Feature Space Design for Statistical Image Recognition with Image Screening

Koichi ARIMURA, Norihiro HAGITA

Summary :

This paper proposes a design method of feature spaces in a two-stage image recognition method that improves the recognition accuracy and efficiency in statistical image recognition. The two stages are (1) image screening and (2) image recognition. Statistical image recognition methods require a lot of calculations for spatially matching between subimages and reference patterns of the specified objects to be detected in input images. Our image screening method is effective in lowering the calculation load and improving recognition accuracy. This method selects a candidate set of subimages similar to those in the object class by using a lower dimensional feature vector, while rejecting the rest. Since a set of selected subimages is recognized by using a higher dimensional feature vector, overall recognition efficiency is improved. The classifier for recognition is designed from the selected subimages and also improves recognition accuracy, since the selected subimages are less contaminated than the originals. Even when conventional recognition methods based on linear transformation algorithms, i. e. principal component analysis (PCA) and projection pursuit (PP), are applied to the recognition stage in our method, recognition accuracy and efficiency may be improved. A new criterion, called a screening criterion, for measuring overall efficiency and accuracy of image recognition is introduced to efficiently design the feature spaces of image screening and recognition. The feature space for image screening are empirically designed subject to taking the lower number of dimensions for the feature space referred to as L_S and the larger value of the screening criterion. Then, the recognition feature space which number of dimensions is referred to as L_R is designed under the condition L_SL_R. The two detection tasks were conducted in order to examine the performance of image screening. One task is to detect the eye- and-mouth-areas in a face image and the other is to detect the text-area in a document image. The experimental results demonstrate that image screening for these two tasks improves both recognition accuracy and throughput when compared to the conventional one-stage recognition method.

• Publication: IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E81-D No.1 pp.88-93
• Publication Date: 1998/01/25
• Category: Image Processing,Computer Graphics and Pattern Recognition

Authors

Koichi ARIMURA
Norihiro HAGITA

Keyword

statistical image recognition,  principal component analysis (PCA),  projection pursuit,  face image analysis,  document image analysis