Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
VISION-LIST Digest Volume 12 Issue 35
VISION-LIST Digest Fri Aug 06 11:28:17 PDT 93 Volume 12 : Issue 35
- ***** The Vision List has changed hosts to TELEOS.COM *****
- Send submissions to Vision-List@TELEOS.COM
- Vision List Digest available via COMP.AI.VISION newsgroup
- If you don't have access to COMP.AI.VISION, request list
membership to Vision-List-Request@TELEOS.COM
- Access Vision List Archives via anonymous ftp to FTP.TELEOS.COM
Today's Topics:
Re: A Hough Transform Program
IMSL routines in the Tsai article
A frame grabber device driver for Linux
3D object recognition using affine invariants
CFP: Toward Physical Interaction and Manipulation
Ukrainian work
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 93 14:00:30 EDT
From: herrell@cps.msu.edu
Subject: Re: A Hough Transform Program
[ The following Hough Transform PD code has been placed in the SHAREWARE
subdirectory of the Vision List Archive. Thanks to Richard!
phil... ]
I have recently written a simple program that accepts an
image in PGM (Portable Grey Map: A VERY simple format )
format and outputs one of:
1) a pgm formated image that is the hough transform of the given image
(standard line detection r, theta space)
2) A list of r theta confidence, r theta confidence ....
for all of the local maximums.
3) A pgm formated image where all non local maximums in
the hough space are blacked out.
depending on the command line options given.
I have also written a separate program which accepts
the original pgm formated image and the output of the
hough program and outputs a ppm ( color ) image that
displays the lines in green and the original image
in red. Output is usually sent to xv. I am adding
a variety of options, including thresholding by
confidence, thresholding by absolute maximum number
of lines, theta range reduction, and r range reduction.
(Actually, all of these are done as of today).
The program is written in C++, but is understandable
to any C programmer. I use no objects and the only
reason that it's in C++ is because I really find
the iostream.h library far superior to stdio.h.
--Rich
PS: These programs were written to analyze maps
created by an Histographic In Motion Mapping method
using the a sonar ring from a mobile robot. If you're
interested I can also send that.
This was simply code that I had written, and I didn't spend
a ton of time making it generalized and optimized. In the
future, I have tentative plans to create a C++ Object Heirarchy
with pnm formated images. Hopefully, if I complete that,
I can post it also.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 16:34:51 -0400
From: garym@vered.rose.utoronto.ca (Gary Lawrence Murphy)
Subject: IMSL routines in the Tsai article
This may be this month's most popular question ;-)
The camera calibration code for Roger Tsai's article "A Veratile Camera
Calibration Technique..." (IEEE Journal of Robotics & Automation 1987)
mentions the possibility of public domain replacements for the IMSL
statistics functions (dunlsf and dumiah)
These functions are described as "a nonlinear least squares using a
finite difference Jacobian and a multivariate function using a
modified newton method and a user-supplied Hessian"
The Question of the Week is: Does PD code or an algorithm for
functions like these already exist somewhere?
Gary Lawrence Murphy ---------------- garym@virtual.rose.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, Industrial Eng Dept fax: (416) 978-3453
4 Taddle Creek Rd, Toronto, Ont M5S 1A4 voice: (416) 978-3776
The true destination is always just here, now ----------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 19:17:27 -0500
From: cpg@research.att.com (Carlos Puchol)
Subject: A frame grabber device driver for Linux
I have written a frame grabber device driver for Linux (a free
version of UNIX). Although there is not scientific contents,
I think this is a very cheap alternative for those students around the
world willing to do their own vision applications without spending a
whole lot of money. We use the system for robot vision, telepresence
and remote sensing applications.
The device driver can be adapted to other versions of UNIX with
minor modifications. The board itself costs around $155 (US$).
Thank you.
++ Carlos Puchol
*****
This is a Linux device driver for the WinVision frame grabber. The WinVision
video capture board is made by Quanta Corporation, and currently
costs $155, including PhotoFinish 1.0 by ZSoft for Windows. I have
nothing to do with them other than having bought one of their
video capture boards. At the end of the message you will find their info.
The current release as of August 5 is 1.0.
The frame grabber captures images in black and white and has a resolution
that depends on the incoming image, the format (PAL or NTSC) and some other
minor factors. My programs read images of 310x241 in NTSC format with
good aspect ratio and 187x241 in raw format (the image is expanded
to a good aspect ratio internally in the device driver if an IOCTL
is issued. See grab_exp.c for details). Some applications (like
vision & robotics, which is what I do), don't really need a good aspect
ratio for processing and can benefit better of some extra speed.
The depth of images captured is 6 bits per pixel, more than enough
for black and white images.
I shipped a few programs with this device driver for people to try:
grab_exp.c: Grab images and display them in X. Push Q to quit,
C for continuous mode and any other key to stop
continuous mode.
grab.c: Game as before, but with raw data, no correction for
aspect ratio.
fgtopbm.c: Output a pbm format greyscale image in stdout.
rate.c: Determine the rate of capture of your board/machine.
Note: the continuous capture mode doesn't capture all the
frames coming out of the image source, but only the ones that are
available when the software is ready for the next capture. The image
displayed is the one coming out of the source at that precise moment
(i.e. the sound, if any is associated with the image, like in a VCR,
IS in sync with the image). The images have a "stroboscopic effect"
since the capture rate seldom goes above 5 or 6 frames per second.
I have tuned the device driver for NTSC images, but I think Quanta will
ship anywhere, and they have PAL versions. If you try to run the device
driver and associated programs with a PAL image, then remove the
#define NTSC_VIDEO line in the driver. You will most likely have to do
some adjustments in the variables that control the loops (the ones inside
the #define'd part). You can write a small program to do this using the
ioctl() calls. When you find a good set of parameters, please send them
over for use by some other people.
Read the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
Have Phun!
++ Carlos Puchol
++ cpg@cs.utexas.edu
The board company's info:
Quanta Corp.
2629 Terminal Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
(800) 682 17 38
(415) 967 57 91
(415) 967 87 62 (FAX)
***** Availability
I have just uploaded fgrabber-1.0.tgz to the following locations:
tsx-11.mit.edu:/incoming
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/Incoming
they will be there for a while until the system administrators decide
where to put it in the Linux ftp tree. You may also find them soon in
your favourite linux ftp mirror site. It is 9042 bytes long.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 12:47:46 GMT
From: ttj10@eng.cam.ac.uk (Tim Jervis)
Organization: Engineering Department, Cambridge University, England.
Subject: 3D object recognition using affine invariants
The following technical report is available by anonymous ftp from the
archive of the Speech, Vision and Robotics Group at the Cambridge
University Engineering Department.
Towards 3D Object Model
Acquisition and Recognition
using 3D Affine Invariants
Sven Vinther and Roberto Cipolla
Technical Report CUED/F-INFENG/TR136
Cambridge University Engineering Department
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1PZ
England
Abstract
We evaluate the power of 3D affine invariants in an object recognition
scheme. These invariants are actively calculated by the real-time
tracking of 2D image features (corners) over an image sequence. This
is done optimally by using a Kalman filter. Object information is
located in a hash table where it is stored and retrieved using the
invariants as stable indices. Recognition takes place when significant
evidence for a particular shape has been found from the
table. Preliminary results with real data are presented, and some of
the noise problems arising due to the weak perspective approximation
and corner localisation errors are discussed.
************************ How to obtain a copy ************************
a) Via FTP:
unix> ftp svr-ftp.eng.cam.ac.uk
Name: anonymous
Password: (type your email address)
ftp> cd reports
ftp> binary
ftp> get vinther_tr136.ps.Z
ftp> quit
unix> uncompress vinther_tr136.ps.Z
unix> lpr vinther_tr136.ps (or however you print PostScript)
b) Via postal mail:
Request a hardcopy from
Sven Vinther,
Cambridge University Engineering Department,
Trumpington Street,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ,
England.
or email me: sv@eng.cam.ac.uk
Posted on behalf of Sven Vinther by Tim Jervis, while Sven is
temporarily unable to access a terminal. Please address all
correspondence to Sven Vinther, sv@eng.cam.ac.uk.
--
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Cambridge University
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ Engineering Department,
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Trumpington Street,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England
--
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Cambridge University
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ Engineering Department,
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Trumpington Street,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 93 20:44:33 -0400
From: David Coombs <coombs@cme.nist.gov>
Subject: CFP: Toward Physical Interaction and Manipulation
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------- ----------
---------- PRELIMINARY ----------
---------- ----------
---------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ----------
---------- ----------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------- ----------
---------- ----------
---------- "Toward Physical Interaction and Manipulation" ----------
---------- ----------
---------- ----------
---------- AAAI SPRING SYMPOSIUM SERIES ----------
---------- ----------
---------- STANFORD CALIFORNIA ----------
---------- ----------
---------- MARCH 21-23, 1994 ----------
---------- ----------
---------- ----------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are delighted to invite contributions for the 1994 AAAI Spring
symposium: "Toward physical interaction and manipulation" to be held
on the campus of Stanford University, March 21-23, 1994.
SYMPOSIUM DESCRIPTION:
The range and scope of practical robotics applications depends
critically on the ability of robots to physically interact with their
environments. Current applications are highly specialized, and
typically they involve carefully controlled, well understood
workspaces with little or no sensory feedback. Construction costs and
inflexibility limit the economic viability of these systems. The
general manipulation skills of humans and other animals contrasts
starkly with the current capabilities of robots. From threading a
needle, to opening a door, to catching a ball, to moving a sofa, we
engage our environments in myriad ways. Unlike most current robots,
we rely upon rich sources of sensory feedback to cope with
uncertainties in our varied world.
The purpose of this workshop is to draw together researchers from a
range of disciplines to study the principles of physical interaction
and manipulation. The goal is to consider theories, paradigms, and
ontologies for both natural and artificial systems, and to develop
generally useful concepts, architectures, and algorithms for building
and describing them.
The approach is to select in advance a set of tasks that range in
difficulty and span a number of research issues. Each prospective
participant is to develop conceptual designs for one or more of these
tasks prior to the workshop. It is acceptable for designs to be
speculative, as we encourage creative solutions. However, the aim is
to examine tasks in detail and sketch complete systems. At the
workshop, selected designs will be presented, discussed, and compared
in an attempt to reach a more general understanding. By analyzing a
range of tasks, we aim to broaden our perspective, identifying common
themes and useful design principles. The rationale for this format is
that participants will be well prepared for the discussions by
thinking in detail about some of these tasks in advance. The list of
candidate tasks follows:
- make a cup of coffee
- fry and serve an egg
- prepare buttered toast
- play catch
- insert and play a video tape
- vacuum/mop the floor or mow the lawn
- dig a hole/trench
- (un)lock a door with a key
- open, pass through, and close a door
- feed someone using a fork, knife, spoon, cup, etc.
- retrieve a screwdriver from the toolbox in the garage.
- fold clothes
- move large objects (boxes, chairs, furniture)
These activities involve a range of skills and will most likely
require a range of mechanisms. They can be characterized by their
requirements for:
- real-time dynamics
- ballistic vs. servo control
- timed control
- position/orientation/velocity/force control
- tool usage & action at a distance
- multiple temporal phases
- sensor modalities (e.g., visual, haptic)
- compliance
- constraints on the workspace/environment
Participants should attempt to characterize their tasks and designs
according to these (and other) features to facilitate comparison.
SUBMISSION & PREPARATION: Potential participants should submit a short
description of their background and research interests along with
designs and analyses for individual tasks. To improve the depth and
quality of the designs, participants are encouraged to work in teams,
especially in collaborations that combine complementary expertise. Of
course, demonstrations of working systems, including simulations and
videos, are encouraged. Send submissions to either:
Steven Whitehead
GTE Laboratories Incorporated swhitehead@gte.com
40 Sylvan Rd. phone: (617) 466-2193
Waltham, MA 02254 FAX: (617) 890-9320
or
David Coombs
Natl Inst of Stds and Tech (NIST) coombs@cme.nist.gov
Robot Systems Division
Building 220, Room B-124 phone: (301) 975-2865
Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA FAX: (301) 990-9688
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Emilio Bizzi, MIT; Jon Connell, IBM Watson; David Coombs, NIST,
co-chair, (coombs@cme.nist.gov); Ken Goldberg, USC; Rod Grupen, UMass;
Stan Rosenschein, Teleos Research; Steven Whitehead, GTE Labs,
co-chair, (swhitehead@gte.com);
IMPORTANT DATES:
Submissions due: October 15, 1993
Notification of acceptance: November 15, 1993
Final registration deadline: March 1, 1994
Spring symposium: March 21-23, 1994
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 93 17:54:17 +0300
From: Anatoly L.Shishonok <leming@energetic.kiev.ua>
Organization: Energetic Coop.
Subject: Ukrainian work
The main aim
To raise the work at artificial intelligence in Ukraine to
the modern international level. To realize the idea it's important
to decide the following problems in the competitive basis with
suth financial support:
- to develop theoretical fundamental research in the
sphere of computer programming, leading to the
appearance of the new qualitative properties, increase
of quick effect and reliability that can decide the
tasks of artificial intelligence;
- development of mathematical foundation of fuzzy sets,
interval arithmetic, situational control etc, containing
branches of mathematical theory of artificial control;
- development of highly productive systems using the
principles of artificial intelligence, perfect means in
personal contact with the machine in order to decide the
most dofficult scientific tasks in economic management,
in creating the basis of knowledge;
- development of new technologies of creating superlarge
scale integration, transducers and devices for
artificial intelligence systems;
- preparation of scientific specialists concerning
problems of artificial intelligence.
The main tasks following from the main aim can be defined
more precisely. They consist of the basis of computer engineering
with the use of the principles of artificial intelligence:
1 project of the elements with qualitatively new
properties;
2 development of automatic machines theory of the first
and second type to automatic hierarchy theory;
3 elaboration of calculative structures of non-traditional
type having parallelism and information pipeline
processing;
4 elaboration of the basic processing parallel theory of
general and partial information leading to reduce
overlapping variants in search dacisions:
- artificial intelligence mayhematical basic extention
tasks with new properties of elements, facilities and
computer engineering systems;
- highly productive system with the use of artificial
intelligence principles;
- tasks of creation and implantation of new technologies
development facilities for artificial intelligence
system:
a) super-large scale integration;
b) transdusers;
c) specialized devices.
Tasks of preparation of scientific personnel in artificial
intelligence problems;
1 in Universities;
2 in polytechnical institutes;
3 in economic institutes (universities);
4 in the academies of sciences;
5 exchange of specialists with other countries;
6 conducting of conferences, seminars;
7 creation and issue of specialized journals.
Financing of these works in the way of the help from abroad
will help to fulfil the scientific research of artificial
intelligence problems in Ukraine because of lack of money. Such
scientific staffs like the Institute of Cybernatics of the Academy
of Sciences, Calculative Control Machines Plant, Kvazar and others
are bankrupt and reduced.
The loss of scientific sckools and research specialists and
stuffs woll throw back for decades the development of Ukraine and
hamper its integration in the world's community.
One of the branches of elaboration of computer programming of
new architecture that are built on the artificial intelligence
principles and designed for creation of effective intellectual
systems in the internal intellectualization of computers.
Commerce offer for mutual collaboration in the sphere of new
computer engineering.
1. The research substance.
L.F.Marakhovsky was the first to create multifunctional
structures and multilevel schemes of memory (MS and MSM) on the
potential and dynamic types of elements of large scale integration.
Comparison of created MS and MSM with known monofunctional
multistable triggers - K-external elements "AND-NO" with pull-up
capability P1 and R-external elements "AND" with pull-up
capability P2 (K = 8; R = 8; P1 = P2 = 10) are given in tables 1
and 2.
Table 1. Parametres of basic memory schemes.
*
Monofunctional MS MS Preferrable
Parameters multistable m memory scheme
triggers (MMT) cl. L cl. L class
4
m
M max 8 30 90 MS cl. L
4
F w 1/4 N e 1/4 N e 1/6 N e MS cl. L
4
m
N q 3 6 9 MS cl. L
4
m
S con if limited ele- 18 12 MS cl. L
with M-28 ments permit
4
W 1 0.6 0.7 MS cl. L
4
m
N e more 8 more 8 MS cl. L and L
)
M max - maximum number of storage status with limited lo-
gical elements
F w - work frequency (maximum) with N e (one logical ele-
ment delay)
N q - pull-up capability memory
S con - number of interelement connections in the memory
scheme
W - equipment consume for one memory scheme status
N e - the namber of different blocks of memory storage with
definite (optional external) signal, allowing to
access alternative mapping without delay which
doesn't exist in triggers.
Table 2. Used logical elements quantity and their limits
while construction basic memory schemes storing 18
conditions.
*
Logical Dominant
elements MMT MSM MSM k memory scheme
parameters cl. L n cl. L n class
4
Number of k
elements 18 14 12 MSM cl. L n
4
Number of k
exits of 18 4 3 MSM cl. L n
elements
4
Number of k
pull-up 18 5 4 MSM cl. L n
elements
)
We can see the advantages of allowed memory schemes from
these two tables. External parameter N e reflects their
quantitively new properies. Monofunctional trigger fasilities are
their partial case.
Creation of qualitatively new memory schemes enlarged the
basis of computer engineering that allowed to widen the machine
theory of the 1st and 2nd type and to create the machine of the
3rd type with qualitatively new big transition. We can create the
hierarchic machine theory, allowing to perform partial information
processing parallelly with general information on the basis of
machine theory of the 3rd type. Of allowed to increase the speed
of interconnection between their levels with N (N level) clocks
till the delay of the first logical element.
While creation of N (N > 3) level machines we can fulfill not
only determinated transition as we did it for the machines of the
first and second type (from environment to environment) and to
realize the digital transition from one set environment (block) to
another defined subsets environment and also to fulfill the
probable transition to fuzzy subset, consisting of quite defined
environment elements. That principally couldn't be realized before
in trigger devices.
From economic point of view a newly appeared direction -
elaboration of computer with qualitatively new memory organization
multifunctional system allowed to create the computer with
qualitatively new probabilities with high speed and influence of
the general information on processing of partial one.
So we elaborated the original discrete devices of design
theory with multifunctional memory organization system on MS and
MSM.
2. The substance of commercial proposition.
2.1 Together with computer designers to elaborate the
conception of a new computer with qualitatively new properties
using the elaborated device design theory on MS and MSM.
2.2 To design the Technical job for software and hardware.
2.3 To design the system and application software.
2.4 Design of technical computer project:
- structure (architecture)
- super-large scale integration (SLSI)
- constructions and printed circuit
- the design of diagnostic hardware and diagnostic
software.
2.5 Production of super-large scale integration, circuits,
constructions, test hardware and the computer itself (experimental
sample).
2.6 Debugging of systematic applicative and technical
software.
2.7 Preparation of documentation for experimental sample.
The author of the commercial proposition could take an active
part in p.2.1; 2.2; 2.4; 2.6 and 2.7 and also lead the scientists
taking part in p.2.4.
L.F.Marakhovsky
252028, kIEW-28
PROSPEKT nAUKI 35 KORPUS 4 KW. 23
l.f.mARAHOWSKIJ
T.(044) 265-77-39
------------------------------
End of VISION-LIST digest 12.35
************************
