New digital image processing and recognition methods, implementation techniques and advanced applications (television, remote sensing, biomedicine, traffic, inspection, robotics, etc.) are presented in this volume. Novel approaches (i.e. digital filters, source coding, neural networks etc.) for solving 2-D and 3-D problems are described. Many papers focus on the motion estimation and tracking recognition of moving objects. The increasingly important field of Cultural Heritage is also covered. Some papers are more theoretical or of review nature, while others contain new implementations and applications. Generally the book presents - for the above outlined area - the state of the art (theory, implementation, applications) with future trends.This book will be of interest not only to researchers, professors and students in university departments of engineering, communications, computers and automatic control, but also to engineers and managers of industries concerned with computer vision, manufacturing, automation, robotics and quality control.

In the area of Digital Image Processing the new area of "Time-Varying Image Processing and Moving Oject Recognition" is contributing to impressive advances in several fields. Presented in this volume are new digital image processing and recognition methods, implementation techniques and advanced applications such as television, remote sensing, biomedicine, traffic, inspection, and robotics. New approaches (such as digital transforms, neural networks) for solving 2-D and 3-D problems are described. Many papers concentrate on motion estimation and recognition i.e. tracking of moving objects. Overall, the book describes the state-of-the-art (theory, implementation, applications) of this developing area, together with future trends. The work will be of interest not only to researchers, professors and students in university departments of engineering, communications, computers and automatic control, but also to engineers and managers of industries concerned with computer vision, manufacturing, automation, robotics and quality control.

The new specific area of Time-Varying Image Processing and Moving Object Recognition is attracting increasing interest. This new area is contributing to impressive advances in several fields, such as communications, radar-sonar systems, remote sensing, biomedicine, moving vehicle recognition-tracking, traffic monitoring, automatic inspection and robotics. This volume provides an authoritative and timely review on the latest scientific and technical advances in this area. New digital image processing and recognition methods, implementation techniques and advanced applications are presented. New approaches for solving 3-D problems are described, with particular reference to the recognition and tracking of moving objects. The contributions in this volume, written by internationally renowned experts, will provide both a stimulus for future research in this field as well as useful reference material for many years to come.

For some time, all branches of the military have used a wide range of sensors to provide data for many purposes, including surveillance, reconnoitring, target detection and battle damage assessment. Many nations have also attempted to utilise these sensors for civilian applications, such as crop monitoring, agricultural disease tracking, environmental diagnostics, cartography, ocean temperature profiling, urban planning, and the characterisation of the Ozone Hole above Antarctica. The recent convergence of several important technologies has made possible new, advanced, high performance, sensor based applications relying on the near-simultaneous fusion of data from an ensemble of different types of sensors. The book examines the underlying principles of sensor operation and data fusion, the techniques and technologies that enable the process, including the operation of 'fusion engines'. Fundamental theory and the enabling technologies of data fusion are presented in a systematic and accessible manner. Applications are discussed in the areas of medicine, meteorology, BDA and targeting, transportation, cartography, the environment, agriculture, and manufacturing and process control.

This book is the outcome of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Machine Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering for Robotic Applications held at Maratea, Italy in May 1986. Attendance of the workshop was by invitation only. Most of the participants and speakers are recognized leaders in the field, representing industry, government and academic c0mrnunity worldwide. The focus of the workshop was to review the recent advances of machine intelligence and knowledge engineering for robotic appli cations. It covers five main areas of interest. They are grouped into five sections: 1. Robot Vision 2. Knowledge Representation and Image Understanding 3. Robot Control and Inference Systems 4. Task Planning and Expert Systems 5. Software/Hardware Systems Also included in this book are a paper from the Poster Session and a brief report of the panel discussion on the Future Direction in Knowledge-Based Robotics. Section I of this book consists of four papers. It begins with a review of the basic concepts of computer vision, with emphasis on techniques specific for robot vision systems. The next paper pre sents a comprehensive 3-D vision system for robotic application.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP'93), held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 1993. Formerly, the events in this biennial conference series were thought as a forum where East European researchers and professionals from academia and industry had an opportunity to discuss their results and ideas with Western colleagues active in image processing and pattern recognition. Now, CAIP'93 has a much more international scope, and in the future these conferences will not any longertake place only in East European countries, but roam throughout whole Europe. Besides invited talks by Belikova, Gimel'farb, Haralick and Roska, the volume contains 114 contributions, either presented as lectures or posters and carefully selected by a highly competent international program committee from a total of some 230 submissions; thus the book gives a thorough survey on recent research results and their applications in image processing and pattern recognition. The proceedings is organized in 20 sections, for example on image data structures, image processing, edges and contours, Hough transforms and related methods, shape, motion, 3-D vision, character recognition and document processing, biomedical applications, industrial applications, and neural networks.

Advanced Video-Based Surveillance Systems presents second generation surveillance systems that automatically process large sets of signals for performance monitoring tasks. Included is coverage of different architecture designs, customization of surveillance architecture for end-users, advances in the processing of imaging sequences, security systems, sensors, and remote monitoring projects. Examples are provided of surveillance applications in highway traffic control, subway stations, wireless communications, and other areas. This work will be of interest to researchers in image processing, computer vision, digital signal processing, and telecommunications.

Digital image sequences (including digital video) are increasingly common and important components in technical applications ranging from medical imaging and multimedia communications to autonomous vehicle navigation. The immense popularity of DVD video and the introduction of digital television make digital video ubiquitous in the consumer domain. Digital Image Sequence Processing, Compression, and Analysis provides an overview of the current state of the field, as analyzed by leading researchers. An invaluable resource for planning and conducting research in this area, the book conveys a unified view of potential directions for further industrial development. It offers an in-depth treatment of the latest perspectives on processing, compression, and analysis of digital image sequences. Research involving digital image sequences remains extremely active. The advent of economical sequence acquisition, storage, and display devices, together with the availability of computing power, opens new areas of opportunity. This volume delivers the background necessary to understand the strengths and weaknesses of current techniques and the directions that consumer and technical applications may take over the coming decade.

The new multimedia standards (for example, MPEG-21) facilitate the seamless integration of multiple modalities into interoperable multimedia frameworks, transforming the way people work and interact with multimedia data. These key technologies and multimedia solutions interact and collaborate with each other in increasingly effective ways, contributing to the multimedia revolution and having a significant impact across a wide spectrum of consumer, business, healthcare, education and governmental domains. This book aims to provide a complete coverage of the areas outlined and to bring together the researchers from academic and industry as well as practitioners to share ideas, challenges and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of this field.