RI: III: Small: IInterlinking Image Collections

数码相机的可获得性、网络的改进以及内存成本的降低使得捕获、共享和存储大量图像集合变得容易。通过密集采样，这些捕获的图像之间有许多联系和关联，因为它们有效地记录了相同或视觉上相似的对象。这个项目的目标是大规模地建立这样的链接图像网络，以图形或称为图像网的简单复合体的形式存储图像之间的关系，研究这些网络的特性，并将它们用于各种应用。基于图像内容分析在图像部分之间建立链接，并在数百万图像的尺度上这样做，是一项计算要求很高的任务。由于对所有图像对都这样做是不切实际的，因此开发了用于尝试仅在以下两个图像对之间建立链接的技术：(1)可能存在链接，以及(2)该链接实质上增加了关于特定Web的连接性的已知情况。更深入地理解作为拓扑复合体的图像网络的全局结构有助于该链接预测过程。开发了有效导航这些大型建筑物并在其上构建有用地图的方法。通过在这个庞大的网络中传递信息，整合与图像相关的更多符号信息是可能的。该项目具有高度跨学科的性质，将传统上用于信号处理和图像分析的连续应用数学的技术与离散数学和网络理论的方法相结合。

The availability of digital cameras, improved networking, and the diminishing cost of memory has made it easy to capture, share, and store large image collections. With dense sampling, there are many connections and correlations among these captured images, as they effectively record the same or visually similar objects. This project aims to build such networks of linked images on a large scale, store the inter-image relationships in the form of a graph or simplicial complexes called Image Webs, study the properties of these networks, and exploit them for a variety of applications.Establishing links between parts of images based on image content analysis, and doing so on the scale of millions of images, is a computationally demanding task. Since it is impractical to do this for all image pairs, techniques are developed for attempting to establish links only between pairs for which (1) a link is likely to exist and, (2) the link adds substantially to what is already known about the connectivity of a particular Web. A deeper understanding of the global structure of image webs as topological complexes can aid this link prediction process. Methods are developed for effectively navigating these large structures and for constructing useful maps over them. Integration with more symbolic information associated with images is possible by transferring information around in this vast network.The project is of a highly interdisciplinary nature, combining techniques from continuous applied mathematics, traditionally used in signal processing and image analysis, with methods from discrete mathematics and network theory.