Skip to main content
Log in

Active tracking of foveated feature clusters using affine structure

  • Published:
International Journal of Computer Vision Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We describe a novel method of obtaining a fixation point on a moving object for a real-time gaze control system. The method makes use of a real-time implementation of a corner detector and tracker and reconstructs the image position of the desired fixation point from a cluster of corners detected on the object using the affine structure available from two or three views. The method is fast, reliable, viewpoint invariant, and insensitive to occlusion and/or individual corner dropout or reappearance. We compare two- and three-dimensional forms of the algorithm, present results for the method in use with a high performance head/eye platform, and compare the results with two naive fixation methods.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aloimonos, J., Weiss, I. and Bandyopadhyay, A. 1987. Active vision. In Proc. 1st Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, London, pages 35–54. IEEE Computer Society Press.

  • Bar-Shalom, Y. and Fortmann, T. E., 1988. Tracking and Data Association. Academic Press.

  • Blake, A., Curven, R. and Zisserman, A. 1993. A framework for spatiotemporal control in the tracking of visual contours. International Journal of Computer Vision, 11(2):127–146, October.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradshaw, K. J., McLauchlan, P. F., Reid, I. D. and Murray, D. W. 1993. Saccade and pursuit on an active head/eye platform. In J. Illingworth, editor, Proc. 4th British Machine Vision Conf., Guildford, BMVA Press. J. Image and Vision Computing (Special Issue on PMVC '93), 12(3): 155–163.

  • Brady, J. M. and Wang, H. 1992. Vision for mobile robots. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 337:341–350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brady, J. M., Wang, H. and Shapiro, L. 1992. Video-rate detection and tracking of coplanar objects for visual navigation. In Proc. 2nd Int'l Conf. Automation, Robotics and Computer Vision.

  • Clark, J. J. and Ferrier, N. J. 1988. Modal control of an attentive vision system. In Proc. 2nd Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, Tampa, pages 514–523. IEEE Computer Society Press.

  • Coombs, D. J. and Brown, C. M. 1993. Real-time binocular smooth pursuit. International Journal of Computer Vision, 11(2): 147–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demey, S., Zisserman A. and Beardsley, P. 1992. Affine and projective structure from motion. In D. Hogg and R. Boyle, editors, Proc. 3rd British Machine Vision Conf., Leeds, pages 49–58. Springer-Verlag.

  • Deriche, R. and Giraudon, G. 1990. Accurate corner detection: An analytical study. In Proc. 3rd. Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, Osaka, pages 66–70, Washington, DC IEEE Computer Society Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Espiau, B., Chaumette, F. and Rives, P. 1992. A new approach to visual seryoing in robotics. IEEE Trans. Robotics and Automation, 8(3):313–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faugeras, O. D. 1992. What can be seen in three dimensions with an uncalibrated stereo rig? In: G. Sandini, editor, Proc. 2nd European Conf. on Computer Vision, Santa Margharita Ligure, Italy, pages 563–578. Springer-Verlag.

  • Fermüller, C. and Aloimonos, J. 1993. The role of fixation in visual motion analysis. International Journal of Computer Vision, 11(2):165–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golub, G. H. and vanLoan, C. F. 1989. Matrix Computations. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, C. J. and Stephens, M. 1988. A combined corner and edge detector. In Proc. 4th Alvey Vision Conf., Manchester, pages 147–151.

  • Householder, A.S. and Young, G. 1938. Matrix approximations and latent roots. American Mathematical Monthly, 45:165–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hubel, D. H. 1988. Eye, brain and vision. Scientific American Library

  • Inoue, H., Tachikawa, T. and Inaba, M. 1992. Robot vision system with a correlation chip for real-time tracking, optical flow and depth map generation. In Proc. IEEE Int'l Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pages 1621–1626.

  • Koenderink, J. J. and vanDoorn, A. J. 1991. Affine structure from motion. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A, 8(2):377–385.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maru, N. Kase, H. Yamada, S. Nishikawa, A. and Miyazaki, F. 1993. Manipulator control by visual servoing with the stereo vision. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages 1865–1870.

  • McLauchlan, P. F., Reid, I. D. and Murray, D. W. 1992. Coarse motion for saccade control. In D. Hogg and R. Boyle, editors, Proc. 3rd British Machine Vision Conf., Leeds, pages 357–366. Springer-Verlag.

  • McLauchlan, P.F., Reid, I.D. and Murray, D.W. 1994. Recursive affine structure and motion from image sequences. In Proc. 3rd European Conf. on Computer Vision (vol. 1), Stockholm, pages 217–224. Springer-Verlag.

  • Mundy, J. L. and Zisserman, A. P., editors. 1992. Geometric Invariance in Computer Vision. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D. W., Bradshaw, K. J., McLauchlan, P. F., Reid, I. D. and Sharkey, P. M. 1995. Driving saccade to pursuit using image motion. International Journal of Computer Vision, 16(3):205–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D. W. and Buxton, B. F. 1991. Experiments in the Machine Interpretation of Visual Motion MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D. W., McLauchlan, P. F., Reid, I. D. and Sharkey, P. M. 1993. Reactions to peripheral image motion using a head/eye platform. In Proc. 4th Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, Berlin, pages 403–411, Los Alamitos, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, H.-H. 1983. Displacement vector derived from second order intensity variations in image sequences. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing, 21:85–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson, T. J., and Coombs, D. J. 1991. Real-time vergence control for binocular robots. International Journal of Computer Vision, 7(1):67–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pahlavan, K., Eklundh, J. O. and Uhlin, T. 1992. Integrating primary ocular processes. In G. Sandini, editor, Proc. 2nd European Conf. on Computer Vision, Santa Margharita Ligure, Italy, pages 526–541. Springer-Verlag.

  • Pahlavan, K., Uhlin, T. and Eklundh, 1993. Dynamic fixation. In Proc. 4th Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, Berlin, pages 412–419, Los Alamitos, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poelman, C. and Kanade, T. 1994. A paraperspective factorization method for shape and motion recovery. In Proc. 3rd European Conf. on Computer Vision (vol. 2), Stockholm, pages 97–108. Springer-Verlag.

  • Quan, L. and Mohr, R. 1991. Towards structure from motion for linear features through reference points. In Proc. IEEE Workshop on Visual Motion.

  • Reid, I. D., Murray, D. W. and Bradshaw, K. J., 1994. Towards active exploration of static and dynamic scene geometry. In Proc. IEEE Int'l Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Diego CA, pages 718–723. IEEE Computer Society Press.

  • Robinson, D. A. 1988. Why visuomotor systems don't like negative feedback and how to avoid it. In M. A.Arbib and A. R.Hanson, editors, Vision, Brain and Cooperative Computation, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samson, C. Espiau, B. and LeBorgne, M. 1991. Robot control: the task function approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, L. S., Wang, H. and Brady, J. M. 1992. A matching and tracking strategy for independently moving objects. In D. Hogg and R. Boyle, editors, Proc. 3rd British Machine Vision Conf., Leeds, pages 306–315. Springer-Verlag.

  • Shapiro, L.S., Zisserman, A. and Brady, J.M. 1994. Motion from point matches using affine epipolar geometry. In Proc 3rd European Conf. on Computer Vision (vol. 2), Stockholm, pages 73–84. Springer-Verlag.

  • Sharkey, P. M., Murray, D. W., Vandevelde, S., Reid, I. D. and McLauchlan, P. F. 1993. A modular head/eye platform for real-time reactive vision. Mechatronics, 3(4): 517–535.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasi, C. and Kanade, T. 1992. Shape and motion from image streams under orthography: A factorization approach. International Journal of Computer Vision, 9(2):137–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullman, S. and Basri, R. 1991. Recognition by linear combinations of models. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 13(10):992–1006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, H. and Brady, J. M. 1991. Corner detection for 3D vision using array processors. In Proc. BARNAIMAGE-91, Barcelona. Springer-Verlag.

  • Wavering, A. J., Fiala, J. C., Roberts, K. J. and Lumia, R. 1993. Triclops: a high performance trinocular active vision system. In Proc. IEEE Int'l Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pages 410–417, Atlanta.

  • Weinshall, D. and Tomasi, C., 1993. Linear and increamental acquisition of invariant shape models from image sequences. In Proc. 4th Int'l Conf. on Computer Vision, Berlin, pages 675–682, Los Alamitos, CA, 1993. IEEE Computer Society Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reid, I.D., Murray, D.W. Active tracking of foveated feature clusters using affine structure. Int J Comput Vision 18, 41–60 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126139

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00126139

Keywords

Navigation