Publications | Perceiving Systems - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

57 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2006

Finding directional movement representations in motor cortical neural populations using nonlinear manifold learning

WorKim, S., Simeral, J., Jenkins, O., Donoghue, J., Black, M.

World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering 2006, Seoul, Korea, August 2006 (conference)

2006

WorKim, S., Simeral, J., Jenkins, O., Donoghue, J., Black, M. Finding directional movement representations in motor cortical neural populations using nonlinear manifold learning World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering 2006, Seoul, Korea, August 2006 (conference)

[BibTex]

A non-parametric Bayesian approach to spike sorting

Wood, F., Goldwater, S., Black, M. J.

In International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS, pages: 1165-1169, New York, NY, August 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Wood, F., Goldwater, S., Black, M. J. A non-parametric Bayesian approach to spike sorting In International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS, pages: 1165-1169, New York, NY, August 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Predicting 3D people from 2D pictures

(Best Paper)

Sigal, L., Black, M. J.

In Proc. IV Conf. on Articulated Motion and DeformableObjects (AMDO), LNCS 4069, pages: 185-195, July 2006 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We propose a hierarchical process for inferring the 3D pose of a person from monocular images. First we infer a learned view-based 2D body model from a single image using non-parametric belief propagation. This approach integrates information from bottom-up body-part proposal processes and deals with self-occlusion to compute distributions over limb poses. Then, we exploit a learned Mixture of Experts model to infer a distribution of 3D poses conditioned on 2D poses. This approach is more general than recent work on inferring 3D pose directly from silhouettes since the 2D body model provides a richer representation that includes the 2D joint angles and the poses of limbs that may be unobserved in the silhouette. We demonstrate the method in a laboratory setting where we evaluate the accuracy of the 3D poses against ground truth data. We also estimate 3D body pose in a monocular image sequence. The resulting 3D estimates are sufficiently accurate to serve as proposals for the Bayesian inference of 3D human motion over time

pdf pdf from publisher Video [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Black, M. J. Predicting 3D people from 2D pictures In Proc. IV Conf. on Articulated Motion and DeformableObjects (AMDO), LNCS 4069, pages: 185-195, July 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf pdf from publisher Video [BibTex]

Specular flow and the recovery of surface structure

Roth, S., Black, M.

In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 2, pages: 1869-1876, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In scenes containing specular objects, the image motion observed by a moving camera may be an intermixed combination of optical flow resulting from diffuse reflectance (diffuse flow) and specular reflection (specular flow). Here, with few assumptions, we formalize the notion of specular flow, show how it relates to the 3D structure of the world, and develop an algorithm for estimating scene structure from 2D image motion. Unlike previous work on isolated specular highlights we use two image frames and estimate the semi-dense flow arising from the specular reflections of textured scenes. We parametrically model the image motion of a quadratic surface patch viewed from a moving camera. The flow is modeled as a probabilistic mixture of diffuse and specular components and the 3D shape is recovered using an Expectation-Maximization algorithm. Rather than treating specular reflections as noise to be removed or ignored, we show that the specular flow provides additional constraints on scene geometry that improve estimation of 3D structure when compared with reconstruction from diffuse flow alone. We demonstrate this for a set of synthetic and real sequences of mixed specular-diffuse objects.

pdf [BibTex]

Roth, S., Black, M. Specular flow and the recovery of surface structure In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 2, pages: 1869-1876, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

An adaptive appearance model approach for model-based articulated object tracking

Balan, A., Black, M. J.

In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 1, pages: 758-765, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The detection and tracking of three-dimensional human body models has progressed rapidly but successful approaches typically rely on accurate foreground silhouettes obtained using background segmentation. There are many practical applications where such information is imprecise. Here we develop a new image likelihood function based on the visual appearance of the subject being tracked. We propose a robust, adaptive, appearance model based on the Wandering-Stable-Lost framework extended to the case of articulated body parts. The method models appearance using a mixture model that includes an adaptive template, frame-to-frame matching and an outlier process. We employ an annealed particle filtering algorithm for inference and take advantage of the 3D body model to predict self occlusion and improve pose estimation accuracy. Quantitative tracking results are presented for a walking sequence with a 180 degree turn, captured with four synchronized and calibrated cameras and containing significant appearance changes and self-occlusion in each view.

pdf [BibTex]

Balan, A., Black, M. J. An adaptive appearance model approach for model-based articulated object tracking In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 1, pages: 758-765, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Measure locally, reason globally: Occlusion-sensitive articulated pose estimation

Sigal, L., Black, M. J.

In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 2, pages: 2041-2048, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Black, M. J. Measure locally, reason globally: Occlusion-sensitive articulated pose estimation In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR, 2, pages: 2041-2048, New York, NY, June 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Statistical analysis of the non-stationarity of neural population codes

Kim, S., Wood, F., Fellows, M., Donoghue, J. P., Black, M. J.

In BioRob 2006, The first IEEE / RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, pages: 295-299, Pisa, Italy, Febuary 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Kim, S., Wood, F., Fellows, M., Donoghue, J. P., Black, M. J. Statistical analysis of the non-stationarity of neural population codes In BioRob 2006, The first IEEE / RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, pages: 295-299, Pisa, Italy, Febuary 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

How to choose the covariance for Gaussian process regression independently of the basis

Franz, M., Gehler, P.

In Proceedings of the Workshop Gaussian Processes in Practice, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Franz, M., Gehler, P. How to choose the covariance for Gaussian process regression independently of the basis In Proceedings of the Workshop Gaussian Processes in Practice, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

The rate adapting poisson model for information retrieval and object recognition

Gehler, P. V., Holub, A. D., Welling, M.

In Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on Machine learning, pages: 337-344, ICML ’06, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2006 (inproceedings)

project page pdf DOI [BibTex]

Gehler, P. V., Holub, A. D., Welling, M. The rate adapting poisson model for information retrieval and object recognition In Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on Machine learning, pages: 337-344, ICML ’06, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2006 (inproceedings)

project page pdf DOI [BibTex]

Implicit Wiener Series, Part II: Regularised estimation

Gehler, P., Franz, M.

(148), Max Planck Institute, 2006 (techreport)

pdf [BibTex]

Gehler, P., Franz, M. Implicit Wiener Series, Part II: Regularised estimation (148), Max Planck Institute, 2006 (techreport)

pdf [BibTex]

Tracking complex objects using graphical object models

Sigal, L., Zhu, Y., Comaniciu, D., Black, M. J.

In International Workshop on Complex Motion, LNCS 3417, pages: 223-234, Springer-Verlag, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Zhu, Y., Comaniciu, D., Black, M. J. Tracking complex objects using graphical object models In International Workshop on Complex Motion, LNCS 3417, pages: 223-234, Springer-Verlag, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

HumanEva: Synchronized video and motion capture dataset for evaluation of articulated human motion

Sigal, L., Black, M. J.

(CS-06-08), Brown University, Department of Computer Science, 2006 (techreport)

pdf abstract [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Black, M. J. HumanEva: Synchronized video and motion capture dataset for evaluation of articulated human motion (CS-06-08), Brown University, Department of Computer Science, 2006 (techreport)

pdf abstract [BibTex]

Bayesian population decoding of motor cortical activity using a Kalman filter

Wu, W., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P., Black, M. J.

Neural Computation, 18(1):80-118, 2006 (article)

Abstract

Effective neural motor prostheses require a method for decoding neural activity representing desired movement. In particular, the accurate reconstruction of a continuous motion signal is necessary for the control of devices such as computer cursors, robots, or a patient's own paralyzed limbs. For such applications, we developed a real-time system that uses Bayesian inference techniques to estimate hand motion from the firing rates of multiple neurons. In this study, we used recordings that were previously made in the arm area of primary motor cortex in awake behaving monkeys using a chronically implanted multielectrode microarray. Bayesian inference involves computing the posterior probability of the hand motion conditioned on a sequence of observed firing rates; this is formulated in terms of the product of a likelihood and a prior. The likelihood term models the probability of firing rates given a particular hand motion. We found that a linear gaussian model could be used to approximate this likelihood and could be readily learned from a small amount of training data. The prior term defines a probabilistic model of hand kinematics and was also taken to be a linear gaussian model. Decoding was performed using a Kalman filter, which gives an efficient recursive method for Bayesian inference when the likelihood and prior are linear and gaussian. In off-line experiments, the Kalman filter reconstructions of hand trajectory were more accurate than previously reported results. The resulting decoding algorithm provides a principled probabilistic model of motor-cortical coding, decodes hand motion in real time, provides an estimate of uncertainty, and is straightforward to implement. Additionally the formulation unifies and extends previous models of neural coding while providing insights into the motor-cortical code.

pdf preprint pdf from publisher abstract [BibTex]

Wu, W., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P., Black, M. J. Bayesian population decoding of motor cortical activity using a Kalman filter Neural Computation, 18(1):80-118, 2006 (article)

pdf preprint pdf from publisher abstract [BibTex]

Hierarchical Approach for Articulated 3D Pose-Estimation and Tracking (extended abstract)

Sigal, L., Black, M. J.

In Learning, Representation and Context for Human Sensing in Video Workshop (in conjunction with CVPR), 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf poster [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Black, M. J. Hierarchical Approach for Articulated 3D Pose-Estimation and Tracking (extended abstract) In Learning, Representation and Context for Human Sensing in Video Workshop (in conjunction with CVPR), 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf poster [BibTex]

Nonlinear physically-based models for decoding motor-cortical population activity

Shakhnarovich, G., Kim, S., Black, M. J.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, NIPS-2006, pages: 1257-1264, MIT Press, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Shakhnarovich, G., Kim, S., Black, M. J. Nonlinear physically-based models for decoding motor-cortical population activity In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19, NIPS-2006, pages: 1257-1264, MIT Press, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

A comparison of decoding models for imagined motion from human motor cortex

Kim, S., Simeral, J., Donoghue, J. P., Hocherberg, L. R., Friehs, G., Mukand, J. A., Chen, D., Black, M. J.

Program No. 256.11. 2006 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta, GA, 2006, Online (conference)

[BibTex]

Kim, S., Simeral, J., Donoghue, J. P., Hocherberg, L. R., Friehs, G., Mukand, J. A., Chen, D., Black, M. J. A comparison of decoding models for imagined motion from human motor cortex Program No. 256.11. 2006 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta, GA, 2006, Online (conference)

[BibTex]

Denoising archival films using a learned Bayesian model

Moldovan, T. M., Roth, S., Black, M. J.

In Int. Conf. on Image Processing, ICIP, pages: 2641-2644, Atlanta, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Moldovan, T. M., Roth, S., Black, M. J. Denoising archival films using a learned Bayesian model In Int. Conf. on Image Processing, ICIP, pages: 2641-2644, Atlanta, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Efficient belief propagation with learned higher-order Markov random fields

Lan, X., Roth, S., Huttenlocher, D., Black, M. J.

In European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, II, pages: 269-282, Graz, Austria, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Lan, X., Roth, S., Huttenlocher, D., Black, M. J. Efficient belief propagation with learned higher-order Markov random fields In European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV, II, pages: 269-282, Graz, Austria, 2006 (inproceedings)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Products of “Edge-perts”

Gehler, P., Welling, M.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 18, pages: 419-426, (Editors: Weiss, Y. and Sch"olkopf, B. and Platt, J.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006 (incollection)

pdf [BibTex]

Gehler, P., Welling, M. Products of “Edge-perts” In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 18, pages: 419-426, (Editors: Weiss, Y. and Sch"olkopf, B. and Platt, J.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006 (incollection)

pdf [BibTex]

Modeling neural control of physically realistic movement

Shaknarovich, G., Kim, S., Donoghue, J. P., Hocherberg, L. R., Friehs, G., Mukand, J. A., Chen, D., Black, M. J.

Program No. 256.12. 2006 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta, GA, 2006, Online (conference)

[BibTex]

Shaknarovich, G., Kim, S., Donoghue, J. P., Hocherberg, L. R., Friehs, G., Mukand, J. A., Chen, D., Black, M. J. Modeling neural control of physically realistic movement Program No. 256.12. 2006 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta, GA, 2006, Online (conference)

[BibTex]

2003

Image statistics and anisotropic diffusion

Scharr, H., Black, M. J., Haussecker, H.

In Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, pages: 840-847, October 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

2003

Scharr, H., Black, M. J., Haussecker, H. Image statistics and anisotropic diffusion In Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, pages: 840-847, October 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

A switching Kalman filter model for the motor cortical coding of hand motion

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Mumford, D., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P.

In Proc. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, pages: 2083-2086, September 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Mumford, D., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P. A switching Kalman filter model for the motor cortical coding of hand motion In Proc. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, pages: 2083-2086, September 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Learning the statistics of people in images and video

Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J.

International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):183-209, August 2003 (article)

Abstract

This paper address the problems of modeling the appearance of humans and distinguishing human appearance from the appearance of general scenes. We seek a model of appearance and motion that is generic in that it accounts for the ways in which people's appearance varies and, at the same time, is specific enough to be useful for tracking people in natural scenes. Given a 3D model of the person projected into an image we model the likelihood of observing various image cues conditioned on the predicted locations and orientations of the limbs. These cues are taken to be steered filter responses corresponding to edges, ridges, and motion-compensated temporal differences. Motivated by work on the statistics of natural scenes, the statistics of these filter responses for human limbs are learned from training images containing hand-labeled limb regions. Similarly, the statistics of the filter responses in general scenes are learned to define a “background” distribution. The likelihood of observing a scene given a predicted pose of a person is computed, for each limb, using the likelihood ratio between the learned foreground (person) and background distributions. Adopting a Bayesian formulation allows cues to be combined in a principled way. Furthermore, the use of learned distributions obviates the need for hand-tuned image noise models and thresholds. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the statistics of how people appear in scenes and provides a connection between work on natural image statistics and the Bayesian tracking of people.

pdf pdf from publisher code DOI [BibTex]

Sidenbladh, H., Black, M. J. Learning the statistics of people in images and video International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):183-209, August 2003 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher code DOI [BibTex]

A framework for robust subspace learning

De la Torre, F., Black, M. J.

International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):117-142, August 2003 (article)

Abstract

Many computer vision, signal processing and statistical problems can be posed as problems of learning low dimensional linear or multi-linear models. These models have been widely used for the representation of shape, appearance, motion, etc., in computer vision applications. Methods for learning linear models can be seen as a special case of subspace fitting. One draw-back of previous learning methods is that they are based on least squares estimation techniques and hence fail to account for “outliers” which are common in realistic training sets. We review previous approaches for making linear learning methods robust to outliers and present a new method that uses an intra-sample outlier process to account for pixel outliers. We develop the theory of Robust Subspace Learning (RSL) for linear models within a continuous optimization framework based on robust M-estimation. The framework applies to a variety of linear learning problems in computer vision including eigen-analysis and structure from motion. Several synthetic and natural examples are used to develop and illustrate the theory and applications of robust subspace learning in computer vision.

pdf code pdf from publisher Project Page [BibTex]

De la Torre, F., Black, M. J. A framework for robust subspace learning International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):117-142, August 2003 (article)

pdf code pdf from publisher Project Page [BibTex]

Guest editorial: Computational vision at Brown

Black, M. J., Kimia, B.

International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):5-11, August 2003 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Kimia, B. Guest editorial: Computational vision at Brown International Journal of Computer Vision, 54(1-3):5-11, August 2003 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Robust parameterized component analysis: Theory and applications to 2D facial appearance models

De la Torre, F., Black, M. J.

Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 91(1-2):53-71, July 2003 (article)

Abstract

Principal component analysis (PCA) has been successfully applied to construct linear models of shape, graylevel, and motion in images. In particular, PCA has been widely used to model the variation in the appearance of people's faces. We extend previous work on facial modeling for tracking faces in video sequences as they undergo significant changes due to facial expressions. Here we consider person-specific facial appearance models (PSFAM), which use modular PCA to model complex intra-person appearance changes. Such models require aligned visual training data; in previous work, this has involved a time consuming and error-prone hand alignment and cropping process. Instead, the main contribution of this paper is to introduce parameterized component analysis to learn a subspace that is invariant to affine (or higher order) geometric transformations. The automatic learning of a PSFAM given a training image sequence is posed as a continuous optimization problem and is solved with a mixture of stochastic and deterministic techniques achieving sub-pixel accuracy. We illustrate the use of the 2D PSFAM model with preliminary experiments relevant to applications including video-conferencing and avatar animation.

pdf [BibTex]

De la Torre, F., Black, M. J. Robust parameterized component analysis: Theory and applications to 2D facial appearance models Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 91(1-2):53-71, July 2003 (article)

pdf [BibTex]

Method and apparatus for generating a condensed version of a video sequence including desired affordances

Black, M. J., Ju, S., Minneman, S., Kimber, D.

US Pat. 6,560,281, May 2003 (patent)

pdf on-line at USPTO [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Ju, S., Minneman, S., Kimber, D. Method and apparatus for generating a condensed version of a video sequence including desired affordances US Pat. 6,560,281, May 2003 (patent)

pdf on-line at USPTO [BibTex]

A Gaussian mixture model for the motor cortical coding of hand motion

Wu, W., Mumford, D., Black, M. J., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P.

Neural Control of Movement, Santa Barbara, CA, April 2003 (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

Wu, W., Mumford, D., Black, M. J., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P. A Gaussian mixture model for the motor cortical coding of hand motion Neural Control of Movement, Santa Barbara, CA, April 2003 (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

Connecting brains with machines: The neural control of 2D cursor movement

Black, M. J., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P., Serruya, M., Wu, W., Gao, Y.

In 1st International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 580-583, Capri, Italy, March 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Bienenstock, E., Donoghue, J. P., Serruya, M., Wu, W., Gao, Y. Connecting brains with machines: The neural control of 2D cursor movement In 1st International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 580-583, Capri, Italy, March 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

A quantitative comparison of linear and non-linear models of motor cortical activity for the encoding and decoding of arm motions

Gao, Y., Black, M. J., Bienenstock, E., Wu, W., Donoghue, J. P.

In 1st International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 189-192, Capri, Italy, March 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Gao, Y., Black, M. J., Bienenstock, E., Wu, W., Donoghue, J. P. A quantitative comparison of linear and non-linear models of motor cortical activity for the encoding and decoding of arm motions In 1st International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 189-192, Capri, Italy, March 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Apparatus and method for identifying and tracking objects with view-based representations

Black, M. J., Jepson, A.

US Pat. 6,526,156, Febuary 2003 (patent)

pdf on-line at USPTO [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. Apparatus and method for identifying and tracking objects with view-based representations US Pat. 6,526,156, Febuary 2003 (patent)

pdf on-line at USPTO [BibTex]

Accuracy of manual spike sorting: Results for the Utah intracortical array

Wood, F., Fellows, M., Vargas-Irwin, C., Black, M. J., Donoghue, J. P.

Program No. 279.2. 2003, Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC, 2003, Online (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

Wood, F., Fellows, M., Vargas-Irwin, C., Black, M. J., Donoghue, J. P. Accuracy of manual spike sorting: Results for the Utah intracortical array Program No. 279.2. 2003, Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner, Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC, 2003, Online (conference)

abstract [BibTex]

Specular flow and the perception of surface reflectance

Roth, S., Domini, F., Black, M. J.

Journal of Vision, 3 (9): 413a, 2003 (conference)

abstract poster [BibTex]

Roth, S., Domini, F., Black, M. J. Specular flow and the perception of surface reflectance Journal of Vision, 3 (9): 413a, 2003 (conference)

abstract poster [BibTex]

Attractive people: Assembling loose-limbed models using non-parametric belief propagation

Sigal, L., Isard, M. I., Sigelman, B. H., Black, M. J.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 16, NIPS, pages: 1539-1546, (Editors: S. Thrun and L. K. Saul and B. Schölkopf), MIT Press, 2003 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The detection and pose estimation of people in images and video is made challenging by the variability of human appearance, the complexity of natural scenes, and the high dimensionality of articulated body models. To cope with these problems we represent the 3D human body as a graphical model in which the relationships between the body parts are represented by conditional probability distributions. We formulate the pose estimation problem as one of probabilistic inference over a graphical model where the random variables correspond to the individual limb parameters (position and orientation). Because the limbs are described by 6-dimensional vectors encoding pose in 3-space, discretization is impractical and the random variables in our model must be continuous-valued. To approximate belief propagation in such a graph we exploit a recently introduced generalization of the particle filter. This framework facilitates the automatic initialization of the body-model from low level cues and is robust to occlusion of body parts and scene clutter.

pdf (color) pdf (black and white) [BibTex]

Sigal, L., Isard, M. I., Sigelman, B. H., Black, M. J. Attractive people: Assembling loose-limbed models using non-parametric belief propagation In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 16, NIPS, pages: 1539-1546, (Editors: S. Thrun and L. K. Saul and B. Schölkopf), MIT Press, 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf (color) pdf (black and white) [BibTex]

Neural decoding of cursor motion using a Kalman filter

(Nominated: Best student paper)

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Serruya, M., Shaikhouni, A., Donoghue, J. P.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 15, pages: 133-140, MIT Press, 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Wu, W., Black, M. J., Gao, Y., Bienenstock, E., Serruya, M., Shaikhouni, A., Donoghue, J. P. Neural decoding of cursor motion using a Kalman filter In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 15, pages: 133-140, MIT Press, 2003 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

1998

Summarization of video-taped presentations: Automatic analysis of motion and gesture

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Minneman, S., Kimber, D.

IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 8(5):686-696, September 1998 (article)

Abstract

This paper presents an automatic system for analyzing and annotating video sequences of technical talks. Our method uses a robust motion estimation technique to detect key frames and segment the video sequence into subsequences containing a single overhead slide. The subsequences are stabilized to remove motion that occurs when the speaker adjusts their slides. Any changes remaining between frames in the stabilized sequences may be due to speaker gestures such as pointing or writing, and we use active contours to automatically track these potential gestures. Given the constrained domain, we define a simple set of actions that can be recognized based on the active contour shape and motion. The recognized actions provide an annotation of the sequence that can be used to access a condensed version of the talk from a Web page.

pdf pdf from publisher DOI [BibTex]

1998

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Minneman, S., Kimber, D. Summarization of video-taped presentations: Automatic analysis of motion and gesture IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 8(5):686-696, September 1998 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher DOI [BibTex]

Robust anisotropic diffusion

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D.

IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 7(3):421-432, March 1998 (article)

Abstract

Relations between anisotropic diffusion and robust statistics are described in this paper. Specifically, we show that anisotropic diffusion can be seen as a robust estimation procedure that estimates a piecewise smooth image from a noisy input image. The edge-stopping; function in the anisotropic diffusion equation is closely related to the error norm and influence function in the robust estimation framework. This connection leads to a new edge-stopping; function based on Tukey's biweight robust estimator that preserves sharper boundaries than previous formulations and improves the automatic stopping of the diffusion. The robust statistical interpretation also provides a means for detecting the boundaries (edges) between the piecewise smooth regions in an image that has been smoothed with anisotropic diffusion. Additionally, we derive a relationship between anisotropic diffusion and regularization with line processes. Adding constraints on the spatial organization of the line processes allows us to develop new anisotropic diffusion equations that result in a qualitative improvement in the continuity of edges

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Sapiro, G., Marimont, D., Heeger, D. Robust anisotropic diffusion IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 7(3):421-432, March 1998 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

The Digital Office: Overview

Black, M., Berard, F., Jepson, A., Newman, W., Saund, E., Socher, G., Taylor, M.

In AAAI Spring Symposium on Intelligent Environments, pages: 1-6, Stanford, March 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M., Berard, F., Jepson, A., Newman, W., Saund, E., Socher, G., Taylor, M. The Digital Office: Overview In AAAI Spring Symposium on Intelligent Environments, pages: 1-6, Stanford, March 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

A framework for modeling appearance change in image sequences

Black, M. J., Fleet, D. J., Yacoob, Y.

In Sixth International Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV’98, pages: 660-667, Mumbai, India, January 1998 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Image "appearance" may change over time due to a variety of causes such as 1) object or camera motion; 2) generic photometric events including variations in illumination (e.g. shadows) and specular reflections; and 3) "iconic changes" which are specific to the objects being viewed and include complex occlusion events and changes in the material properties of the objects. We propose a general framework for representing and recovering these "appearance changes" in an image sequence as a "mixture" of different causes. The approach generalizes previous work on optical flow to provide a richer description of image events and more reliable estimates of image motion.

pdf video [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Fleet, D. J., Yacoob, Y. A framework for modeling appearance change in image sequences In Sixth International Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV’98, pages: 660-667, Mumbai, India, January 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

Parameterized modeling and recognition of activities

Yacoob, Y., Black, M. J.

In Sixth International Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV’98, pages: 120-127, Mumbai, India, January 1998 (inproceedings)

Abstract

A framework for modeling and recognition of temporal activities is proposed. The modeling of sets of exemplar activities is achieved by parameterizing their representation in the form of principal components. Recognition of spatio-temporal variants of modeled activities is achieved by parameterizing the search in the space of admissible transformations that the activities can undergo. Experiments on recognition of articulated and deformable object motion from image motion parameters are presented.

pdf [BibTex]

Yacoob, Y., Black, M. J. Parameterized modeling and recognition of activities In Sixth International Conf. on Computer Vision, ICCV’98, pages: 120-127, Mumbai, India, January 1998 (inproceedings)

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Motion feature detection using steerable flow fields

Fleet, D. J., Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR-98, pages: 274-281, IEEE, Santa Barbara, CA, 1998 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The estimation and detection of occlusion boundaries and moving bars are important and challenging problems in image sequence analysis. Here, we model such motion features as linear combinations of steerable basis flow fields. These models constrain the interpretation of image motion, and are used in the same way as translational or affine motion models. We estimate the subspace coefficients of the motion feature models directly from spatiotemporal image derivatives using a robust regression method. From the subspace coefficients we detect the presence of a motion feature and solve for the orientation of the feature and the relative velocities of the surfaces. Our method does not require the prior computation of optical flow and recovers accurate estimates of orientation and velocity.

pdf [BibTex]

Fleet, D. J., Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D. Motion feature detection using steerable flow fields In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR-98, pages: 274-281, IEEE, Santa Barbara, CA, 1998 (inproceedings)

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PLAYBOT: A visually-guided robot for physically disabled children

Tsotsos, J. K., Verghese, G., Dickinson, S., Jenkin, M., Jepson, A., Milios, E., Nuflo, F., Stevenson, S., Black, M., Metaxas, D., Culhane, S., Ye, Y., Mann, R.

Image & Vision Computing, Special Issue on Vision for the Disabled, 16(4):275-292, 1998 (article)

Abstract

This paper overviews the PLAYBOT project, a long-term, large-scale research program whose goal is to provide a directable robot which may enable physically disabled children to access and manipulate toys. This domain is the first test domain, but there is nothing inherent in the design of PLAYBOT that prohibits its extension to other tasks. The research is guided by several important goals: vision is the primary sensor; vision is task directed; the robot must be able to visually search its environment; object and event recognition are basic capabilities; environments must be natural and dynamic; users and environments are assumed to be unpredictable; task direction and reactivity must be smoothly integrated; and safety is of high importance. The emphasis of the research has been on vision for the robot this is the most challenging research aspect and the major bottleneck to the development of intelligent robots. Since the control framework is behavior-based, the visual capabilities of PLAYBOT are described in terms of visual behaviors. Many of the components of PLAYBOT are briefly described and several examples of implemented sub-systems are shown. The paper concludes with a description of the current overall system implementation, and a complete example of PLAYBOT performing a simple task.

pdf pdf from publisher DOI [BibTex]

Tsotsos, J. K., Verghese, G., Dickinson, S., Jenkin, M., Jepson, A., Milios, E., Nuflo, F., Stevenson, S., Black, M., Metaxas, D., Culhane, S., Ye, Y., Mann, R. PLAYBOT: A visually-guided robot for physically disabled children Image & Vision Computing, Special Issue on Vision for the Disabled, 16(4):275-292, 1998 (article)

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Visual surveillance of human activity

L. Davis, S. F., Harwood, D., Yacoob, Y., Hariatoglu, I., Black, M.

In Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV, 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

L. Davis, S. F., Harwood, D., Yacoob, Y., Hariatoglu, I., Black, M. Visual surveillance of human activity In Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV, 1998 (inproceedings)

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A Probabilistic framework for matching temporal trajectories: Condensation-based recognition of gestures and expressions

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D.

In European Conf. on Computer Vision, ECCV-98, pages: 909-924, Freiburg, Germany, 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D. A Probabilistic framework for matching temporal trajectories: Condensation-based recognition of gestures and expressions In European Conf. on Computer Vision, ECCV-98, pages: 909-924, Freiburg, Germany, 1998 (inproceedings)

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EigenTracking: Robust matching and tracking of articulated objects using a view-based representation

Black, M. J., Jepson, A.

International Journal of Computer Vision, 26(1):63-84, 1998 (article)

Abstract

This paper describes an approach for tracking rigid and articulated objects using a view-based representation. The approach builds on and extends work on eigenspace representations, robust estimation techniques, and parameterized optical flow estimation. First, we note that the least-squares image reconstruction of standard eigenspace techniques has a number of problems and we reformulate the reconstruction problem as one of robust estimation. Second we define a “subspace constancy assumption” that allows us to exploit techniques for parameterized optical flow estimation to simultaneously solve for the view of an object and the affine transformation between the eigenspace and the image. To account for large affine transformations between the eigenspace and the image we define a multi-scale eigenspace representation and a coarse-to-fine matching strategy. Finally, we use these techniques to track objects over long image sequences in which the objects simultaneously undergo both affine image motions and changes of view. In particular we use this “EigenTracking” technique to track and recognize the gestures of a moving hand.

pdf pdf from publisher video [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. EigenTracking: Robust matching and tracking of articulated objects using a view-based representation International Journal of Computer Vision, 26(1):63-84, 1998 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher video [BibTex]

Recognizing temporal trajectories using the Condensation algorithm

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D.

In Int. Conf. on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, pages: 16-21, Nara, Japan, 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. D. Recognizing temporal trajectories using the Condensation algorithm In Int. Conf. on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, pages: 16-21, Nara, Japan, 1998 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Looking at people in action - An overview

Yacoob, Y., Davis, L. S., Black, M., Gavrila, D., Horprasert, T., Morimoto, C.

In Computer Vision for Human–Machine Interaction, (Editors: R. Cipolla and A. Pentland), Cambridge University Press, 1998 (incollection)

publisher site google books [BibTex]

Yacoob, Y., Davis, L. S., Black, M., Gavrila, D., Horprasert, T., Morimoto, C. Looking at people in action - An overview In Computer Vision for Human–Machine Interaction, (Editors: R. Cipolla and A. Pentland), Cambridge University Press, 1998 (incollection)

publisher site google books [BibTex]

1996

Cardboard people: A parameterized model of articulated motion

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y.

In 2nd Int. Conf. on Automatic Face- and Gesture-Recognition, pages: 38-44, Killington, Vermont, October 1996 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We extend the work of Black and Yacoob on the tracking and recognition of human facial expressions using parameterized models of optical flow to deal with the articulated motion of human limbs. We define a "cardboard person model" in which a person's limbs are represented by a set of connected planar patches. The parameterized image motion of these patches is constrained to enforce articulated motion and is solved for directly using a robust estimation technique. The recovered motion parameters provide a rich and concise description of the activity that can be used for recognition. We propose a method for performing view-based recognition of human activities from the optical flow parameters that extends previous methods to cope with the cyclical nature of human motion. We illustrate the method with examples of tracking human legs over long image sequences.

pdf [BibTex]

1996

Ju, S. X., Black, M. J., Yacoob, Y. Cardboard people: A parameterized model of articulated motion In 2nd Int. Conf. on Automatic Face- and Gesture-Recognition, pages: 38-44, Killington, Vermont, October 1996 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Estimating optical flow in segmented images using variable-order parametric models with local deformations

Black, M. J., Jepson, A.

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 18(10):972-986, October 1996 (article)

Abstract

This paper presents a new model for estimating optical flow based on the motion of planar regions plus local deformations. The approach exploits brightness information to organize and constrain the interpretation of the motion by using segmented regions of piecewise smooth brightness to hypothesize planar regions in the scene. Parametric flow models are estimated in these regions in a two step process which first computes a coarse fit and estimates the appropriate parameterization of the motion of the region (two, six, or eight parameters). The initial fit is refined using a generalization of the standard area-based regression approaches. Since the assumption of planarity is likely to be violated, we allow local deformations from the planar assumption in the same spirit as physically-based approaches which model shape using coarse parametric models plus local deformations. This parametric+deformation model exploits the strong constraints of parametric approaches while retaining the adaptive nature of regularization approaches. Experimental results on a variety of images indicate that the parametric+deformation model produces accurate flow estimates while the incorporation of brightness segmentation provides precise localization of motion boundaries.

pdf pdf from publisher [BibTex]

Black, M. J., Jepson, A. Estimating optical flow in segmented images using variable-order parametric models with local deformations IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 18(10):972-986, October 1996 (article)

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On the unification of line processes, outlier rejection, and robust statistics with applications in early vision

Black, M., Rangarajan, A.

International Journal of Computer Vision , 19(1):57-92, July 1996 (article)

Abstract

The modeling of spatial discontinuities for problems such as surface recovery, segmentation, image reconstruction, and optical flow has been intensely studied in computer vision. While “line-process” models of discontinuities have received a great deal of attention, there has been recent interest in the use of robust statistical techniques to account for discontinuities. This paper unifies the two approaches. To achieve this we generalize the notion of a “line process” to that of an analog “outlier process” and show how a problem formulated in terms of outlier processes can be viewed in terms of robust statistics. We also characterize a class of robust statistical problems for which an equivalent outlier-process formulation exists and give a straightforward method for converting a robust estimation problem into an outlier-process formulation. We show how prior assumptions about the spatial structure of outliers can be expressed as constraints on the recovered analog outlier processes and how traditional continuation methods can be extended to the explicit outlier-process formulation. These results indicate that the outlier-process approach provides a general framework which subsumes the traditional line-process approaches as well as a wide class of robust estimation problems. Examples in surface reconstruction, image segmentation, and optical flow are presented to illustrate the use of outlier processes and to show how the relationship between outlier processes and robust statistics can be exploited. An appendix provides a catalog of common robust error norms and their equivalent outlier-process formulations.

pdf pdf from publisher DOI [BibTex]

Black, M., Rangarajan, A. On the unification of line processes, outlier rejection, and robust statistics with applications in early vision International Journal of Computer Vision , 19(1):57-92, July 1996 (article)

pdf pdf from publisher DOI [BibTex]

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