Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

C A Murthy

Publications and source records attributed to C A Murthy.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Standardization of edge magnitude in color images.

Edge detection is a useful task in low-level image processing. The efficiency of many image processing and computer vision tasks depends on the perfection of detecting meaningful edges. To get a meaningful edge, thresholding is almost inevitable in any edge detection algorithm. Many algorithms reported in the literature adopt ad hoc schemes for this purpose. These algorithms require the threshold values to be supplied and tuned by the user. There are many high-level tasks in computer vision which are to be performed without human intervention. Thus, there is a need to develop a scheme where a single set of threshold values would give acceptable results for many color images. In this paper, an attempt has been made to devise such an algorithm. Statistical variability of partial derivatives at each pixel is used to obtain standardized edge magnitude and is thresholded using two threshold values. The advantage of standardization is evident from the results obtained.

Algorithms↗

On visualization and aggregation of nearest neighbor classifiers.

Nearest neighbor classification is one of the simplest and most popular methods for statistical pattern recognition. A major issue in k-nearest neighbor classification is how to find an optimal value of the neighborhood parameter k. In practice, this value is generally estimated by the method of cross-validation. However, the ideal value of k in a classification problem not only depends on the entire data set, but also on the specific observation to be classified. Instead of using any single value of k, this paper studies results for a finite sequence of classifiers indexed by k. Along with the usual posterior probability estimates, a new measure, called the Bayesian measure of strength, is proposed and investigated in this paper as a measure of evidence for different classes. The results of these classifiers and their corresponding estimated misclassification probabilities are visually displayed using shaded strips. These plots provide an effective visualization of the evidence in favor of different classes when a given data point is to be classified. We also propose a simple weighted averaging technique that aggregates the results of different nearest neighbor classifiers to arrive at the final decision. Based on the analysis of several benchmark data sets, the proposed method is found to be better than using a single value of k.

Algorithms↗

Euler vector for search and retrieval of gray-tone images.

A new combinatorial characterization of a gray-tone image called Euler Vector is proposed. The Euler number of a binary image is a well-known topological feature, which remains invariant under translation, rotation, scaling, and rubber-sheet transformation of the image. The Euler vector comprises a 4-tuple, where each element is an integer representing the Euler number of the partial binary image formed by the gray-code representation of the four most significant bit planes of the gray-tone image. Computation of Euler vector requires only integer and Boolean operations. The Euler vector is experimentally observed to be robust against noise and compression. For efficient image indexing, storage and retrieval from an image database using this vector, a bucket searching technique based on a simple modification of Kd-tree, is employed successfully. The Euler vector can also be used to perform an efficient four-dimensional range query. The set of retrieved images are finally ranked on the basis of Mahalanobis distance measure. Experiments are performed on the COIL database and results are reported. The retrieval success can be improved significantly by augmentiong the Euler vector by a few additional simple shape features. Since Euler vector can be computed very fast, the proposed technique is likely to find many applications to content-based image retrieval.

Algorithms↗

Thresholding in edge detection: a statistical approach.

Many edge detectors are available in image processing literature where the choices of input parameters are to be made by the user. Most of the time, such choices are made on an ad-hoc basis. In this article, an edge detector is proposed where thresholding is performed using statistical principles. Local standardization of thresholds for each individual pixel (local thresholding), which depends upon the statistical variability of the gradient vector at that pixel, is done. Such a standardized statistic based on the gradient vector at each pixel is used to determine the eligibility of the pixel to be an edge pixel. The results obtained from the proposed method are found to be comparable to those from many well-known edge detectors. However, the values of the input parameters providing the appreciable results in the proposed detector are found to be more stable than other edge detectors and possess statistical interpretation.

Algorithms↗

A probabilistic active support vector learning algorithm.

The paper describes a probabilistic active learning strategy for support vector machine (SVM) design in large data applications. The learning strategy is motivated by the statistical query model. While most existing methods of active SVM learning query for points based on their proximity to the current separating hyperplane, the proposed method queries for a set of points according to a distribution as determined by the current separating hyperplane and a newly defined concept of an adaptive confidence factor. This enables the algorithm to have more robust and efficient learning capabilities. The confidence factor is estimated from local information using the k nearest neighbor principle. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on real-life data sets both in terms of generalization performance, query complexity, and training time.

Algorithms↗