Browsing by Author "Lam, Roberto"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 14
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- An integrated framework for combining gist vision with object segregation categorisation and recognitionPublication . Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Almeida, D.; Martins, Jaime; Lam, RobertoThere are roughly two processing systems: (1) very fast gist vision of entire scenes, completely bottom-up and data driven, and (2) Focus-of-Attention (FoA) with sequential screening of specific image regions and objects. The latter system has to be sequential because unnormalised input objects must be matched against normalised templates of canonical object views stored in memory, which involves dynamic routing of features in the visual pathways.
- Artistic rendering of the visual cortexPublication . Lam, Roberto; Rodrigues, J. M. F.; du Buf, J. M. H.In this paper we explain the processing in the first layers of the visual cortex by simple, complex and endstopped cells, plus grouping cells for line, edge, keypoint and saliency detection. Three visualisations are presented: (a) an integrated scheme that shows activities of simple, complex and end-stopped cells, (b) artistic combinations of selected activity maps that give an impression of global image structure and/or local detail, and (c) NPR on the basis of a 2D brightness model. The cortical image representations offer many possibilities for non-photorealistic rendering.
- Building the what and where systems: multi-scale lines, edges and keypointsPublication . Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Almeida, D.; Nunes, S.; Lam, Roberto; du Buf, J. M. H.Computer vision for realtime applications requires tremendous computational power because all images must be processed from the first to the last pixel. Ac tive vision by probing specific objects on the basis of already acquired context may lead to a significant reduction of processing. This idea is based on a few concepts from our visual cortex (Rensink, Visual Cogn. 7, 17-42, 2000): (1) our physical surround can be seen as memory, i.e. there is no need to construct detailed and complete maps, (2) the bandwidth of the what and where systems is limited, i.e. only one object can be probed at any time, and (3) bottom-up, low-level feature extraction is complemented by top-down hypothesis testing, i.e. there is a rapid convergence of activities in dendritic/axonal connections.
- Correspondence of three-dimensional objectsPublication . Lam, Roberto; du Buf, J. M. H.First many thanks go to Prof. Hans du Buf, for his supervision based on his experience, for providing a stimulating and cheerful research environment in his laboratory, for letting me participate in the projects that produced results for papers, thus made me more aware of the state of the art in Computer Vision, especially in the area of 3D recognition. Also for his encouraging support and his way to always nd time for discussions, and last but not the least for the cooking recipes... Many thanks go also to my laboratory fellows, to Jo~ao Rodrigues, who invited me to participate in FCT and QREN projects, Jaime Carvalho Martins and Miguel Farrajota, for discussing scienti c and technical problems, but also almost all problems in the world. To all persons, that worked in, or visited the Vision Laboratory, especially those with whom I have worked with, almost on a daily basis. A special thanks to the Instituto Superior de Engenharia at UAlg and my colleagues at the Department of Electrical Engineering, for allowing me to suspend lectures in order to be present at conferences. To my family, my wife and my kids.
- Cortical 3D face and object recognition using 2D projectionsPublication . Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Lam, Roberto; du Buf, J. M. H.Empirical studies concerning face recognition suggest that faces may be stored in memory by a few canonical representations. In cortical area V1 exist double-opponent colour blobs, also simple, complex and end-stopped cells which provide input for a multiscale line/edge representation, keypoints for dynamic feature routine, and saliency maps for Focus-of-Attention.
- Cortical 3D Face Recognition FrameworkPublication . Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Lam, Roberto; du Buf, J. M. H.Empirical studies concerning face recognition suggest that faces may be stored in memory by a few canonical representations. In cortical area V1 exist double-opponent colour blobs, also simple, complex and end-stopped cells which provide input for a multiscale line/edge representation, keypoints for dynamic routing and saliency maps for Focus-of-Attention. All these combined allow us to segregate faces. Events of different facial views are stored in memory and combined in order to identify the view and recognise the face including facial expression. In this paper we show that with five 2D views and their cortical representations it is possible to determine the left-right and frontal-lateral-profile views and to achieve view-invariant recognition of 3D faces.
- Cortical multiscale line-edge disparity modelPublication . Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Martins, Jaime; Lam, Roberto; du Buf, J. M. H.Most biological approaches to disparity extraction rely on the disparity energy model (DEM). In this paper we present an alternative approach which can complement the DEM model. This approach is based on the multiscale coding of lines and edges, because surface structures are composed of lines and edges and contours of objects often cause edges against their background. We show that the line/edge approach can be used to create a 3D wireframe representation of a scene and the objects therein. It can also significantly improve the accuracy of the DEM model, such that our biological models can compete with some state-of-the-art algorithms from computer vision.
- A disparity energy model improved by line, edge and keypoint correspondencesPublication . Martins, J. C.; Farrajota, Miguel; Lam, Roberto; Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Terzic, Kasim; du Buf, J. M. H.Disparity energy models (DEMs) estimate local depth information on the basis ofVl complex cells. Our recent DEM (Martins et al, 2011 ISSPlT261-266) employs a population code. Once the population's cells have been trained with randorn-dot stereograms, it is applied at all retinotopic positions in the visual field. Despite producing good results in textured regions, the model needs to be made more precise, especially at depth transitions.
- A Flexible assessment platform for middle school, supported on students goalsPublication . Cardoso, Pedro; Lam, Roberto; Pereira, Rui Penha; Rodrigues, Nuno; Herdeiro, CláudiaRooted in many education system, assessment by written exams in a live only time evaluation is a traditional way to judge the student learnings. This live only time evaluation method leads to dys- functionalities such as high levels of stress and the assumption, by the students and by some teachers, that exams re ect the educational goals. This paper presents the Assessment Centers in Schools (ACiSs) project which aims to mitigate some of the identi ed problems. The nal goal of the ACiSs system is a web platform which allows students to have an out of class assessment system, reducing factor like stress by granting the possibility to complete more than one examination and consequent approval per module of the studied subjects. The ACiSs system is com- prised by a dataset of questions, properly categorized, which allows the automatic generation of exams wordings for summative and formative as- sessment. In the latter case, exams can be generated in order to mitigate individual weaknesses in the subject's curricular goals.
- Framework for a Hospitality Big Data Warehouse: The Implementation of an Efficient Hospitality Business Intelligence SystemPublication . Ramos, Celia; Martins, Daniel; Serra, Francisco; Lam, Roberto; Cardoso, Pedro; Correia, Marisol; Rodrigues, Joãoorder to increase the hotel's competitiveness, to maximize its revenue, to meliorate its online reputation and improve customer relationship, the information about the hotel's business has to be managed by adequate information systems (IS). Those IS should be capable of returning knowledge from a necessarily large quantity of information, anticipating and influencing the consumer's behaviour. One way to manage the information is to develop a Big Data Warehouse (BDW), which includes information from internal sources (e.g., Data Warehouse) and external sources (e.g., competitive set and customers' opinions). This paper presents a framework for a Hospitality Big Data Warehouse (HBDW). The framework includes a (1) Web crawler that periodically accesses targeted websites to automatically extract information from them, and a (2) data model to organize and consolidate the collected data into a HBDW. Additionally, the usefulness of this HBDW to the development of the business analytical tools is discussed, keeping in mind the implementation of the business intelligence (BI) concepts.