Multitask dictionary learning and sparse representation based single-image super-resolution reconstruction

Recent researches have shown that the sparse representation based technology can lead to state of art super-resolution image reconstruction (SRIR) result. It relies on the idea that the low-resolution (LR) image patches can be regarded as down sampled version of high-resolution (HR) images, whose patches are assumed to have a sparser presentation with respect to a dictionary of prototype patches. In order to avoid a large training patches database and obtain more accurate recovery of HR images, in this paper we introduce the concept of examples-aided redundant dictionary learning into the single-image super-resolution reconstruction, and propose a multiple dictionaries learning scheme inspired by multitask learning. Compact redundant dictionaries are learned from samples classified by K-means clustering in order to provide each sample a more appropriate dictionary for image reconstruction. Compared with the available SRIR methods, the proposed method has the following characteristics: (1) introducing the example patches-aided dictionary learning in the sparse representation based SRIR, in order to reduce the intensive computation complexity brought by enormous dictionary, (2) using the multitask learning and prior from HR image examples to reconstruct similar HR images to obtain better reconstruction result and (3) adopting the offline dictionaries learning and online reconstruction, making a rapid reconstruction possible. Some experiments are taken on testing the proposed method on some natural images, and the results show that a small set of randomly chosen raw patches from training images and small number of atoms can produce good reconstruction result. Both the visual result and the numerical guidelines prove its superiority to some start-of-art SRIR methods.     

Multi-focus image fusion using dictionary-based sparse representation

Multi-focus image fusion has emerged as a major topic in image processing to generate all-focus images with increased depth-of-field from multi-focus photographs. Different approaches have been used in spatial or transform domain for this purpose. But most of them are subject to one or more of image fusion quality degradations such as blocking artifacts, ringing effects, artificial edges, halo artifacts, contrast decrease, sharpness reduction, and misalignment of decision map with object boundaries. In this paper we present a novel multi-focus image fusion method in spatial domain that utilizes a dictionary which is learned from local patches of source images. Sparse representation of relative sharpness measure over this trained dictionary are pooled together to get the corresponding pooled features. Correlation of the pooled features with sparse representations of input images produces a pixel level score for decision map of fusion. Final regularized decision map is obtained using Markov Random Field (MRF) optimization. We also gathered a new color multi-focus image dataset which has more variety than traditional multi-focus image sets. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, in terms of visual and quantitative evaluations.     

Sparsity preserving projections with applications to face recognition

Dimensionality reduction methods (DRs) have commonly been used as a principled way to understand the high-dimensional data such as face images. In this paper, we propose a new unsupervised DR method called sparsity preserving projections (SPP). Unlike many existing techniques such as local preserving projection (LPP) and neighborhood preserving embedding (NPE), where local neighborhood information is preserved during the DR procedure, SPP aims to preserve the sparse reconstructive relationship of the data, which is achieved by minimizing a L1 regularization-related objective function. The obtained projections are invariant to rotations, rescalings and translations of the data, and more importantly, they contain natural discriminating information even if no class labels are provided. Moreover, SPP chooses its neighborhood automatically and hence can be more conveniently used in practice compared to LPP and NPE. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is verified on three popular face databases (Yale, AR and Extended Yale B) with promising results.     

基于稀疏表示的QR码识别

针对QR码图像受污染、破损、遮挡时识别软件无法识别的问题,提出一种基于稀疏表示的QR码识别方法。以40类QR码图像作为研究对象,每类13幅,其中每类随机选取3幅共120幅作为训练样本,余下400幅作为测试样本。所有训练样本组成稀疏表示字典,测试样本为训练样本的稀疏线性组合,表示系数是稀疏的,对每一个测试样本,计算其在字典上的投影,具有最小残差值的类别,即为分类所属类别。最后将提出的方法与QR码识读软件PsQREdit的识别结果做了对比和分析。实验结果表明：提出的方法对于部分受污染、破损、遮挡的图像仍能正确识别,具有很好的鲁棒性,为QR码的识别提供了一种新的有效方案。     

基于自步学习的加权稀疏表示人脸识别方法

近年来基于稀疏表示的分类方法（SRC）成为了一个新的热点问题,在人脸识别领域取得了很大的成功。但基于稀疏表示的方法在重建待测样本时,有可能会利用与待测样本相差较大的训练样本,并且没有考虑到表示系数的局部信息,从而导致分类结果不稳定。提出一种基于自步学习的加权稀疏表示算法SPL-WSRC,在字典中有效剔除与待测样本相差较大的训练样本,并利用加权手段考虑样本间的局部信息,以提高分类精度和稳定性。通过3个典型的人脸数据集中的实验,实验结果表明,所提算法优于原稀疏表示算法SRC,特别是当训练样本足够多时,效果更明显。     

人脸识别中基于系数相似性的字典学习算法

在现有的基于稀疏表示分类算法的人脸识别中,使用通过稀疏学习得到的精简字典可以提高识别速度和精确度。metaface学习(Metaface Learning,MFL)算法在字典学习过程中没有考虑同类样本稀疏编码系数之间具有相似性的特点。为了利用这一信息来提高字典的区分性,提出了一种基于系数相似性的metaface学习(Coefficient-Simi-larity-based Metaface earning,CS-MFL)算法。CS-MFL算法的学习过程中,在更新稀疏表示系数阶段加入同类训练样本稀疏编码系数相似的约束项。为了求解包含系数相似性约束的新的最优化问题,将目标函数中的两个l2范数约束项进行合并,将原问题转化为典型l₂- l1问题进行求解。在不同的人脸库上进行实验,结果表明,提出的CS-MFL算法能够获得比MFL算法更高的识别率,说明由CS-MFL算法学习得到的字典更高效且更具区分性。     

Easy gesture recognition for Kinect

Recent progress in entertainment and gaming systems has brought more natural and intuitive human–computer interfaces to our lives. Innovative technologies, such as Xbox Kinect, enable the recognition of body gestures, which are a direct and expressive way of human communication. Although current development toolkits provide support to identify the position of several joints of the human body and to process the movements of the body parts, they actually lack a flexible and robust mechanism to perform high-level gesture recognition. In consequence, developers are still left with the time-consuming and tedious task of recognizing gestures by explicitly defining a set of conditions on the joint positions and movements of the body parts. This paper presents EasyGR (Easy Gesture Recognition), a tool based on machine learning algorithms that help to reduce the effort involved in gesture recognition. We evaluated EasyGR in the development of 7 gestures, involving 10 developers. We compared time consumed, code size, and the achieved quality of the developed gesture recognizers, with and without the support of EasyGR. The results have shown that our approach is practical and reduces the effort involved in implementing gesture recognizers with Kinect.     

基于稀疏表示的分块人脸识别算法

最近基于原型（Prototype）加变差（Variation）表示模型的稀疏表示方法被有效用于人脸识别。由于该算法是基于整个人脸来考虑的,忽略了人脸局部特征对整个识别过程的影响。为了解决这个问题,引入了分块处理的思想,运用Borda计数的方法对每个子模块按照残差大小进行投票,根据最终的投票结果对人脸进行分类判别。在AR人脸库上的实验结果表明该方法与其他方法相比,在对具有部分遮挡和光照变化人脸的识别上具有更好的效果。     

A Kernel-based sparse representation method for face recognition

Sparse Representation Method has been proved to outperform conventional face recognition (FR) methods and is widely applied in recent years. A novel Kernel-based Sparse Representation Method (KBSRM) is proposed in this paper. In order to cope with the possible complex variation of the face images caused by varying facial expression and pose, the KBSRM first uses a kernel-induced distance to determine N nearest neighbors of the testing sample from all the training samples. Then, in the second step, the KBSRM represents the testing sample as a linear combination of the determinate N nearest neighbors and performs the classification by the representation result. It can be inferred that the N nearest training samples selected are closer to the test sample than the rest, so using the N nearest neighbors to represent the testing sample can make the ultimate classification more accurate. A number of FR experiments show that the KBSRM can achieve a better classification result than the algorithm mentioned in Xu et al. (Neural Comput Appl doi:10.1007/s00521-012-0833-5).     

Kernel sparse representation based classification

Sparse representation has attracted great attention in the past few years. Sparse representation based classification (SRC) algorithm was developed and successfully used for classification. In this paper, a kernel sparse representation based classification (KSRC) algorithm is proposed. Samples are mapped into a high dimensional feature space first and then SRC is performed in this new feature space by utilizing kernel trick. Since samples in the high dimensional feature space are unknown, we cannot perform KSRC directly. In order to overcome this difficulty, we give the method to solve the problem of sparse representation in the high dimensional feature space. If an appropriate kernel is selected, in the high dimensional feature space, a test sample is probably represented as the linear combination of training samples of the same class more accurately. Therefore, KSRC has more powerful classification ability than SRC. Experiments of face recognition, palmprint recognition and finger-knuckle-print recognition demonstrate the effectiveness of KSRC.     

基于非负稀疏表示的人脸识别

对稀疏表示在人脸识别中的应用进行了研究,提出了人脸识别的非负稀疏表示方法和采样方法.提出了非负稀疏表示的乘性迭代算法,分析了该方法与非负矩阵分解的联系,设计了基于非负稀疏表示的分类算法.在仿射传播算法的基础上,提出了人脸数据集的采样方法,并在人脸图像集上进行了实验.与稀疏表示相比,非负稀疏表示在计算复杂度和鲁棒性上具有优越性;与随机采样方法相比,该采样方法具有较高的识别精度.     

Discriminative subspace learning with sparse representation view-based model for robust visual tracking

In this paper, we propose a robust tracking algorithm to handle drifting problem. This algorithm consists of two parts: the first part is the G&D part that combines Generative model and Discriminative model for tracking, and the second part is the View-Based model for target appearance that corrects the result of the G&D part if necessary. In G&D part, we use the Maximum Margin Projection (MMP) to construct a graph model to preserve both local geometrical and discriminant structures of the data manifold in low dimensions. Therefore, such discriminative subspace combined with traditional generative subspace can benefit from both models. In addition, we address the problem of learning maximum margin projection under the Spectral Regression (SR) which results in significant savings in computational time. To further solve the drift, an online learned sparsely represented view-based model of the target is complementary to the G&D part. When the result of G&D part is unreliable, the view-based model can rectify the result in order to avoid drifting. Experimental results on several challenging video sequences demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our approach.     

快速稀疏表示分类的人脸识别算法

经典的稀疏表示分类（Sparse Representation for Classification,SRC）算法是一种基于[L1]范数最小化问题,它在很多应用场合都能取得很好的分类效果,是目前备受关注的一类识别算法。然而,传统的SRC算法在求解[L1]范数最小化问题时,往往计算效率比较低。为有效解决这个问题,提出了一种快速有效的分类算法,它利用坐标下降方法来实现SRC算法。该方法既可以显著地提高计算效率,又可取得较好的分类结果。在不同人脸库上的实验表明,所提的算法具有良好的应用前景。     

A Hilbert warping method for handwriting gesture recognition

We propose a novel sequence alignment algorithm for recognizing handwriting gestures by a camera. In the proposed method, an input image sequence is aligned to the reference sequences by phase-synchronization of analytic signals which are transformed from original feature values. A cumulative distance is calculated simultaneously with the alignment process, and then used for the classification. A major benefit of this method is that over-fitting to sequences of incorrect categories is restricted. The proposed method exhibited higher recognition accuracy in handwriting gesture recognition, compared with the conventional dynamic time warping method which explores optimal alignment results for all categories.     

基于加权分块稀疏表示的光照鲁棒性人脸识别

针对光照变化对人脸识别的效果带来严重影响,提出一种对人脸识别的光照变化具有鲁棒性的方法,即基于加权分块稀疏表示的人脸识别方法。该方法首先对人脸图像进行离散余弦变换（DCT）,通过去除 DCT 系数的低频部分来移除光照变化分量。通过反离散余弦变换得到光照归一化后的人脸图像,将人脸图像分块,独立地对每个子块作基于稀疏表示的分类,并对每个子块的分类结果进行加权投票得出测试人脸图像的类别。在 Yale B、extended-Yale B、CMU-PIE 和 FERET 人脸库上进行实验,实验结果表明该方法适用于光照鲁棒的人脸识别。     

基于视觉的手势识别方法及其在数字信号处理器上的实现

针对手势识别算法复杂度高、在嵌入式系统上运行效率低的问题,提出一种以定点运算为主的基于形状特征的手势识别方法。采用内部最大圆法和圆截法提取特征点,在手掌内部寻找一个最大圆来获取掌心坐标;同时根据指尖的几何特征,在手形边缘以画圆的方式获取指尖,从而得到手势的手指数、方向和掌心位置等特征信息;再对这些特征信息进行分类并识别。通过对算法进行改进,完成了在数字信号处理器（DSP）上的移植。实验证明该方法对于不同人的手具有适应性,适合在DSP上处理,与其他基于形状特征的手势识别算法相比,平均识别率提高了1.6%~8.6%,计算机对算法的处理速度提高了2%,因此所提算法有利于嵌入式手势识别系统的实现,为嵌入式手势识别系统打下基础。     

基于拓展稀疏表示模型和LC-KSVD的人脸识别

为了提高人脸的识别率和识别速度及其识别的鲁棒性,提出了基于拓展稀疏表示模型和LC-KSVD（Label Consist K-SVD）的人脸识别算法。针对字典学习中只包含表示能力没有包含类别信息的问题,在原始的稀疏表示模型中添加了残差向量作为系数修正向量,使得拓展稀疏表示模型具有更强的鲁棒性;在字典学习中添加稀疏编码和分类器参数约束项,通过字典学习同时更新稀疏编码和分类器参数,使字典中包含很好的表示能力和判别分类能力。实验结果表明,基于拓展稀疏表示模型和LC-KSVD的人脸识别具有高识别率和低识别速度,并且有很好的鲁棒性。     

Group sparse representation based classification for multi-feature multimodal biometrics

Multimodal biometrics technology consolidates information obtained from multiple sources at sensor level, feature level, match score level, and decision level. It is used to increase robustness and provide broader population coverage for inclusion. Due to the inherent challenges involved with feature-level fusion, combining multiple evidences is attempted at score, rank, or decision level where only a minimal amount of information is preserved. In this paper, we propose the Group Sparse Representation based Classifier (GSRC) which removes the requirement for a separate feature-level fusion mechanism and integrates multi-feature representation seamlessly into classification. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on two multimodal biometric datasets. Experimental results indicate that the proposed classifier succeeds in efficiently utilizing a multi-feature representation of input data to perform accurate biometric recognition.     

基于特征化字典的低秩表示人脸识别

针对现有低秩表示（LRR）算法中全局与局部人脸特征信息融合不足的问题,提出了一种新的人脸识别算法——基于特征化字典的低秩表示（LRR-CD）。首先,将每张人脸照片表示成一个个特征化字典的集合,然后同时最小化基于训练样本的低秩重构特征系数以及与之相对应的类内特征差异。为了获得高效且具有高判别性的人脸图像的特征块重构系数矩阵,提出了一种新的数学公式模型,通过同时求解训练样本中相对应的特征块以及对应的类内特征差异词典的低秩约束问题,尽可能完整地保留原始高维人脸图像中的全局和局部信息,尤其是局部类内差异特征。另外,由于对特征块中信息的充分挖掘,所提算法对于一般程度上的面部遮挡和光照等噪声影响具有良好的鲁棒性。在AR、CMU-PIE和Extended Yale B人脸数据库进行多项对比实验,由实验结果可知LRR-CD相较于对比的稀疏表示（SRC）、协从表示（CRC）、低秩表示正规切（LRR-NCUT）和低秩递归最小二乘（LRR-RLS）算法在平均识别率上有2.58~17.24个百分点的提高。实验结果表明LRR-CD性能优于与之对比的算法,可以更高效地用于人脸全局和局部特征信息的融合,且具有优良的识别率。     

基于稀疏表示分类器的和弦识别研究

和弦识别作为音乐信息标注的基础,在分析音乐结构和旋律方面具有非常重要的作用.结合音乐理论知识,提出一种基于稀疏表示分类器的和弦识别方法.与传统的基于帧的识别方法不同,以节拍作为和弦变化的最小时间间隔,利用CQT (Constant-Q Transform)变换对音乐信号进行时频分析,提取PCP (Pitch Class Profile)特征,采用稀疏表示分类器(Sparse Representation-based Classification,SRC)进行和弦识别.实验结果表明,提出的特征和识别方法在识别率上均高于传统的方法.