-Images into Panoramic and Perspective-View Images Using Pano-Mapping Tables