This study aimed to better understand visuomotor tracking and spatial visual imagery. 101 Participants performed four tasks: A Manual Tracking Task (MTT), in which participants mouse-tracked the path of a circle, sometimes with occlusion. A Multi-Object Tracking task (MOT), in which participants tracked several objects simultaneously. The Sussex Cognitive Styles Questionnaire (SCSQ), in which participants self-reported their experience with imagery. A Mental Rotation Task (MRT) in which participants mentally rotate Tetris-like objects. The results demonstrated a significant correlation between the technical/spatial subscale of the SCSQ and the occluded MTT, the MRT, the MOT but not the visible MTT. A multiple regression showed that occluded MTT and the MRT together significantly predicted the spatial/technical subscale of the SCSQ above visible MTT and MOT. These findings support the claim that the cognitive resources behind mental imagery may also be recruited during other tasks that arguably draw on the need for internal visualization.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 20 / Hewlett-Packard Brasil Ltda / Este trabalho apresenta um modelo para extrair informações do mundo real, capturadas com a utilização de técnicas de visão computacional, no que tange acompanhamento de indivíduos, com o fim de simular e validar comportamentos de multidões de humanos virtuais. Uma grande dificuldade ao se tentar reproduzir de forma realista (por meio de simulação) o comportamento de uma multidão em um determinado espaço é informar para o modelo de simulação todos os atributos necessários para descrever o movimento das pessoas virtuais. Além das características individuais e coletivas das pessoas poderem produzir uma grande variedade de comportamentos, tornando sua modelagem complexa, o espaço também contém restrições que podem interferir no comportamento das pessoas. Neste trabalho é proposto um modelo onde pessoas do mundo real têm suas trajetórias capturadas de forma automática. Numa etapa de pós-processamento, as trajetórias capturadas são utilizadas para gerar campos de vetores velocidade que serão utilizados para aux / This study presents a model to extract information from the real world using computer vision techniques. In particular, we use tracking algorithms to extract the trajectories of filmed people, aiming to simulate and validate the behavior of virtual human crowds.A great challenge when trying to reproduce in a realistic manner (by means of simulation) the behavior of a crowd in a determined space is to inform to the simulation model all necessary attributes to describe the movement of virtual people. Individual and general features of people can produce a great variety of behaviors, making its modeling complex. Furthermore, the space also contains restrictions that can interfere on people behavior. In this study it is proposed a model in which people from the real world have their trajectories captured in an automatic manner. In a post-processing step, captured trajectories are used to generate velocity fields that will be used to help in the calculation of virtual human movement, providing more realistic s

Les systèmes intelligents sont de plus en plus présents dans notre société à l’instar des systèmes de surveillance et de protection de sites civils ou militaires. Leur but est de détecter les intrus et remonter une alarme ou une menace à un opérateur distant. Dans nos travaux, nous nous intéressons à de tels systèmes avec comme objectif de gérer au mieux la qualité de l’information présentée à l’opérateur en termes de fiabilité et précision. Nous nous concentrons sur la modalité image en vue de gérer des détections à la fois incertaines et imprécises de façon à présenter des objets fiables à l’opérateur.Pour préciser notre problème nous posons les contraintes suivantes. La première est que le système soit modulaire, l’une des briques (ou sous-fonctions) du système étant la détection de fragments correspondant potentiellement à des objets. Notre deuxième contrainte est alors de n’utiliser que des informations issues de la géométrie des détections fragmentaires : localisation spatiale dans l’image et taille des détections. Une menace est alors supposée d’autant plus importante que les détections sont de tailles importantes et temporellement persistantes.Le cadre formel choisi est la théorie des fonctions de croyance qui permet de modéliser des données à la fois imprécises et incertaines. Les contributions de cette thèse concernent la représentation des objets en termes de localisation imprécise et incertaine et le filtrage des objets.La représentation pertinente des informations est un point clé pour les problèmes d’estimation ou la prise de décision. Une bonne représentation se reconnaît au fait qu’en découlent des critères simples et performants pour résoudre des sous-problèmes. La représentation proposée dans cette thèse a été valorisée par le fait qu’un critère d’association entre nouvelles détections (fragments) et objets en construction, a pu être défini d’une façon simple et rigoureuse. Rappelons que cette association est une étape clé pour de nombreux problèmes impliquant des données non étiquettées, ce qui étend notre contribution au-delà de l’application considérée.Le filtrage des données est utilisé dans de nombreuses méthodes ou algorithmes pour robustifier les résultats en s’appuyant sur la redondance attendue des données s’opposant à l’inconsistance du bruit. Nous avons alors formulé ce problème en termes d’estimation dynamique d’un cadre de discernement contenant les ‘vraies hypothèses’. Ce cadre est estimé dynamiquement avec la prise en compte de nouvelles données (ou observations) permettant de détecter deux principaux types d’erreurs : la duplication de certaines hypothèses (objets dans notre application), la présence de fausses alarmes (dues au bruit ou aux fausses détections dans notre cas).Pour finir nous montrons la possibilité de coupler nos briques de construction des objets et de filtrage de ces derniers avec une brique de suivi utilisant des informations plus haut niveau, telle que les algorithmes de tracking classiques de traitement d’image.Mots clés: théorie des fonctions des croyances, association de données, filtrage. / Intelligent systems are more and more present in our society, like the systems of surveillance and civilian or military sites protection. Their purpose is to detect intruders and present the alarms or threats to a distant operator. In our work, we are interested in such systems with the aim to better handle the quality of information presented to the operator in terms of reliability and precision. We focus on the image modality and we have to handle detections that are both uncertain and imprecise in order to present reliable objects to the operator.To specify our problem, we consider the following constraints. The first one is that the system is modular; one subpart of the system is the detection of fragments corresponding potentially to objects. Our second constraint is then to use only information derived from the geometry of these fragmentary detections: spatial location in the image and size of the detections. Then, a threat is supposed all the more important as the detections have an important size and are temporally persistent.The chosen formal framework is the belief functions theory that allows modeling imprecise and uncertain data. The contributions of this thesis deal with the objects representation in terms of imprecise and uncertain location of the objects and object filtering.The pertinent representation of information is a key point for estimation problems and decision making. A representation is good when simple and efficient criteria for the resolution of sub problems can be derived. The representation proposed has allowed us to derive, in a simple and rigorous way, an association criterion between new detections (fragments) and objects under construction. We remind that this association is a key step for several problems with unlabelled data that extends our contribution beyond of the considered application.Data filtering is used in many methods and algorithms to robustify the results using the expected data redundancy versus the noise inconsistency. Then, we formulated our problem in terms of dynamic estimation of a discernment frame including the 'true hypotheses'. This frame is dynamically estimated taking into account the new data (or observations) that allow us to detect two main types of errors, namely the duplication of some hypotheses (objects in our application) and the presence of false alarms (due to noise or false detections in our case).Finally, we show the possibility of coupling our sub-functions dealing with object construction and their filtering with a tracking process using higher level information such as classical tracking algorithm in image processing.Keywords: belief functions theory, data association, filtering.

O rastreamento de objetos em vídeos representa um importante problema na área de processamento de imagens, quer seja pelo grande número de aplicações envolvidas, ou pelo grau de complexidade que pode ser apresentado. Como exemplo de aplicações, podemos citar sua utilização em áreas como robótica móvel, interface homem-máquina, medicina, automação de processo industriais até aplicações mais tracionais como vigilância e monitoramento de trafego. O aumento na complexidade do rastreamento se deve principalmente a interação do objeto rastreado com outros elementos da cena do vídeo, especialmente nos casos de oclusões parciais ou totais. Quando uma oclusão ocorre a informação sobre a localização do objeto durante o rastreamento é perdida parcial ou totalmente. Métodos de filtragem estocástica, utilizados para o rastreamento de objetos, como os Filtros de Partículas não apresentam resultados satisfatórios na presença de oclusões totais, onde temos uma descontinuidade na trajetória do objeto. Portanto torna-se necessário o desenvolvimento de métodos específicos para tratar o problema de oclusão total. Nesse trabalho, nós desenvolvemos uma abordagem para tratar o problema de oclusão total no rastreamento de objetos utilizando Filtro de Partículas baseados em Monte Carlo via Cadeia de Markov (MCCM) com função geradora de partículas adaptativa. Durante o rastreamento do objeto, em situações onde não há oclusões, nós utilizamos uma função de probabilidade geradora simétrica. Entretanto, quando uma oclusão total, ou seja, uma descontinuidade na trajetória é detectada, a função geradora torna-se assimétrica, criando um termo de “inércia” ou “arraste” na direção do deslocamento do objeto. Ao sair da oclusão, o objeto é novamente encontrado e a função geradora volta a ser simétrica novamente. / The object tracking on video is an important task in image processing area either for the great number of involved applications, or for the degree of complexity that can be presented. How example of application, we can cite its use from robotic area, machine-man interface, medicine, automation of industry process to vigilance and traffic control applications. The increase of complexity of tracking is occasioned principally by interaction of tracking object with other objects on video, specially when total or partial occlusions occurs. When a occlusion occur the information about the localization of tracking object is lost partially or totally. Stochastic filtering methods, like Particle Filter do not have satisfactory results in the presence of total occlusions. Total occlusion can be understood like discontinuity in the object trajectory. Therefore is necessary to develop specific method to handle the total occlusion task. In this work, we develop an approach to handle the total occlusion task using MCMC-Particle Filter with adaptive sampling probability function. When there is not occlusions we use a symmetric probability function to sample the particles. However, when there is a total occlusion, a discontinuity in the trajectory is detected, and the probability sampling function becomes asymmetric. This break of symmetry creates a “drift” or “inertial” term in object shift direction. When the tracking object becomes visible (after the occlusion) it is found again and the sampling function come back to be symmetric.

Perceiving or understanding the environment surrounding of a vehicle is a very important step in building driving assistant systems or autonomous vehicles. In this thesis, we study problems of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) with detection, classification and tracking moving objects in context of dynamic outdoor environments focusing on using laser scanner as a main perception sensor. It is believed that if one is able to accomplish these tasks reliably in real time, this will open a vast range of potential automotive applications. The first contribution of this research is made by a grid-based approach to solve both problems of SLAM with detection of moving objects. To correct vehicle location from odometry we introduce a new fast incremental scan matching method that works reliably in dynamic outdoor environments. After good vehicle location is estimated, the surrounding map is updated incrementally and moving objects are detected without a priori knowledge of the targets. Experimental results on datasets collected from different scenarios demonstrate the efficiency of the method. The second contribution follows the first result after a good vehicle localization and a reliable map are obtained. We now focus on moving objects and present a method of simultaneous detection, classification and tracking moving objects. A model-based approach is introduced to interpret the laser measurement sequence over a sliding window of time by hypotheses of moving object trajectories. The data-driven Markov chain Monte Carlo (DDMCMC) technique is used to solve the data association in the spatio-temporal space to effectively find the most likely solution. We test the proposed algorithm on real-life data of urban traffic and present promising results. The third contribution is an integration of our perception module on a real vehicle for a particular safety automotive application, named Pre-Crash. This work has been performed in the framework of the European Project PReVENT-ProFusion in collaboration with Daimler AG. A comprehensive experimental evaluation based on relevant crash and non-crash scenarios is presented which confirms the robustness and reliability of our proposed method.

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Along with rapid development of information technology, all kinds of algorithms have been presented, to achieve significant progress in image tracking. Most methods tend to identify features of moving objects, and filter out background components which do not meet these features. This thesis uses a spatio-temporal planar-resonant filter to accomplish moving object tracking tasks. Under the condition without prior knowledge about features of moving objects, choosing appropriate filter¡¦s parameters is able to enhance the object with a certain moving speed and reduce intensity of objects with different velocities. Nevertheless, this filter cannot solve the problem background filtering. Therefore, a homomorphic filtering with fast optical flow estimation is implemented to identify and separate the background and moving components in dynamic images. This thesis also considers different 3-D bandwidth parameters. To develop a systematic approach to design filter¡¦s parameters for actual implementations.

As a result of everlasting developments in multimedia technologies, all kinds of objects tracking theory using machine vision or image process methods have been proposed. Most of the methods are based on shape of the object. For this reason, the profile of the tracked object must be known in advance. In many situations, we expect to track the object whose shape is unknown but speed or direction is explicit. For instance, speed or moving direction of the object is known. This thesis presents a spatio-temporal tracking technique, which extracts image information depending on speed of the moving object regardless of its shape. Furthermore, combination of the proposed method in spatio-temporal domain and the optical flow scheme makes the whole tracking system even more robust.

Considering todays growing society and developing technologies which are co-influential between each other, there is a larger scope of security concerns, traffic congestion due to improper planning and hence a greater need of more intelligent video surveillance. In this thesis, we have worked on developing such intelligent video surveillance system which mainly focusses on cell area such as parking spaces. The system operates on outdoor environment with a stationary camera; the main objective of this system is detecting and tracking of moving objects mainly cars. Two detection algorithms were developed using optical flow as core strategy. In the first algorithm the flow vectors were classified based on their magnitude and orientation; the GOMAG algorithm. The second algorithm used K-means method on the flow vectors to achieve the classification for moving object detection; the SKMO algorithm. A comparison analysis was done between the proposed algorithms and well known detection algorithms of background modeling and Otsu’s segmentation of flow vectors. The both proposed algorithms performed significantly better than background modeling and Otsu’s segmentation of flow vectors algorithms. The SKMO algorithm showed better stability and processed time efficiency than the GOMAG algorithm.

An intelligent robot must be able to perceive and reason robustly about its world in terms of objects, among other foundational concepts. The robot can draw on rich data for object perception from continuous sensory input, in contrast to the usual formulation that focuses on objects in isolated still images. Additionally, the robot needs multiple object representations to deal with different tasks and/or different classes of objects. We propose the Object Semantic Hierarchy (OSH), which consists of multiple representations with different ontologies. The OSH factors the problems of object perception so that intermediate states of knowledge about an object have natural representations, with relatively easy transitions from less structured to more structured representations. Each layer in the hierarchy builds an explanation of the sensory input stream, in terms of a stochastic model consisting of a deterministic model and an unexplained "noise" term. Each layer is constructed by identifying new invariants from the previous layer. In the final model, the scene is explained in terms of constant background and object models, and low-dimensional dynamic poses of the observer and objects. The OSH contains two types of layers: the Object Layers and the Model Layers. The Object Layers describe how the static background and each foreground object are individuated, and the Model Layers describe how the model for the static background or each foreground object evolves from less structured to more structured representations. Each object or background model contains the following layers: (1) 2D object in 2D space (2D2D): a set of constant 2D object views, and the time-variant 2D object poses, (2) 2D object in 3D space (2D3D): a collection of constant 2D components, with their individual time-variant 3D poses, and (3) 3D object in 3D space (3D3D): the same collection of constant 2D components but with invariant relations among their 3D poses, and the time-variant 3D pose of the object as a whole. In building 2D2D object models, a fundamental problem is to segment out foreground objects in the pixel-level sensory input from the background environment, where motion information is an important cue to perform the segmentation. Traditional approaches for moving object segmentation usually appeal to motion analysis on pure image information without exploiting the robot's motor signals. We observe, however, that the background motion (from the robot's egocentric view) has stronger correlation to the robot's motor signals than the motion of foreground objects. Based on this observation, we propose a novel approach to segmenting moving objects by learning homography and fundamental matrices from motor signals. In building 2D3D and 3D3D object models, estimating camera motion parameters plays a key role. We propose a novel method for camera motion estimation that takes advantage of both planar features and point features and fuses constraints from both homography and essential matrices in a single probabilistic framework. Using planar features greatly improves estimation accuracy over using point features only, and with the help of point features, the solution ambiguity from a planar feature is resolved. Compared to the two classic approaches that apply the constraint of either homography or essential matrix, the proposed method gives more accurate estimation results and avoids the drawbacks of the two approaches. / text