Adding Curvature to Minimum Description Length Shape Models



AbstractThe Minimum Description Length (MDL) approach to shape modelling seeks
a compact description of a set of shapes in terms of the coordinates of marks
on the shapes. It has been shown that the mark positions resulting from this
optimisation to a large extent solve the so-called point correspondence problem:
How to select points on shapes defined as curves so that the points
correspond across a data set. However, this MDL approach does not capture
important shape characteristics related to the curvature of the curves, and occasionally
it places marks in obvious conflict with the human notion of point
correspondence. This paper shows how the MDL approach can be fine-tuned
by adding a term to the cost function expressing the mismatch of curvature
features across the data set. The method is illustrated on silhouettes of adult
heads. The MDL method is able to solve the point correspondence problem
and a classification of the heads into male and female improves dramatically
when using the MDL-generated marks.
Keywordspoint correspondence problem, minimum description length, shape modelling, curvature, face recognition, silhouettes
TypeConference paper [With referee]
ConferenceBritish Machine Vision Conference, BMVC
Year2003    Month September
Electronic version(s)[pdf]
BibTeX data [bibtex]
IMM Group(s)Image Analysis & Computer Graphics