Jien Kato

An HMM-based segmentation method for traffic monitoring movies

Shadows of moving objects often obstruct robust visual tracking. We propose an HMM-based segmentation method which classifies in real time each pixel or region into three categories: shadows, foreground, and background objects. In the case of traffic monitoring movies, the effectiveness of the proposed method has been proven through experimental results.

Character extraction from noisy background for an automatic reference system

It is important to provide digitized manuscripts of old literature (in page image form) and their electronic text (in full-text form), with an automatic reference mechanism between the images and the text, on the Internet. As an essential step for creating such an automatic reference system, this paper describes the issue of extracting character areas from page images of old handwritten manuscripts. Page images of old manuscripts are usually terribly dirty and considerable large in size. To overcome the first problem, we propose a new effective method for separating characters from noisy background, since conventional threshold selection techniques are inadequate to cope with the image where the gray levels of the character parts are overlapped by that of the background. To solve the second problem, we propose an approach based on a downscaled image and a recursive labeling method for word extraction. This approach is suitable for large size images because it has the advantage of saving memory and reducing processing time.

Recognition of folding process from origami drill books

This paper describes a framework to recognizing and recreating folding process of origami based on illustrations of origami drill books. Illustration images acquired from origami books are motley and not sequenced. Moreover, the information obtained from 2D illustrations is so superficial and incomplete that the folding operations cannot be determined uniquely. To solve these problems, a highly flexible and reliable recognition mechanism is proposed. The paper additionally includes the content as follows. Firstly, an algorithm for revising the positions of folding operations extracted from illustrations is proposed so as to make our recognition approach more reliable. Secondly, the outline of the methods which enable feasible folding operations to be generated based only on superficial and incomplete information extracted from illustrations is described. Finally, some updating procedures are proposed to maintain consistency of data (called internal model) which record the transformation of origami models in 3D virtual space during a folding process. Several examples that prove the validness of proposed algorithms/methods are also given in this paper.

A proposal for a face plane

Changes in facial expressions or differences in individual faces appear not only in distinctive features such as eyes, nose and mouth but also in the bone structure or the movement of facial muscles. We present a new concept that reflects the differences of the bone structure of a face and/or the movement of facial muscles and name this a face plane. The face plane can be described by a few parameters and reduce vague facial features. This paper describes the concept and the way of calculation of the face plane.

Extraction of Contextual Information Existing among Component Elements of Origami Books

This paper proposes a novel approach for extracting element clusters, associated with individual folding steps of origami, from a page-image of origami drill books. Unlike the documents investigated in other researches, origami books are usually not designed under a specific layout structure. Our approach is based on a Voronoi expression schema. Since the only clue to group related elements is spatial proximity relations among the elements, we utilize Voronoi regions, which are generated by using the centroids of main elements as characteristic points of Voronoi diagrams, to estimate the scopes of element clusters. This method provides necessary information to a recognition system that converts a folding process, described by a series of illustrations, instructive sentences and special symbols, into a 3D animation. The experimental results with good accuracy show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Automatically Making Origami Diagrams

A traditional way to explain the folding process of origami works is usually using a sequence of diagrams (called origami illustrations). Since making origami illustrations is a heavy burden for origami designers, new original works are difficult to be published in time. To solve this problem, we propose a unique framework for automatically making origami illustrations based on 2-D crease patterns, and moreover give the key techniques to fully support proposed framework.

A Recognition System for Folding Process of Origami Drill Books

This paper describes a framework of a recognition system for folding process of origami drill books, with a view to converting a 3D sequence of orgami illustrations printed in an origami drill book into a 3D animation automatically, so that users can observe how an origami is folded from different view-points. The internal model,which maintains the changes of origami states during interpretation of the folding process, plays an important role in the recognition phase.The model also makes it possible for a CG simulator to reconstruct the recognized folding process. Several experimental results of this system have shown the validity of the proposed framework.

Adaptive Metric Learning in Local Distance Comparison for People Re-identification

A local distance comparison for multiple-shot people re-identification based on a new adaptive metric learning method is introduced in this paper. There exist two intrinsic issues in multiple-shot person re-identification: Large variances in view point, illumination, and non-rigid deformation are included in the image set of the same person, only a few training data for learning tasks are available in a realistic re-identification scenario. We deal with the multimodal property of peoples appearance distribution caused by the first issue by using a local distance comparison approach. Since the capability of the local distance comparison highly depends on the choice of distance metric, we also introduce an adaptive learning method to learn an appropriate distance metric and use it to find and compute local neighbors effectively. This adaptive learning method is able to solve the over fitting problem caused by the second issue, through leveraging the generic knowledge of re-identification together with the specific information of the target task. We evaluated our approach on public benchmark datasets, and confirmed its superiority as compared to conventional approaches.

Integrated Pedestrian Detection and Localization Using Stereo Cameras

Detecting and localizing other traffic participants, especially pedestrians, from a moving vehicle have many applications in smart vehicles. In this work, we address these tasks by utilizing image sensors, namely stereo cameras mounted on a vehicle. Our proposed method integrates appearance-based pedestrian detection and sparse depth estimation. To benefit from depth estimation, we map the prior distribution of a human’s actual height onto the image to update the detection result. Simultaneously, the depth information that contributed to correct pedestrians’ hypotheses is used for a better localization. The difference with other previous works is that we take the trade-off between accuracy and computational cost in the first place of consideration and try to make the most efficient integration for onboard applications.

Design of a Web Community for Female Researchers

The number and percentage of female researchers in Japan is very low than other developed countries. How to give them effective support has becoming a noticeable topic in recently years. We design a Web community for female researchers which has a community function to promote their communication, a role model function to encourage them to continue their research work. The study is ongoing and future plans are mentioned.