Figure-ground separation by cue integration.

Full Abstract

This letter presents an improved cue integration approach to reliably separate coherent moving objects from their background scene in video sequences. The proposed method uses a probabilistic framework to unify bottom-up and top-down cues in a parallel, "democratic" fashion. The algorithm makes use of a modified Bayes rule where each pixel's posterior probabilities of figure or ground layer assignment are derived from likelihood models of three bottom-up cues and a prior model provided by a top-down cue. Each cue is treated as independent evidence for figure-ground separation. They compete with and complement each other dynamically by adjusting relative weights from frame to frame according to cue quality measured against the overall integration. At the same time, the likelihood or prior models of individual cues adapt toward the integrated result. These mechanisms enable the system to organize under the influence of visual scene structure without manual intervention. A novel contribution here is the incorporation of a top-down cue. It improves the system's robustness and accuracy and helps handle difficult and ambiguous situations, such as abrupt lighting changes or occlusion among multiple objects. Results on various video sequences are demonstrated and discussed. (Video demos are available at http://organic.usc.edu:8376/ approximately tangx/neco/index.html .).

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Tang, Xiangyu (X); von der Malsburg, Christoph (C);

Affiliation: Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, U.S.A. tangx(-atsign-)organic.usc.edu.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Letter

Journal: Neural computation (Neural Comput), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jun; vol 20 (issue 6) : pp 1452-72

Dates: Created 2008/04/18; Completed 2008/07/10;

PMID: 18254693, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

Local figure-ground cues are valid for natural images. 6 Jun 2007
Robust cue integration: a Bayesian model and evidence from cue-conflict studies with stereoscopic and figure cues to slant. 21 May 2007
Determination of visual figure and ground in dynamically deforming shapes. 29 Jan 2006
Figure and ground in the visual cortex: v2 combines stereoscopic cues with gestalt rules. 5 Jul 2005
The time course of figure-ground reversal. 29 Apr 2005
Familiar shapes attract attention in figure-ground displays. 30 Mar 2007
Last but not least. 30 Dec 2006
Cue combination in a combined feature contrast detection and figure identification task. 5 Sep 2006
Grounding the figure: surface attachment influences figure-ground organization. 30 Jul 2006
Extremal edges: a powerful cue to depth perception and figure-ground organization. 30 Dec 2007

See 100+ related articles.