Vision Group Seminar — Department of Computer Science, Queen Mary
University of London
Friday 5th September 11am — Room CS 446
Unified Computation of Strict Maximum Likelihood for Geometric Fitting
Professor Kenichi Kanatani
Department of Computer Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
A new numerical scheme is presented for strictly computing maximum
likelihood (ML) of geometric fitting problems. While conventional
methods first transform the data into a computationally convenient
form and then assume Gaussian noise in the transformed space, our
method assumes Gaussian noise in the original data space. It is shown
that the strict ML solution can be computed by iteratively using
conventional methods. Then, our method is applied to ellipse fitting
and fundamental matrix computation. Our method also encompasses
optimal correction, computing, e.g., perpendiculars to an ellipse and
triangulating stereo images. In the past, such applications have been
studied individually. Our method generalizes them from a unified
point of view. To illustrate the usefulness of our approach, we
elaborate in particular triangulation from multiple images
if time permits.
Short Biography
Kenichi Kanatani was born on August 12, 1947 in Okayama, Japan.
He received his B.S., M.S, and Ph.D. in applied mathematics from
the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1972, 1974, and 1979, respectively.
He joined the Department of Computer Science, Gunma University,
Kiryu, Japan, in April 1979 as Assistant Professor. He became Associate
Professor and Professor there in April 1983 and April 1988,
respectively. From April 2001, he is Professor of Computer Science,
Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
He was a visiting researcher at the University of Maryland, U.S.A.,
the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, the University of Oxford, U.K.,
and INIRA at Rhone Alpes, France.
He is the author of “Group-Theoretical Methods in Image
Understanding” (Springer, 1990), “Geometric Computation for Machine
Vision” (Oxford University Press, 1993) and “Statistical Optimization
for Geometric Computation: Theory and Practice” (Elsevier Science, 1996).
His research career started with studies of theoretical continuum
mechanics (elasticity, plasticity, and fluid) and its application to
mechanics of granular materials such as powder and soil, but his
research interested has shifted to mathematical analysis of images and
3-D reconstruction from images. Currently, he is devoted to mathematical
analysis of statistical reliability of computer vision and optimization
procedures.
He has received many awards, including:
* Best Paper Award of IPSJ (Information Processing Society of
Japan) in 1987
* Telecommunication System Technology Award of the
Telecommunication Advancement Foundation in 1999
* Information Technology Promotion Award of Funai Foundation
for Information Technology in 2005
* Best Paper Award of IEICE (Institute of Electronic,
Information and Communication Engineers) in 2005.
* Information and System Society Activity Service Award of
IEICE (Institute of Electronic, Information and Communication Engineers)
in 2005.
He was elected IEEE Fellow in 2002.