This paper proposes a stacked conditional Generative Adversarial Network-based method for Near InfraRed (NIR) imagery colorization. We propose a variant architecture of Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) that uses multiple loss functions over a conditional probabilistic generative model. We show that this new architecture/loss-function yields better generalization and representation of the generated colored IR images. The proposed approach is evaluated on a large test dataset and compared to recent state of the art methods using standard metrics.11Approved for public release; unlimited distribution.

The paper describes the system developed by researchers from MIT for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC), held in June 2013. The VRC was the first competition in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), a program that aims to “develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments”. The VRC required teams to guide a model of Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot, Atlas, through driving, walking, and manipulation tasks in simulation. Team MIT's user interface, the Viewer, provided the operator with a unified representation of all available information. A 3D rendering of the robot depicted its most recently estimated body state with respect to the surrounding environment, represented by point clouds and texture-mapped meshes as sensed by on-board LIDAR and fused over time.

Many computer vision and pattern recognition problems involve the use of finite Gaussian mixture models. Finite mixture model using generalized Dirichlet distribution has been shown as a robust alternative of normal mixtures. In this paper, we adopt a Bayesian approach for generalized Dirichlet mixture estimation and selection. This approach, offers a solid theoretical framework for combining both the statistical model learning and the knowledge acquisition. The estimation of the parameters is based on the Monte Carlo simulation technique of Gibbs sampling mixed with a Metropolis-Hastings step. For the selection of the number of clusters, we used Bayes factors. We have successfully applied the proposed Bayesian framework to model IR eyes. Experimental results are shown to demonstrate the robustness, efficiency, and accuracy of the algorithm.

The paper presents a fusion-tracker and pedestrian classifier for color and thermal cameras. The tracker builds a background model as a multi-modal distribution of colors and temperatures. It is constructed as a particle filter that makes a number of informed reversible transformations to sample the model probability space in order to maximize posterior probability of the scene model. Observation likelihoods of moving objects account their 3D locations with respect to the camera and occlusions by other tracked objects as well as static obstacles. After capturing the coordinates and dimensions of moving objects we apply a pedestrian classifier based on periodic gait analysis. To separate humans from other moving objects, such as cars, we detect, in human gait, a symmetrical double helical pattern, that can then be analyzed using the Frieze Group theory. The results of tracking on color and thermal sequences demonstrate that our algorithm is robust to illumination noise and performs well in the outdoor environments.

Recognition algorithms that use data obtained by imaging faces in the thermal spectrum are promising in achieving invariance to extreme illumination changes that are often present in practice. In this paper we analyze the performance of a recently proposed face recognition algorithm that combines visual and thermal modalities by decision level fusion. We examine (i) the effects of the proposed data preprocessing in each domain, (ii) the contribution to improved recognition of different types of features, (iii) the importance of prescription glasses detection, in the context of both 1-to-N and 1-to-1 matching (recognition vs. verification performance). Finally, we discuss the significance of our results and, in particular, identify a number of limitations of the current state-of-the-art and propose promising directions for future research.

In this paper we propose a log likelihood-ratio function of foreground and background models used in a particle filter to track the eye region in dark-bright pupil image sequences. This model fuses information from both dark and bright pupil images and their difference image into one model. The tracker overcomes the issues of prior selection of static thresholds during the detection of feature observations in the bright-dark difference images. The auto-initialization process is performed using cascaded classifier trained using adaboost and adapted to IR eye images. Experiments show good performance in challenging sequences with test subjects showing large head movements and under significant light changes.

We present an automotive-grade, real-time, vision-based driver state monitor. Upon detecting and tracking the driver's facial features, the system analyzes eye-closures and head pose to infer his/her fatigue or distraction. This information is used to warn the driver and to modulate the actions of other safety systems. The purpose of this monitor is to increase road safety by preventing drivers from falling asleep or from being overly distracted, and to improve the effectiveness of other safety systems.

This article shows cutting-edge computer vision methods employed in advanced vision sensing technologies for medical, safety and security applications, where the human eye represents the object of interest for both the imager and the computer. As the eye scans the environment, or focuses on particular objects in the scene, the processor simultaneously localizes the eye position, tracks its position and movement over time, and infers counter measures such as fatigue level, attention level, and gaze direction in real-time and automatically. The focus of this demonstration is placed on four different algorithms: auto-initialization (RHED), eye position tracking (SIRAT), eye closure recognition (HRA), driver head pose categorization.

Automatic classification of an image as a photograph of a real-scene or as a painting is potentially useful for image retrieval and Web site filtering applications. The main contribution of the paper is the proposition of several features derived from the color, edge, and gray-scale-texture information of the image that effectively discriminate paintings from photographs. For example, we found that paintings contain significantly more pure-color edges, and that certain gray-scale-texture measurements (mean and variance of Gabor filters) are larger for photographs. Using a large set of images (12000) collected from different Web sites, the proposed features exhibit very promising classification performance (over 90%). A comparative analysis of the automatic classification results and psychophysical data is reported, suggesting that the proposed automatic classifier estimates the perceptual photorealism of a given picture.

The appearance of non-rigid objects detected and tracked in video streams is highly variable and therefore makes the identification of similar objects very complex. Furthermore, indexing and searching of them represent a very challenging problem in computer vision. The paper presents a framework for object-based matching that increases the robustness of existing feature detectors used for object recognition. The Gaussian mixture densities are used to model intra-shot variations of observed features of tracked objects. This process is achieved by the expectation maximization algorithm which separates feature distributions given by a tracked object into homogeneous clusters. We use seven different variants of Gaussian mixtures and the Bayes information criterion to identify the best structure of the data (model and parameters). Experiments are conducted on a video sequence of fifteen different tracked objects and comparison in the performance of the mixture approach and the two key-frame methods is analyzed and reported.