Analysis and Controlled Synthesis of Inhomogeneous Textures

Many interesting real‐world textures are inhomogeneous and/or anisotropic. An inhomogeneous texture is one where various visual properties exhibit significant changes across the texture's spatial domain. Examples include perceptible changes in surface color, lighting, local texture pattern and/or its apparent scale, and weathering effects, which may vary abruptly, or in a continuous fashion. An anisotropic texture is one where the local patterns exhibit a preferred orientation, which also may vary across the spatial domain. While many example‐based texture synthesis methods can be highly effective when synthesizing uniform (stationary) isotropic textures, synthesizing highly non‐uniform textures, or ones with spatially varying orientation, is a considerably more challenging task, which so far has remained underexplored. In this paper, we propose a new method for automatic analysis and controlled synthesis of such textures. Given an input texture exemplar, our method generates a source guidance map comprising: (i) a scalar progression channel that attempts to capture the low frequency spatial changes in color, lighting, and local pattern combined, and (ii) a direction field that captures the local dominant orientation of the texture. Having augmented the texture exemplar with this guidance map, users can exercise better control over the synthesized result by providing easily specified target guidance maps, which are used to constrain the synthesis process.     

一种方向Gabor滤波纹理分割算法

结合人眼视觉特性，设计了一种方向Gabor滤波器，该滤波器顾及了纹理图像的方向特性；利用Gabor滤波器的带通技术，抑制次要纹理图像的主频率分量，增强目标纹理图像主频率分量，使滤波输出图像具有较大的类间离散度和较小的类内离散度，将纹理图像的分割转化为传统的图像分割，使图像的分割质量和算法效率都得到了提高。     

An experiment on texture segmentation using modulated wavelets

A textured image is considered to be produced by a smooth signal, representing in part the illumination environment, modulated by some frequencies determined by surface characteristics of the textures. Through expansion of the smooth signal into wavelets, a textured image may be decomposed into modulated “wavelets” providing multiresolution information. It is shown that the corresponding wavelet coefficients can be obtained efficiently by using the standard wavelet transform while the associated h and g filters are modulated accordingly. A set of multichannel filters is designed through the use of a modulated “wavelet' multiresolution decomposition, providing both spatial frequency and orientation selectivity. Based on these multichannel amplitude responses as discriminating features, an image containing multiple textures can be effectively segmented. The potential of this approach is shown by experimental results     

A human vision based computational model for chromatic texturesegregation

We have developed a computational model for texture perception which has physiological relevance and correlates well with human performance. The model attempts to simulate the visual processing characteristics by incorporating mechanisms tuned to detect luminance-polarity, orientation, spatial frequency and color, which are characteristic features of any textural image. We obtained a very good correlation between the model's simulation results and data from psychophysical experiments with a systematically selected set of visual stimuli with texture patterns defined by spatial variations in color, luminance, and orientation. In addition, the model predicts correctly texture segregation performance with key benchmarks and natural textures. This represents a first effort to incorporate chromatic signals in texture segregation models of psychophysical relevance, most of which have treated grey-level images so far. Another novel feature of the model is the extension or the concept of spatial double opponency to domains beyond color, such as orientation and spatial frequency. The model has potential applications in the areas of image processing, machine vision and pattern recognition, and scientific visualization.     

织物纹理的简单视神经细胞感受野的选择特性

研究了织物纹理的简单视神经细胞感受野的选择特性。分别选择具有明显方向性和周期性以及周期性和方向性不显著的两类代表织物纹理为研究对象,采用基于独立分量分析的视觉模型估计出简单视觉细胞的感受野。通过对感受野兴奋区域重心、方向角和面积的分析,以有效表示感受野在位置、方向和空间频率的选择特性。基于织物纹理与自然纹理两类纹理的简单细胞感受野选择性比较实验显示,相比于自然纹理,织物纹理的简单细胞感受野单元中的兴奋区域在方向、位置和空间频率上具有更加显著的选择特性。实验结果表明,提出的简单视觉细胞感受野选择特性研究方法在一定程度上揭示了初级视皮层对织物纹理图像处理的神经机制,从视觉感知层面反映了织物纹理的视觉特性。     

Reconstruction of surface texture based on spatial information measured with a pen-type texture sensor

Surface texture is one of the important properties for the human to identify objects by touch. Effective reconstructions of textures are necessary for realistic interactions between the human and environment via human–computer interfaces. This paper presents a systematic approach for sensing and reconstructing periodic surface textures. Three significant issues are discussed: a pen-type texture sensor that measures the spatial information based on the measurements of contact forces; an algorithm for the reconstruction of periodic textures based on the obtained spatial information; and the method of incremental scanning to identify the polar spectrum of a surface by limited number of scans. The concept of polar spectrum is introduced to describe the spatial properties of the surface, that is, the relation between spatial frequencies and the direction of measurement. The pattern of polar spectrum is used to facilitate surface reconstructions. Experimental results based on the spatial information obtained with a laser displacement sensor and the pen-type texture sensor demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods for the measurement and reconstruction of periodic textures.     

一种新的图像纹理表示方法

该文基于纹理元直方图导出了纹理的新表示方法,并根据正交镜像滤波器的小波变换能量的转换和量化来定义纹理元。此种,给出了数种小波纹理特征集的实验评价,此方法具有将Brodatz纹理分类的极好性能。同时还研究了数种考虑近似旋转不变性或比例不变性的变换。最后,引入了生成纹理直方图和形成二进制纹理集的特征空间的过程,而且纹理直方图和二进制纹理集的特征空间与颜色直方图是对称的。获得纹理的这些表示旨在为度量纹理的相似性和从图像中抽取纹理区域。     

Texture models and image measures for texture discrimination

The task of texture segmentation is to identify image curves that separate different textures. To segment textured images, one must first be able to discriminate textures. A segmentation algorithm performs texture-discrimination tests at densely spaced image positions, then interprets the results to localize edges. This article focuses on the first stage, texture discrimination.We distinguish between perceptual and physical texture differences: the former differences are those perceived by humans, while the latter, on which we concentrate, are those defined by differences in the processes that create the texture in the scene. Physical texture discrimination requires computing image texture measures that allow the inference of physical differences in texture processes, which in turn requires modeling texture in the scene. We use a simple texture model that describes textures by distributions of shape, position, and color of substructures. From this model, a set of image texture measures is derived that allows reliable texture discrimination. These measures are distributions of overall substructure length, width, and orientation; edge length and orientation; and differences in averaged color. Distributions are estimated without explicitly isolating image substructures. Tests of statistical significance are used to compare texture measures.A forced-choice method for evaluating texture measures is described. The proposed measures provide empirical discrimination accuracy of 84 to 100% on a large set of natural textures. By comparison, Laws' texture measures provide less than 50% accuracy when used with the same texture-edge detector. Finally, the measures can distinguish textures differing in second-order statistics, although those statistics are not explicitly measured.The author was with the Robotics Laboratory, Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. He is now with the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA), Sophia-Antipolis, 2004 Route des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex, France.     

Unsupervised detection and localization of structural textures using projection profiles

The main goal of existing approaches for structural texture analysis has been the identification of repeating texture primitives and their placement patterns in images containing a single type of texture. We describe a novel unsupervised method for simultaneous detection and localization of multiple structural texture areas along with estimates of their orientations and scales in real images. First, multi-scale isotropic filters are used to enhance the potential texton locations. Then, regularity of the textons is quantified in terms of the periodicity of projection profiles of filter responses within sliding windows at multiple orientations. Next, a regularity index is computed for each pixel as the maximum regularity score together with its orientation and scale. Finally, thresholding of this regularity index produces accurate localization of structural textures in images containing different kinds of textures as well as non-textured areas. Experiments using three different data sets show the effectiveness of the proposed method in complex scenes.     

利用2D-Gabor滤波器提取纹理方向特征的虹膜识别方法*

目前基于2D-Gabor滤波器的虹膜识别算法主要是使用虹膜的相位信息或能量信息作为特征,但在虹膜可用区域减少时这些算法的识别效果明显下降。虹膜纹理除具有上述特征外,还有很强的方向性。在分析了2D-Gabor滤波器的方向和频率选择性后,提出了一种利用2D-Gabor滤波器提取纹理方向特征的虹膜识别方法。实验表明该方法提取的虹膜纹理方向特征可以在较小区域内提取出足够丰富的可区分性特征,实现高准确性的虹膜识别,说明方向特征是一种有效的虹膜识别特征。