CS 664 Computer Vision

CS 664 Computer Vision
Cornell University
Spring 2000

Lectures Tu Th 1:25-2:40, in 203 Phillips.

This course is intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who have good programming skills (using C or C++), a good mathematics background, and a knowledge of algorithms. Students will be expected to pick up new mathematical techniques during the semester, as covered in lecture, and to relate the mathematical concepts from lecture to the programming assignments.

Here is an outline of the topics to be covered, and the anticipated order of topics:

Optimization and vision: discrete versus continuous techniques, simulated annealing, graph cuts [2 weeks]
Image restoration: local approaches (including smoothing, convolution, and robust estimation) and global approaches [1 week]
Markov Random Fields: review of probability and statistical estimation, Gibbs random fields, Hammersley-Clifford theorem [1 week]
Stereo matching: basic issues, local approaches, variable-windows, dynamic programming, Marr-Poggio, energy minimization [2 weeks]
Novel view construction: mosaicing, silhouetting, concentric mosaics, space-carving [1 week]
Image segmentation: region merging, graph-based problem formulations, modeling issues [1 week]
Motion: Optical-flow constraint equation, Lucas-Kanade, layers, motion segmentation via expectation-maximization [2 weeks]
Tracking: active contours (snakes), Hausdorff-based object tracking, Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi point tracker, Kalman filtering, multi-camera surveillance [1 week]
Edge detection: first-derivative (Canny-style) and second-derivative (Marr-Hildreth) edge detectors [1 week]
Object recognition: Hausdorff distance and fraction, eigenspace methods, OCR, recognizing flexible objects [1 week]
Texture: Gabor filters and textons, learning textures from examples [1 week]

Course Requirements: There will be two programming assignments, a (short) oral paper presentation and a final project. Except for the oral paper presentation, each of these will require implementation, testing with image or video data, and a write-up. The programming assignments can be done in pairs, and will be due roughly 6 weeks and 12 weeks into the semester.

The programming assignments and final project will require you to use C/C++ on a Windows NT platform. (This class will not cover how to use a C development environment to complete the assignments.)

Each student will also be responsible for taking notes in one or two lectures and making them available on the Web. In addition, there may be a series of (very short) 5-minute written quizzes in lecture, that will cover basic comprehension of the mathematical material.

Final Project: Since this is a 600-level course, the major requirement is that you do a short piece of original research. The research project must be done alone. As part of your project, you are expected to read a technical computer vision paper that is not covered in class, and to prepare a short (15-minute) oral presentation that gives an overview of the paper. The oral presentations will take place in the last week of classes; depending upon the schedule, some or all of the students may be asked to present to the entire class. You are expected to choose your paper, and to write a 1-paragraph project proposal, by April 1.