A Cubist Approach to Object Recognition

Randal C. Nelson and Andrea Selinger
Department of Computer Science
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627

Abstract: We describe an appearance-based object recognition system using a keyed, multi-level context representation reminiscent of certain aspects of cubist art. Specifically, we utilize distinctive intermediate-level features in this case automatically extracted 2-D boundary fragments, as keys, which are then verified within a local context, and assembled within a loose global context to evoke an overall percept. This system demonstrates extraordinarly good recognition of a variety of 3-D shapes, ranging from sports cars and fighter planes to snakes and lizards with full orthographic invariance. We report the results of large-scale tests, involving over 2000 separate test images, that evaluate performance with increasing number of items in the database, in the presence of clutter, background change, and occlusion, and also the results of some generic classification experiments where the system is tested on objects never previously seen or modelled. To our knowledge, the results we report are the best in the literature for full-sphere tests of general shapes with occlusion and clutter resistance.