E. C. Di Mauro

Non-linear point distribution modelling using a multi-layer perceptron

Objects of the same class sometimes exhibit variation in shape. This shape variation has previously been modelled by means of point distribution models (PDMs) in which there is a linear relationship between a set of shape parameters and the positions of points on the shape. A polynomial regression generalization of PDMs, which succeeds in capturing certain forms of non-linear shape variability, has also been described. Here we present a new form of PDM, which uses a multi-layer perceptron to carry out non-linear principal component analysis. We compare the performance of the new model with that of the existing models on two classes of variable shape: one exhibits bending, and the other exhibits complete rotation. The linear PDM fails on both classes of shape; the polynomial regression model succeeds for the first class of shapes but fails for the second; the new multi-layer perceptron model performs well for both classes of shape. The new model is the most general formulation for PDMs which has been proposed to date.

Flexible 3D models from uncalibrated cameras

We describe how to build statistically-based flexible models of the 3D structure of variable objects, given a training set of uncalibrated images. We assume that for each example object there are two labelled images taken from different viewpoints. From each image pair a 3D structure can be reconstructed, up to either an affine or projective transformation, depending on which camera model is used. The reconstructions are aligned by choosing the transformations which minimise the distances between matched points across the training set. A statistical analysis results in an estimate of the mean structure of the training examples and a compact parameterised model of the variability in shape across the training set. Experiments have been performed using pinhole and affine camera models. Results are presented for both synthetic data and real images.

A general non-linear method for modelling shape and locating image objects

Objects of the same class often exhibit variation in shape. This shape variation has previously been modelled by means of point distribution models (PDMs) in which there is a linear relationship between a set of shape parameters and the positions of points on the shape. Here we present a new form of PDM, which uses a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to carry out nonlinear principal component analysis. We demonstrate that MLP-PDMs can model the shape variability in classes of object for which the linear model fails. We describe the use of MLP-PDMs in image search and present quantitative results for a practical application (face recognition), demonstrating the ability to locate image structures accurately starting from a very poor initial approximation to their pose and shape.