RI: Toward Shape from Specular Reflections under Real-world Illumination

提案0712956 PI：托德齐克勒机构：哈佛大学标题：RI：走向形状从镜面反射下真实世界illuminationAbstract：恢复形状信息从图像数据是一个中心问题，在计算机视觉，和几十年的研究已经导致了计算工具的发展推断形状从各种视觉线索，包括阴影，纹理，颜色和阴影。形状的一个重要视觉线索是镜面反射。镜面反射（镜面状）表面在自然和人造环境中都很丰富。金属、玻璃、池塘的波浪形表面和上釉的陶瓷是几个例子。镜面反射表面将入射光反射到观察者而没有衰减，并且当它们弯曲时，它们呈现出其照明环境的扭曲版本，其中包含关于其形状的非常丰富的信息。虽然感知研究表明人类利用这种视觉线索，但其潜在机制尚不清楚，并且在现实世界照明下从镜面反射推断形状的计算工具尚不存在。 相反，由于镜面形状与其图像之间的关系的复杂性，先前的分析已被限制到受控的、非自然的环境和/或非常有限类型的表面。该建议通过专门考虑不受控制的真实世界照明条件下的任意光滑表面，从根本上改变了方向。这个看似困难的任务是管理的一种新的方法，有两个关键组成部分：1）考虑远场照明环境中的环境表面的距离是大的相对于表面的浮雕;和2）“镜面流”的分析-密集的运动场的图像平面上的镜面表面和它的环境之间的相对运动。 这种方法在易处理性和实际有效性之间提供了一种独特的平衡，它可能是进一步加深我们对强大视觉线索的理解的关键一步。

Proposal 0712956 PI: Todd ZicklerInstitution: Harvard UniversityTitle: RI: Toward Shape from Specular Reflections under Real-world IlluminationAbstract:The recovery of shape information from image data is a central problem in computer vision, and decades of research have led to the development of computational tools for inferring shape from a variety of visual cues, including shading, texture, color, and shadows. An important visual cue for shape is specular reflection. Specular(mirror-like) surfaces are abundant in both natural and man-made environments. Metal, glass, the wavy surface of a pond, and glazed ceramics are a few examples. Specular surfaces reflect incident light toward an observer without attenuation, and when they are curved, they present a distorted version of their illumination environment that contains very rich information about their shape. While perceptual studies suggest that humans make use of this visual cue, the underlying mechanisms are not yet known, and computational tools for inferring shape from specular reflections under real-world illumination do not yet exist. Instead, due to the complexity of the relationship between a specular shape and its images, previous analysis has been limited to controlled, unnatural environments and/or very limited types of surfaces. This proposal moves in a fundamentally different direction by specifically considering arbitrary smooth surfaces in uncontrolled, real-world illumination conditions. This seemingly difficult task is made manageable by a novel approach with two key components: 1) the consideration of far-field illumination environments in which the environment-surface distance is large relative to the relief of the surface; and 2) the analysis of ``specular flow''---the dense motion field on the image plane that is induced by the relative movement between a specular surface and its environment. This approach provides a unique balance between tractability and practical validity, and it may be a pivotal step in furthering our understanding of a powerful visual cue.Progress reports for this project will be regularly updated at http:\\www.eecs.harvard.edu\~zickler