LADAR scene description using fuzzy morphology and rules

This paper presents a method for automatically generating descriptions of scenes represented by digital images acquired using laser radar (LADAR). A method for matching the scenes to linguistic descriptions is also presented. Both methods rely on fuzzy spatial relations. Primitive spatial relations between objects are computed using fuzzy mathematical morphology and compared to a previous method based on training a neural network to learn human preferences. For each pair of objects in a scene, the primitive spatial relations are combined into complex spatial relations using a fuzzy rule base. A scene description is generated using the highest confidence rule outputs. Scene matching is performed using the outputs of the rules that correspond to the linguistic description. The results show that seemingly significant differences in spatial relationship definitions have little impact on system performance and that reasonable match scores and descriptions can be generated from the fuzzy system.