Image Processing Research

Theses

• Bachelor/Master/Diploma Theses Topics

Deformation Models

The Euclidean distance has been successfully used e.g. in optical character and object recognition and has been extended by different methods. As the Euclidean distance does not account for any image transformation (such as the affine transformations scaling, translation and rotation) if they are not part of the training corpus, the tangent distance (introduced by [Simard & Le Cun+98]) as described in [Keysers & Macherey+ 01] is one approach to incorporate invariance with respect to certain transformations into a classification system. Here, invariant means that image transformations that do not change the class of the image should not have a large impact on the distance between the images. A more detailed description can be found in [Keysers & Macherey+ 04] and application in medical image classification can be found in [Keysers & Dahmen+ 03].

The image distortion model has been examined at the Lehrstuhl für Informatik 6 of the RWTH Aachen [Keysers & Dahmen+ 03] and further research is presented in [Keysers & Gollan 03]. The image distortion model is an easily implemented method allowing for small local deformations of an image.

For further information on this topic:

• W2D Software, for appearance based image recognition supporting different pixel to pixel deformation models
• Tangent Distance

Content-based image retrieval

FIRE (Flexible Image Retrieval Engine) is our content-based image retrieval system. Content-based Image Retrieval is an active field of research and is getting more and more important by the rise of personal digital cameras.

A large problem in content-based image retrieval is performance evaluation. Recently there are some efforts on this topic:

• ImageCLEF
• Benchathlon

In our CBIR system FIRE, we have investigated different features, distance functions and ways to measure the retrieval performance of CBIR in different applications, e.g. image retrieval of medical radiographs.

FIRE is available under the terms of the GNU General Public license. Further information on FIRE, the source code, and relevant publication can be found here.

An online demonstration of FIRE is available here. The server usually is running. If it is not up, don't hesitate to complain about it. I am happy to make it run again.

Object recognition

Recognition of objects in cluttered scenes is an interesting and important open problem in computer vision and pattern recognition. In close connection to the development of our content-based image retrieval system FIRE we are focussing on this topic.

In contrast to our earlier approaches were the object were modelled holistically now we follow the promising approach of modeling objects as a collection of parts. This approach offers some immediate advantages:

• changes in the relation between parts can be modeled
• occlusion can be handled very well

Currently we are investigating in combinations of discriminative and generative models and in using spatial relationship between the parts.

Some efforts of out work in this area are documented by our CVPR 05 publication and by our results in the PASCAL Visual Object Classes Challenge 2005.

Most of our software for this work is part of the FIRE framework.

Gesture and Sign Language Recognition

Developing sign language applications for deaf people can be very important, as many of them, being not able to speak a language, are also not able to read or write a spoken language. Ideally, a translation systems would make it possible to communicate with deaf people. Compared to speech commands, hand gestures are advantageous in noisy environments, in situations where speech commands would be disturbing, as well as for communicating quantitative information and spatial relationships.

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body and used instead of verbal communication (or in combination with it). Most people use gestures and body language in addition to words when they speak. A sign language is a language which uses gestures instead of sound to convey meaning combining hand-shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, facial expressions and lip-patterns. Contrary to popular belief, sign language is not international. As with spoken languages, these vary from region to region. They are not completely based on the spoken language in the country of origin.

Sign language is a visual language and consists of 3 major components:

• finger-spelling: used to spell words letter by letter
• word level sign vocabulary: used for the majority of communication
• non-manual features: facial expressions and tongue, mouth and body position

A more detailed description can be found in [Dreuw & Rybach+ 07]

For further information on this topic:

• website of Philippe Dreuw
• current issues in Sign Language research
• Benchmark databases for video-based automatic sign language recognition and translation.

RWTH-OCR - Offline Handwriting Recognition

The RWTH-OCR system is based on the open-source speech recognition framework RWTH-ASR - The RWTH Aachen University Speech Recognition System, which has been extended by video and image processing methods.

The system has been used for Arabic, Farsi, English, Spanish, and French handwritten texts.

Arabic handwriting recognition -- Due to Parts of Arabic Words (PAWs), white space models and low loop transitions are important in Arabic handwriting recognition.

The visualization shows a training alignment of an Arabic word to its corresponding HMM states, trained with an HMM based system. We use R-G-B background colors for the 0-1-2 HMM states, respectively, from right-to-left. The position-dependent character model names are written in the upper line, where the white-space models are annotated by 'si' for 'silence'; the state numbers are written in the bottom line. Thus, HMM state-loops and state-transitions are represented by no-color-changes and color-changes, respectively.

A more detailed description can be found in White-Space Models for Offline Arabic Handwriting Recognition (ICPR 2008). Extensions using Writer Adaptive Training (WAT) and modified MMI training for model adaptation have been presented in Writer Adaptive Training and Writing Variant Model Refinement for Offline Arabic Handwriting Recognition (ICDAR 2009) and Confidence-Based Discriminative Training for Model Adaptation in Offline Arabic Handwriting Recognition (ICDAR 2009).

Medical Image Processing and Retrieval

Being members of the IRMA project we apply many of our techniques to medical images. We have been successful in medical image retrieval:

• We have been very successful in the medical retrieval task of ImageCLEF 2004.
• We have been very successful in the automatic annotation task of ImageCLEF 2005.

Publications of the Image Processing Group

For further publications you can either

• have a look at the publications of the chair
• or look at the members personal websites for most up-to-date information

Selected Publications

2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006
2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997

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• T. Deselaers. Features for Image Retrieval. Master Thesis, Aachen, Germany, December 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, M. O. Güld, D. Keysers, H. Schubert, M. Kohnen, and B. Wein. Determining the View of Chest Radiographs. Journal of Digital Imaging, volume 16, number 3, pages 280-291, New York, NY, USA, December 2003.
  
• T. Deselaers, D. Keysers, and H. Ney. Clustering Visually Similar Images to Improve Image Search Engines. In Informatiktage der Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bad Schussenried, Germany, November 2003.
  
• T. Kölsch. Local Features for Image Classification. Master Thesis, Aachen, Germany, November 2003.
  
• S. Molau, D. Keysers, and H. Ney. Matching Training and Test Data Distributions for Robust Speech Recognition. Speech Communication, volume 41, number 4, pages 579-601, November 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, M. O. Güld, C. Thies, B. Fischer, K. Spitzer, D. Keysers, H. Ney, M. Kohnen, H. Schubert, and B. B. Wein. The IRMA Project -- A State of the Art Report on Content-Based Image Retrieval in Medical Applications. In Korea-Germany Joint Workshop on Advanced Medical Image Processing, pages 161-171, Seoul, Korea, October 2003.
  
• T. Deselaers, D. Keysers, R. Paredes, E. Vidal, and H. Ney. Local Representations for Multi-Object Recognition. In Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mustererkennung Symposium (DAGM), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2781, pages 305-312, Magdeburg, Germany, September 2003.
  
• C. Gollan. Nichtlineare Verformungsmodelle für die Bilderkennung. Master Thesis, Aachen, Germany, September 2003.
  
• D. Keysers, M. Motter, T. Deselaers, and H. Ney. Training and Recognition of Complex Scenes using a Holistic Statistical Model. In Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mustererkennung Symposium (DAGM), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2781, pages 52-59, Magdeburg, Germany, September 2003.
  
• D. Keysers, R. Paredes, E. Vidal, and H. Ney. Comparison of Log-Linear Models and Weighted Dissimilarity Measures. In Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (IbPRIA), pages 370-377, Puerto de Andratx, Spain, June 2003.
  
• M. O. Güld, C. Thies, B. Fischer, D. Keysers, B. Wein, and T. M. Lehmann. A Platform for Distributed Image Processing and Image Retrieval. In Visual Communications and Image Processing 2003, Proc. SPIE, pages 1109-1120, Lugano, Switzerland, June 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, H. Schubert, D. Keysers, M. Kohnen, and B. B. Wein. The IRMA code for unique classification of medical images. In International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), pages 440-451, San Diego, CA, USA, May 2003.
  
• C. Thies, A. Malik, D. Keysers, M. Kohnen, B. Fischer, and T. M. Lehmann. Hierarchical feature clustering for content-based retrieval in medical image databases. In Proc. Medical Imaging, Proc. SPIE, pages 598-608, San Diego, CA, May 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, M. O. Güld, D. Keysers, H. Schubert, A. Wenning, and B. Wein. Automatic detection of the view position of chest radiographs. In International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), pages 1275-1282, San Diego, CA, USA, May 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, H. Schubert, D. Keysers, M. Kohnen, and B. Wein. The IRMA code for unique classification of medical images. In International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), pages 109-117, San Diego, CA, USA, May 2003.
  
• T. M. Lehmann, M. O. Güld, C. Thies, B. Fischer, D. Keysers, M. Kohnen, H. Schubert, and B. Wein. Content-based image retrieval in medical applications for picture archiving and communication systems. In International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), pages 440-451, San Diego, CA, USA, May 2003.
  
• M. O. Güld, H. Schubert, M. Leisten, B. Plodowski, B. Fischer, D. Keysers, T. M. Lehmann, and B. Wein. Automatische Kategorisierung von medizinischem Bildmaterial in einen multi-axialen mono-hierarchischen Code. In Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin (BVM), pages 388-392, Erlangen, Germany, March 2003.
  
• C. Thies, B. Fischer, M. Kohnen, D. Keysers, and T. M. Lehmann. Synthese von regionen- und kantenorientierter parameterfreien Erzeugung von Multiskalengraphen mittels Region Growing (in German). In Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin (BVM), pages 151-155, Erlangen, Germany, March 2003.
  
• B. Plodowski, M. O. Güld, H. Schubert, D. Keysers, and T. M. Lehmann. Modulares Design von webbasierten Benutzerschnittstellen für inhaltsbasierte Zugriffe auf medizinische Bilddaten (in German). In Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin (BVM), pages 383-387, Erlangen, Germany, March 2003.
  
• D. Keysers, J. Dahmen, H. Ney, B. Wein, and T. M. Lehmann. Statistical Framework for Model-Based Image Retrieval in Medical Applications. Journal of Electronic Imaging, volume 12, number 1, pages 59-68, January 2003.
  

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Acknowledgements

This work is partially funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), and as part of the Quaero Programme, funded by OSEO, French State agency for innovation.

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