IEE Proceedings - Vision, Image and Signal Processing

Efficient retrieval by content of visual information requires that visual content descriptors and similarity models are combined with efficient index structures. This problem is particularly challenging in the case of retrieval by shape similarity. The paper discusses retrieval by shape similarity, using local features and effective indexing. Shapes are partitioned into tokens following curvature ... View full abstract»

The method for reconstruction and restoration of super-resolution images from sets of low-resolution images presented is an extension of the algorithm proposed by Irani and Peleg (1991). After estimating the projective transformation parameters between the image sequence frames, the observed data are transformed into a sequence with only quantised sub-pixel translations. The super-resolution recon... View full abstract»

A novel multiple-stage approach to the recognition of handwritten words is presented, and its characteristics investigated using a database of words extracted from British cheques. In terms of both recognition performance and pattern throughput the proposed approach offers great flexibility in adapting to various operating constraints, allowing optimisation with respect to differing task requireme... View full abstract»

Reconfigurable hardware in the form of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) has been proposed as a way of obtaining high performance for computationally intensive DSP applications such as image processing (IP), even under real time requirements. The inherent reprogrammability of FPGAs gives them some of the flexibility of software while keeping the performance advantages of an application specif... View full abstract»

The distribution of colours in an image has proven to be very useful for object recognition. Building on Swain's colour indexing, colour distributions are now an integral part of many recognition schemes. This is not to say that colour alone suffices but rather that colour is one important cue that aids recognition. Colour indexing is performed on colour distribution histograms, and as such, the s... View full abstract»

A simple model is developed that successfully captures the point statistics of the global maximum of a Gaussian random field of reasonably large support. Tractable expressions for the probability that the global maximum of the field exceeds an arbitrary threshold are provided; this probability is shown to be completely insensitive to the fine details of the correlation function of the random field... View full abstract»

The authors describe a method for the recognition of cursively handwritten words using hidden Markov models (HMMs). The modelling methodology used has previously been successfully applied to the recognition of both degraded machine-printed text and hand-printed numerals. A novel lexicon-driven level building (LDLB) algorithm is proposed, which incorporates a lexicon directly within the search proc... View full abstract»

The discrete cosine transform (DCT) has been shown as an optimum encoder for sharp edges in an image (Andrew and Ogunbona, 1997). A conventional lossless coder employing differential pulse code modulation (DPCM) suffers from significant deficiencies in regions of discontinuity, because the simple model cannot capture the edge information. This problem can be partially solved by partitioning the im... View full abstract»

Novel class-based entropy coding algorithms for lattice quantised hierarchical (or interband) vectors are presented. The vectors are formed from wavelet coefficients on different scales from similarly oriented sub-bands corresponding to the same spatial location. Structures have been designed specifically for interband vectors drawn from wavelet coefficients, where large groups of approximately eq... View full abstract»

The implementation of a real-time digital watermark embedder and detector for television broadcast monitoring is addressed. A TriMedia processor with 4 BOPS (billion operations per second) is used for a software implementation. The performance of the system is tested in a laboratory environment under real-time conditions. The results prove the feasibility of a professional broadcast surveillance s... View full abstract»