The complete information about contour structures of a gray level image can be encoded by a hierarchical procedure. Continuity of lines and edges is explicitly checked and extended continuous structures are encoded at high levels of a hierarchical contour code (HCC), while less extended details are available at lower levels. Though contour information is processed in seperate spatial frequency channels, correspondence is arranged by the special structure of the code. By this approach, a pattern recognition system may be split into a general purpose front end, encoding the complete contour information of a gray level image, and into a recognition part with top down access to this code, using only as much information as necessary for an unambiguous identification of the scene. This structure is very promising for robot vision applications, as the general purpose coding system can be implemented in real time hardware and as the recognition part is relieved of processing the complete gray level image.

Date Published: 16 February 1984
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 0449, Intelligent Robots: 3rd Intl Conf on Robot Vision and Sensory Controls, (16 February 1984); doi: 10.1117/12.939230

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0449:
Intelligent Robots: 3rd Intl Conf on Robot Vision and Sensory Controls
David P. Casasent; Ernest L. Hall, Editor(s)