Pre-processing of images from shipborne X-band wave measuring radar

It is inevitable that the movement of vessels on the sea will be affected by the marine environmental extreme value parameters, such as wind, current, and wave. Driven by these factors, the vessels will produce the following movements: horizontal displacement, heave, and sway. With the shipborne X-band wave measuring radar installed on the vessel, the movements of the vessel will lead to the deviation between the actual position of the radar beam and the places we expect. It will result in an error that the intensity showed on the echo image is not the expected one. A pre-processing algorithm is developed to weaken the influence of the movements of vessel on information inversion of the ocean wave fields imaged by X-band radar. The algorithm utilizes the results of vessel motion model to correct the images from shipborne X-band wave measuring radar. Compared with simulated image sequences influenced by vessel motion, the non-direction wave height spectrum extracted from corrected image sequences matches well with that obtained from the original image sequences uninfluenced by vessel motion.     

Membrane boundary extraction using circular multiple paths

Membrane proteins represent over 50% of known drug targets. Accordingly, several widely used assays in the high content analysis area rely on quantitative measures of the translocation of proteins between intracellular organelles and the cell surface. In order to increase the sensitivity of these assays, one needs to measure the signal specifically along the membrane, requiring a precise segmentation of this compartment. Manual tracing of membrane boundary is very time-consuming and confronts us with issues of objectivity and reproducibility. In this paper, we present an approach based on a circular multiple paths technique on transformed images that enables us to segment the membrane compartment accurately and rapidly. We have presented three approaches for image transformation. The circular property of the multiple paths ensures that we are obtaining closed contours for the membrane boundary. The position of the multiple paths provides the edges of the membrane boundary. The effectiveness of our algorithm is illustrated using cells expressing epitope-tagged membrane proteins.     

Ground-penetrating radar measurement of crop and surface water content dynamics

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) with a suspended 1 GHz horn antenna was deployed for measurement of soil water contents and crop canopy properties over bare and electrically terminating surfaces. Surface reflection (SR) and signal propagation times (PT) were used to independently determine dielectric permittivity and water content of soil and canopy. Measured surface reflection coefficients progressively decreased with increasing canopy biomass according to Beer-Lambert type relationships. In contrast, PT measurements remained unaffected by canopy, and hence provided an accurate account of soil water content dynamics. Immediately after canopy removal, SR-based soil water content measurements were in close agreement with PT values. Canopy dielectric properties were inferred from canopy water contents (?_c-CWC) and canopy propagation times (?_c-CPT). Distinct canopy reflections were correlated with key canopy biophysical parameters. The study demonstrates the usefulness of a horn antenna GPR for characterization of vegetation canopy scattering, and for subcanopy water content measurements within a well-defined footprint, thereby offering a potential for calibration and verification of radar data collected from air- and spaceborne platforms.     

Exploiting triangulated surface extraction using tetrahedraldecomposition

Beginning with digitized volumetric data, we wish to rapidly and efficiently extract and represent surfaces defined as isosurfaces in the interpolated data. The Marching Cubes algorithm is a standard approach to this problem. We instead perform a decomposition of each 8-cell associated with a voxel into five tetrahedra. We guarantee the resulting surface representation to be closed and oriented, defined by a valid triangulation of the surface of the body, which in turn is presented as a collection of tetrahedra. The entire surface is “wrapped” by a collection of triangles, which form a graph structure, and where each triangle is contained within a single tetrahedron. The representation is similar to the homology theory that uses simplices embedded in a manifold to define a closed curve within each tetrahedron. We introduce data structures based upon a new encoding of the tetrahedra that are at least four times more compact than the standard data structures using vertices and triangles. For parallel computing and improved cache performance, the vertex information is stored local to the tetrahedra. We can distribute the vertices in such a way that no tetrahedron ever contains more than one vertex, We give methods to evaluate surface curvatures and principal directions at each vertex, whenever these quantities are defined. Finally, we outline a method for simplifying the surface, that is reducing the vertex count while preserving the geometry. We compare the characteristics of our methods with an 8-cell based method, and show results of surface extractions from CT-scans and MR-scans at full resolution     

采用延伸顶点的地面点云实时提取算法

针对室外环境下无人驾驶车辆的地面提取实时性差的问题,提出了一种利用三维激光雷达快速提取地面的方法。首先利用车载IMU和里程计对雷达点云进行校正,然后构建柱状极坐标网格地图,根据网格中点云分布的垂直连续性提取每个网格中的延伸顶点,根据延伸顶点的高度属性以及地面平滑一致性准则提取出所有的地面点。试验中使用Velodyne HDL-32E采集不同场景下的数据作为测试集,结果表明,该方法同现有的地面分割算法相比能够降低车辆自身运动造成的提取误差,避免出现过分割和欠分割,分割准确率约为98.2%,每帧处理时间能够稳定控制在33 ms左右。     

Microwave radar probing of a rough water surface: validation of retrieval algorithms using flight experiment data

We studied the microwave backscattering of a rough water surface during a flight above the Gorky water storage basin. A microwave Doppler radar with a knife-like beam (1–16°) was installed on a helicopter and oriented vertically downwards. Analysis of the experimental data confirms that the reflected power and the width of the Doppler spectrum depend on the direction of wave propagation. ‘Antenna’ and ‘angular’ algorithms were used to obtain the variance of the slopes. These algorithms enabled us to determine the slope variance from a moving carrier, without limitations placed on the flight's height. We developed two new algorithms to determine the correlation coefficients of the vertical component of the orbital velocity and water surface slopes as well as the variance of orbital velocities using the width of the Doppler spectrum. We used the results obtained from varying the input parameters of the algorithm to minimize the retrieval error of the correlation coefficient. Comparisons with parameters derived from modelled wave spectra indicate the effectiveness of the retrieval algorithms. We also demonstrate the possibility of extracting estimates of the average phase velocity, the average wavelength and the significant wave height of sea waves.     

3维图像中边界曲面的分类追踪及抽取

3维图像分析中,边界曲面的检测与重构是一个非常重要的问题。已有的连续隐边界曲面的抽取及逼近计算技术存在着把某些零交叉曲面片错误地识别为边界曲面片的缺陷。为此,提出一个新的边界曲面的追踪及抽取的方法。该方法首先将包含边界曲面的全部立方体分为两类:包含一个连通零交叉曲面片的立方体叫第1类边缘立方体,包含两个及其以上不连通零交叉曲面片的立方体叫第2类边缘立方体;然后根据边界曲面的连续性连通性,便可追踪出两类边缘立方体;对于追踪出的第1类边缘立方体直接提取边界曲面片,对于追踪出的第2类边缘立方体的边界曲面片通过其相邻的第1类边缘立方体来提取。实验结果表明本文方法是可行有效的,而且可以有效地克服已有技术的缺陷。     

Aircraft identification using a bilinear surface representation of radar data

Low frequency radar scattering data is used for the identification of aircraft. It is shown that such radar data lies on two-dimensional surfaces in n-space. A bilinear approximation for these surfaces is described. Surface intersections using this approximation can be found simply and directly without solving a system of n simultaneous nonlinear equations. This intersection information can be used to show separability and effect feature reduction. The approximation is utilized to construct a modified nearest neighbor algorithm, which is evaluated by computer simulation experiments. These experiments showed a phenomenon of “bias”, where one aircraft data surface is more susceptible to misclassification in the presence of noise than the surface corresponding to another aircraft. This “bias” observed is shown to be related to the surface characteristics of the data surfaces involved, specifically proximity and relative curvature of corresponding points on the two surfaces.     

Characteristic extraction of machined surface using wavelet transformation

In the development and design of machinery products, product performance and tolerance stack-up analysis are generally calculated using computer software. In these calculations, the product shape is modeled as a set of primitives, which are simple geometrical shapes, such as plane, cylinder and sphere. However, the shape of an actual product is different from these shapes because machining error cannot be avoided. Actual shapes usually exhibit deviations in scales, such as geometric deviations, waviness and surface roughness. Therefore, the error between the result of computer calculation and the actual behavior of the product is caused by the shape simplification. A method of for generation of a pseudo shape is required to reduce the calculation error. In this study, a new method for random generation of skin model shapes, which maintain the surface characteristics in multiscale levels, is proposed. In the method, first, an optimal mother wavelet should be decided because they depend on extracting the surface characteristics. In this paper, eight representative mother wavelets are used in wavelet transformation for comparison. The results are discussed based on the results obtained through a case study, and latent problems are also observed.     

Real-time virtual environment signal extraction and denoising using programmable graphics hardware

The sense of being within a three-dimensional (3D) space and interacting with virtual 3D objects in a computer-generated virtual environment (VE) often requires essential image, vision and sensor signal processing techniques such as differentiating and denoising. This paper describes novel implementations of the Gaussian filtering for characteristic signal extraction and wavelet-based image denoising algorithms that run on the graphics processing unit (GPU). While significant acceleration over standard CPU implementations is obtained through exploiting data parallelism provided by the modern programmable graphics hardware, the CPU can be freed up to run other computations more efficiently such as artificial intelligence (AI) and physics. The proposed GPU-based Gaussian filtering can extract surface information from a real object and provide its material features for rendering and illumination. The wavelet-based signal denoising for large size digital images realized in this project provided better realism for VE visualization without sacrificing real-time and interactive performances of an application.     

多频连续波雷达数据实时压缩算法设计

随着测试参数种类增加,测试环境越来越复杂,海量雷达数据与有限存储容量之间的矛盾日益明显,实时数据采集与压缩技术可以缓解这一矛盾的加剧.雷达数据采集系统采取了基于FPGA的LZW实时无损压缩算法.该算法能够实现追求采集信号精度的同时减低算法难度,已成功应用于某飞行测试实验,性能指标满足应用要求.     

Real-time face detection and lip feature extraction using field-programmable gate arrays.

This paper proposes a new technique for face detection and lip feature extraction. A real-time field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of the two proposed techniques is also presented. Face detection is based on a naive Bayes classifier that classifies an edge-extracted representation of an image. Using edge representation significantly reduces the model's size to only 5184 B, which is 2417 times smaller than a comparable statistical modeling technique, while achieving an 86.6% correct detection rate under various lighting conditions. Lip feature extraction uses the contrast around the lip contour to extract the height and width of the mouth, metrics that are useful for speech filtering. The proposed FPGA system occupies only 15050 logic cells, or about six times less than a current comparable FPGA face detection system.     

Real-time pitch extraction of voiced speech

This paper describes a novel speech analysis application which was implemented using a Motorola M68HC11 microcontroller system. This microcontroller-based platform was designed to function as a pitch extractor for voiced speech in real time. In this context, pitch extraction is the identification of individual pitch periods, or glottal cycles, from a raw speech waveform. The system implements a new pitch determination algorithm (PDA) that is based on a progressing wave model of speech generation. The PDA was developed specifically to operate in real-time and to maintain phase characteristics with the raw speech signal. As one possible application, the pitch extractor was incorporated into a dual processor system designed to function as a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)-compatible controller.     

Environmental factors and the detection of open surface water areas with X-band radar imagery

The ability to map open surface water is integral to many hydrologic and agricultural models, wildlife management programmes, and recreational and natural resource studies. Open surface water is generally regarded as easily detected on radar imagery. However, this view is an oversimplification. This study used X-band HH polarized airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar ( SAR) imagery to examine the potential of SAR data to map open fresh water areas extant on 1:100000 USGS topographic maps. Seven study sites in the U.S.A. with a combined area of over 68000km²were analysed. Detection accuracies and minimum size for detection varied among the seven locations. Size and shape of water bodies and radar shadow all affected detection. However, environmental modulation factors including vegetation and forest cover, moisture, and landscape composition and morphology had the greatest influence and exhibited the most complex role in explaining variability     

A weighted normalized difference water index for water extraction using Landsat imagery

Water extraction is one of challenging topics in studies on remote-sensing applications. Spectral profiles and experiments indicate that existing water indices often misclassified turbid water, small waterbodies, and some land features in a shadow area. In this study, a new water index called weighted normalized difference water index (WNDWI) was proposed to reduce those errors and improve the mapping accuracy of waterbodies by using Landsat imagery. To test the performance of the newly proposed water index, two test sites (Tampa Bay, FL, USA and Xiangshan Harbour, Zhejiang, China) were selected and the performances of three existing water indices including the normalized difference water index (NDWI), the modified NDWI (MNDWI), and the automated water extraction index (AWEI) were compared with that of the WNDWI. In addition, a default threshold 0 and automatically thresholding methods including Otsu threshold method and multiple thresholds identified by valley points in a histogram curve were tested to determine an optimal threshold that can be used to separate water and non-water features from grey images created by the four water indices. The experimental results indicate that the overall accuracies (OAs) created with WNDWI were all higher than those created with the three existing water indices: NDWI, MNDWI, and AWEI in both sites. Moreover, the results thresholded by 0 owned or shared the highest OAs with the results segmented by some of non-zero thresholds obtained from Otsu method and multiple thresholds method. Therefore, using an appropriate threshold, the proposed method could extract waterbodies from Landsat TM imagery with a high accuracy.     

Validation of surface height from shuttle radar topography mission using shuttle laser altimeter

Spaceborne Interferometric SAR (InSAR) technology used in the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and spaceborne lidar such as Shuttle Laser Altimeter-02 (SLA-02) are two promising technologies for providing global scale digital elevation models (DEMs). Each type of these systems has limitations that affect the accuracy or extent of coverage. These systems are complementary in developing DEM data. In this study, surface height measured independently by SRTM and SLA-02 was cross-validated. SLA data was first verified by field observations, and examinations of individual lidar waveforms. The geolocation accuracy of the SLA height data sets was examined by checking the correlation between the SLA surface height with SRTM height at 90 m resolution, while shifting the SLA ground track within its specified horizontal errors. It was found that the heights from the two instruments were highly correlated along the SLA ground track, and shifting the positions did not improve the correlation significantly. Absolute surface heights from SRTM and SLA referenced to the same horizontal and vertical datum (World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 Ellipsoid) were compared. The effects of forest cover and surface slope on the height difference were also examined. After removing the forest effect on SRTM height, the mean height difference with SLA-02 was near zero. It can be further inferred from the standard deviation of the height differences that the absolute accuracy of SRTM height at low vegetation area is better than the SRTM mission specifications (16 m). The SRTM height bias caused by forest cover needs to be further examined using future spaceborne lidar (e.g. GLAS) data.     

Smooth surface extraction from unstructured point-based volume data using PDEs

Smooth surface extraction using partial differential equations (PDEs) is a well-known and widely used technique for visualizing volume data. Existing approaches operate on gridded data and mainly on regular structured grids. When considering unstructured point-based volume data where sample points do not form regular patterns nor are they connected in any form, one would typically resample the data over a grid prior to applying the known PDE-based methods. We propose an approach that directly extracts smooth surfaces from unstructured point-based volume data without prior resampling or mesh generation. When operating on unstructured data one needs to quickly derive neighborhood information. The respective information is retrieved by partitioning the 3D domain into cells using a kd-tree and operating on its cells. We exploit neighborhood information to estimate gradients and mean curvature at every sample point using a four-dimensional least-squares fitting approach. Gradients and mean curvature are required for applying the chosen PDE-based method that combines hyperbolic advection to an isovalue of a given scalar field and mean curvature flow. Since we are using an explicit time-integration scheme, time steps and neighbor locations are bounded to ensure convergence of the process. To avoid small global time steps, we use asynchronous local integration. We extract the surface by successively fitting a smooth auxiliary function to the data set. This auxiliary function is initialized as a signed distance function. For each sample and for every time step we compute the respective gradient, the mean curvature, and a stable time step. With these informations the auxiliary function is manipulated using an explicit Euler time integration. The process successively continues with the next sample point in time. If the norm of the auxiliary function gradient in a sample exceeds a given threshold at some time, the auxiliary function is reinitialized to a signed distance function. After convergence of the evolution, the resulting smooth surface is obtained by extracting the zero isosurface from the auxiliary function using direct isosurface extraction from unstructured point-based volume data and rendering the extracted surface using point-based rendering methods.     

Mapping surface roughness and soil moisture using multi-angle radar imagery without ancillary data

The Integral Equation Model (IEM) is the most widely-used, physically based radar backscatter model for sparsely vegetated landscapes. In general, IEM quantifies the magnitude of backscattering as a function of moisture content and surface roughness, which are unknown, and the known radar configurations. Estimating surface roughness or soil moisture by solving the IEM with two unknowns is a classic example of under-determination and is at the core of the problems associated with the use of radar imagery coupled with IEM-like models. This study offers a solution strategy to this problem by the use of multi-angle radar images, and thus provides estimates of roughness and soil moisture without the use of ancillary field data. Results showed that radar images can provide estimates of surface soil moisture at the watershed scale with good accuracy. Results at the field scale were less accurate, likely due to the influence of image speckle. Results also showed that subsurface roughness caused by rock fragments in the study sites caused error in conventional applications of IEM based on field measurements, but was minimized by using the multi-angle approach.