A genetic algorithm for MRF-based segmentation of multi-spectral textured images

A segmentation approach based on a Markov random field (MRF) model is an iterative algorithm; it needs many iteration steps to approximate a near optimal solution or gets a non-suitable solution with a few iteration steps. In this paper, we use a genetic algorithm (GA) to improve an unsupervised MRF-based segmentation approach for multi-spectral textured images. The proposed hybrid approach has the advantage that combines the fast convergence of the MRF-based iterative algorithm and the powerful global exploration of the GA. In experiments, synthesized color textured images and multi-spectral remote-sensing images were processed by the proposed approach to evaluate the segmentation performance. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach really improves the MRF-based segmentation for the multi-spectral textured images.     

A public fragile watermarking scheme for 3D model authentication

A public fragile watermarking scheme based on the sensitivity of vertex geometry is proposed for 3D model authentication. In the 3D fragile watermarking embedding, slightly perturbing the positions of a subset of vertices is usually needed to keep them in some predefined relationship with their neighboring vertices. Two problems frequently arise in the embedding stage: the causality problem and the convergence problem. The causality problem arises while the neighboring relationship of a former processed vertex is influenced by the perturbing of its latter processed neighboring vertices. The convergence problem means that the original model has been heavily distorted before some vertices reach the predefined relationship. In this paper, we propose a multi-function vertex embedding method and an adjusting-vertex method to overcome these two problems. The proposed method does not need the original model and watermarks for authentication; moreover, the key for extracting watermarks is relatively smaller than that of previous works. For some artistic or technical models, sometimes it is very important to control the distortion ratio caused by watermark embedding. Our method can control the average distortion by the keys used in watermark embedding. Experimental and analytic results on various kinds of 3D models show the effectiveness of the scheme.     

Perceptual Digital Watermarking for Image Authentication in Electronic Commerce

Digital watermarking has been presented to protect the copyright of electronic multimedia data. The previous proposed watermarking algorithms mostly embed sequences of random numbers or binary images as the watermarks. In this paper, an image accreditation technique by embedding digital gray-level image watermarks in images is proposed. In the proposed method, the host image and the watermark are decomposed into wavelet coefficients. The contextual energies of the host-image wavelet coefficients are computed to select embedding coefficients. The watermark wavelet coefficients are sorted and then embedded in the selected host coefficients. The experiments show that the proposed method provides extra robustness against JPEG-compression, image-processing, and even composite attacks compared to the traditional embedding methods. Moreover, the proposed method has no need of the original image to extract the embedded watermarks. The proposed method facilitates electronic commerce application developers to select adequate digital watermarking techniques for their development systems.     

A novel stroke-based feature extraction for handwritten Chinese character recognition

A stroke-based approach to extract skeletons and structural features for handwritten Chinese character recognition is proposed. We first determine stroke directions based on the directional run-length information of binary character patterns. According to the stroke directions and their adjacent relationships, we split strokes into stroke and fork segments, and then extract the skeletons of the stroke segments called skeleton segments. After all skeleton segments are extracted, fork segments are processed to find the fork points and fork degrees. Skeleton segments that touch a fork segment are connected at the fork point, and all connected skeleton segments form the character skeleton. According to the extracted skeletons and fork points, we can extract primitive strokes and stroke direction maps for recognition. A simple classifier based on the stroke direction map is presented to recognize regular and rotated characters to verify the ability of the proposed feature extraction for handwritten Chinese character recognition. Several experiments are carried out, and the experimental results show that the proposed approach can easily and effectively extract skeletons and structural features, and works well for handwritten Chinese character recognition.     

Chatter prevention for milling process by acoustic signal feedback

This paper presents how real-time chatter prevention can be realized by feedback of acoustic cutting signal, and the efficacy of the proposed adaptive spindle speed tuning algorithm is verified as well. The conventional approach to avoid chatter is to select a few appropriate operating points according to the stability lobes by experiments and then always use these preset cutting conditions. For most cases, the tremble measurement, obtained by accelerometers or dynamometers, is merely to monitor spindle vibration or detect the cutting force, respectively. In fact, these on-line measures can be more useful, instead of always being passive. Furthermore, most of these old-fashioned methodologies are invasive, expensive, and cumbersome at the milling stations. On the contrary, the acoustic cutting signal, which is fed into the data acquisition interface, Module DS1104 by dSPACE, so that an active feedback loop for spindle speed compensation can be easily established in this research, is non-invasive, inexpensive, and convenient to facilitate. In this research, both the acoustic chatter signal index (ACSI) and spindle-speed compensation strategy (SSCS) are proposed to quantify the acoustic signal and compensate the spindle speed, respectively. By converting the acoustic feedback signal into ACSI, an appropriate spindle speed compensation rate (SSCR) can be determined by SSCS based on real-time chatter level. Accordingly, the compensation command, referred to as added-on voltage (AOV), is applied to actively tune the spindle motor speed. By employing commercial software MATLAB/Simulink and DS1104 interface module to implement the intelligent controller, the proposed chatter prevention algorithm is practically verified by intensive experiments. By inspection on the precision and quality of the workpiece surface after milling, the efficacy of the real-time chatter prevention strategy via acoustic signal feedback is further examined and definitely assured.     

Image subband coding using fuzzy inference and adaptive quantization

Wavelet image decomposition generates a hierarchical data structure to represent an image. Recently, a new class of image compression algorithms has been developed for exploiting dependencies between the hierarchical wavelet coefficients using zerotrees. This paper deals with a fuzzy inference filter for image entropy coding by choosing significant coefficients and zerotree roots in the higher frequency wavelet subbands. Moreover, an adaptive quantization is proposed to improve the coding performance. Evaluating with the standard images, the proposed approaches are comparable or superior to most state-of-the-art coders. Based on the fuzzy energy judgment, the proposed approaches can achieve an excellent performance on the combination applications of image compression and watermarking.     

Affine-Transformation-Invariant Public Fragile Watermarking for 3D Model Authentication

We propose a transformation invariant public fragile watermarking scheme for 3D model authentication. The proposed scheme embeds watermarks in a subset a model's faces to keep them in a predefined relationship with neighboring vertices so that any changes will ruin the relationship between the mark faces and neighboring vertices. The proposed scheme has the following advantages: It is invariant to translation, rotation, and uniform scaling operations. These operations do not change the integrity of the original model and should not be regarded as malicious attacks. The proposed method is public— the receiver does not need the original model and watermarks for authentication. It can locate changed regions. Distortion caused by the watermark embedding is controlled by the key settings according to the users' precision requirement. Experimental results show the scheme's effectiveness.