Person:

Yezzi, Anthony

Permanent Link

https://hdl.handle.net/1853/71866

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Organizational Unit

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 32

Space-time Measurements of Oceanic Sea States

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-10) Fedele, Francesco ; Benetazzo, Alvise ; Gallego, Guillermo ; Shih, Ping-Chang ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Barbariol, Francesco ; Ardhuin,Fabrice

Stereo video techniques are effective for estimating the space-time wave dynamics over an area of the ocean. Indeed, a stereo camera view allows retrieval of both spatial and temporal data whose statistical content is richer than that of time series data retrieved from point wave probes.We present an application of the Wave Acquisition Stereo System (WASS) for the analysis of offshore video measurements of gravity waves in the Northern Adriatic Sea and near the southern seashore of the Crimean peninsula, in the Black Sea. We use classical epipolartechniques to reconstruct the sea surface from the stereo pairs sequentially in time, viz. asequence of spatial snapshots. We also present a variational approach that exploits the entire data image set providing a global space-time imaging of the sea surface, viz. simultaneous reconstruction of several spatial snapshots of the surface in order to guarantee continuity of the sea surface both in space and time. Analysis of the WASS measurements show that the sea surface can be accurately estimated in space and time together, yielding associated directionalspectra and wave statistics at a point in time that agrees well with probabilistic models. In particular, WASS stereo imaging is able to capture typical features of the wave surface,especially the crest-to-trough asymmetry due to second order nonlinearities, and the observedshape of large waves are fairly described by theoretical models based on the theory of quasi-determinism (Boccotti, 2000). Further, we investigate the space-time extremes of the observed stationary sea states, viz. the largest surface wave heights expected over a given area during thesea state duration. The WASS analysis provides the first experimental proof that a space-time extreme is generally larger than that observed in time via point measurements, in agreement withthe predictions based on stochastic theories for global maxima of Gaussian fields.
Variational Stereo Imaging of Oceanic Waves with Statistical Constraints

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-06) Gallego, Guillermo ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Fedele, Francesco ; Benetazzo, Alvise

An image processing observational technique for the stereoscopic reconstruction of the wave form of oceanic sea states is developed. The technique incorporates the enforcement of any given statistical wave law modeling the quasi Gaussianity of oceanic waves observed in nature. The problem is posed in a variational optimization framework, where the desired wave form is obtained as the minimizer of a cost functional that combines image observations, smoothness priors and a weak statistical constraint. The minimizer is obtained combining gradient descent and multigrid methods on the necessary optimality equations of the cost functional. Robust photometric error criteria and a spatial intensity compensation model are also developed to improve the performance of the presented image matching strategy. The weak statistical constraint is thoroughly evaluated in combination with other elements presented to reconstruct and enforce constraints on experimental stereo data.
A Variational Stereo Method for the Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Ocean Waves

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-11) Gallego, Guillermo ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Fedele, Francesco ; Benetazzo, Alvise

We develop a novel remote sensing technique for the observation of waves on the ocean surface. Our method infers the 3-D waveform and radiance of oceanic sea states via a variational stereo imagery formulation. In this setting, the shape and radiance of the wave surface are given by minimizers of a composite energy functional that combines a photometric matching term along with regularization terms involving the smoothness of the unknowns. The desired ocean surface shape and radiance are the solution of a system of coupled partial differential equations derived from the optimality conditions of the energy functional. The proposed method is naturally extended to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of ocean waves and applied to three sets of stereo video data. Statistical and spectral analysis are carried out. Our results provide evidence that the observed omnidirectional wavenumber spectrum S(k) decays as k-2.5 is in agreement with Zakharov's theory (1999). Furthermore, the 3-D spectrum of the reconstructed wave surface is exploited to estimate wave dispersion and currents.
A New Geometric Metric in the Space of Curves, and Applications To Tracking Deforming Objects by Prediction and Filtering

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-02) Sundaramoorthi, Ganesh ; Mennucci, Andrea C. ; Soatto, Stefano ; Yezzi, Anthony

We define a novel metric on the space of closed planar curves which decomposes into three intuitive components. According to this metric, centroid translations, scale changes, and deformations are orthogonal, and the metric is also invariant with respect to reparameterizations of the curve. While earlier related Sobolev metrics for curves exhibit some general similarities to the novel metric proposed in this work, they lacked this important three-way orthogonal decomposition, which has particular relevance for tracking in computer vision. Another positive property of this new metric is that the Riemannian structure that is induced on the space of curves is a smooth Riemannian manifold, which is isometric to a classical well-known manifold. As a consequence, geodesics and gradients of energies defined on the space can be computed using fast closed-form formulas, and this has obvious benefits in numerical applications. The obtained Riemannian manifold of curves is ideal for addressing complex problems in computer vision; one such example is the tracking of highly deforming objects. Previous works have assumed that the object deformation is smooth, which is realistic for the tracking problem, but most have restricted the deformation to belong to a finite-dimensional group—such as affine motions—or to finitely parameterized models. This is too restrictive for highly deforming objects such as the contour of a beating heart. We adopt the smoothness assumption implicit in previous work, but we lift the restriction to finite-dimensional motions/deformations. We define a dynamical model in this Riemannian manifold of curves and use it to perform filtering and prediction to infer and extrapolate not just the pose (a finitely parameterized quantity) of an object but its deformation (an infinite-dimensional quantity) as well. We illustrate these ideas using a simple first-order dynamical model and show that it can be effective even on image sequences where existing methods fail.
Deform PF-MT: Particle Filter With Mode Tracker for Tracking Nonaffine Contour Deformations

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-04) Vaswani, Namrata ; Rathi, Yogesh ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Tannenbaum, Allen R.

We propose algorithms for tracking the boundary contour of a deforming object from an image sequence, when the nonaffine (local) deformation over consecutive frames is large and there is overlapping clutter, occlusions, low contrast, or outlier imagery. When the object is arbitrarily deforming, each, or at least most, contour points can move independently. Contour deformation then forms an infinite (in practice, very large), dimensional space. Direct application of particle filters (PF) for large dimensional problems is impractically expensive. However, in most real problems, at any given time, most of the contour deformation occurs in a small number of dimensions ("effective basis space") while the residual deformation in the rest of the state space ("residual space") is small. This property enables us to apply the particle filtering with mode tracking (PF-MT) idea that was proposed for such large dimensional problems in recent work. Since most contour deformation is low spatial frequency, we propose to use the space of deformation at a subsampled set of locations as the effective basis space. The resulting algorithm is called deform PF-MT. It requires significant modifications compared to the original PF-MT because the space of contours is a non-Euclidean infinite dimensional space.
A Geometric Approach to Joint 2D Region-Based Segmentation and 3D Pose Estimation Using a 3D Shape Prior

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-03-03) Dambreville, Samuel ; Sandhu, Romeil ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Tannenbaum, Allen R.

In this work, we present an approach to jointly segment a rigid object in a two-dimensional (2D) image and estimate its three-dimensional (3D) pose, using the knowledge of a 3D model. We naturally couple the two processes together into a shape optimization problem and minimize a unique energy functional through a variational approach. Our methodology differs from the standard monocular 3D pose estimation algorithms since it does not rely on local image features. Instead, we use global image statistics to drive the pose estimation process. This confers a satisfying level of robustness to noise and initialization for our algorithm and bypasses the need to establish correspondences between image and object features. Moreover, our methodology possesses the typical qualities of region-based active contour techniques with shape priors, such as robustness to occlusions or missing information, without the need to evolve an infinite dimensional curve. Another novelty of the proposed contribution is to use a unique 3D model surface of the object, instead of learning a large collection of 2D shapes to accommodate the diverse aspects that a 3D object can take when imaged by a camera. Experimental results on both synthetic and real images are provided, which highlight the robust performance of the technique in challenging tracking and segmentation applications.
Image Sharpening via Sobolev Gradient Flows

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010) Calder, J. ; Mansouri, A. ; Yezzi, Anthony

Motivated by some recent work in active contour applications, we study the use of Sobolev gradients for PDE-based image diffusion and sharpening. We begin by studying, for the case of isotropic diffusion, the gradient descent/ascent equation obtained by modifying the usual metric on the space of images, which is the L2 metric, to a Sobolev metric. We present existence and uniqueness results for the Sobolev isotropic diffusion, derive a number of maximum principles, and show that the differential equations are stable and well-posed both in the forward and backward directions. This allows us to apply the Sobolev flow in the backward direction for sharpening. Favorable comparisons to the well-known shock filter for sharpening are demonstrated. Finally, we continue to exploit this same well-posed behavior both forward and backward in order to formulate new constrained gradient flows on higher order energy functionals which preserve the first order energy of the original image for interesting combined smoothing and sharpening effects.
Joint brain parameteric T1-map segmentation and RF inhomogeneity calibration

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009) Chen, Ping-Feng ; Steen, R. Grant ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Krim, Hamid

We propose a constrained version of Mumford and Shah’s (1989) segmentation model with an information-theoretic point of view in order to devise a systematic procedure to segment brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data for parametric T1-Map and T1-weighted images, in both 2-D and 3D settings. Incorporation of a tuning weight in particular adds a probabilistic flavor to our segmentation method, and makes the 3-tissue segmentation possible. Moreover, we proposed a novel method to jointly segment the T1-Map and calibrate RF Inhomogeneity (JSRIC). This method assumes the average T1 value of whitematter is the same across transverse slices in the central brain region, and JSRIC is able to rectify the flip angles to generate calibrated T1-Maps. In order to generate an accurate T1-Map, the determination of optimal flip-angles and the registration of flip-angle images are examined. Our JSRIC method is validated on two human subjects in the 2D T1-Map modality and our segmentation method is validated by two public databases, BrainWeb and IBSR, of T1-weighted modality in the 3D setting.
Dynamic shape and appearance modeling via moving and deforming layers

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-08) Jackson, Jeremy D. ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Soatto, Stefano

This model is based on a collection of overlapping layers that can move and deform, each supporting an intensity function that can change over time. We discuss the generality and limitations of this model in relation to existing ones such as traditional optical flow or motion segmentation, layers, deformable templates and deformotion. We then illustrate how this model can be used for inference of shape, motion, deformation and appearance of the scene from a collection of images. The layering structure allows for automatic inpainting of partially occluded regions. We illustrate the model on synthetic and real sequences where existing schemes fail, and show how suitable choices of constants in the model yield existing schemes, from optical flow to motion segmentation, etc.
Coarse-to-Fine Segmentation and Tracking Using Sobolev Active Contours

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-05) Sundaramoorthi, Ganesh ; Yezzi, Anthony ; Mennucci, Andrea C.

Recently proposed Sobolev active contours introduced a new paradigm for minimizing energies defined on curves by changing the traditional cost of perturbing a curve and thereby redefining gradients associated to these energies. Sobolev active contours evolve more globally and are less attracted to certain intermediate local minima than traditional active contours, and it is based on a wellstructured Riemannian metric, which is important for shape analysis and shape priors. In this paper, we analyze Sobolev active contours using scale-space analysis in order to understand their evolution across different scales. This analysis shows an extremely important and useful behavior of Sobolev contours, namely, that they move successively from coarse to increasingly finer scale motions in a continuous manner. This property illustrates that one justification for using the Sobolev technique is for applications where coarse-scale deformations are preferred over fine-scale deformations. Along with other properties to be discussed, the coarse-to-fine observation reveals that Sobolev active contours are, in particular, ideally suited for tracking algorithms that use active contours. We will also justify our assertion that the Sobolev metric should be used over the traditional metric for active contours in tracking problems by experimentally showinghow a variety of active-contour-based tracking methods can be significantly improved merely by evolving the active contour according to the Sobolev method.