Date: 08 Feb 90 19:53:43-PST
From: Vision-List moderator Phil Kahn <Vision-List-Request@ADS.COM>
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Vision-List Digest	Thu Feb 08 19:53:44 PDT 90

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Today's Topics:

 Edge detectors
 Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing
 NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals
 systematic biology & computing workshop

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 1 Feb 90 16:30:17 GMT
From: Robert A Nicholls <ran@doc.imperial.ac.uk>
Subject: Edge detectors
Keywords: Edge Detectors, Canny
Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London

Can anyone point me in the direction of an alternative source of J.Canny's
"Finding Edges and Lines in Images". It was originally a MIT AI Lab Report,
AI-TR-720, 1983. However, I can not find this report, I am sure I have seen
it or a similar article in a journal, though I can't remember which.

If anyone has implemented Canny's algorithms and wouldn't mind e-mailing them 
to me I would be eternally grateful.

I am a third year research student looking at methods of incorporating 
high-level knowledge into image segmentation. 

Thanks for any help,
                   Bob.


------------------------------

Date: Thursday, 8 February 1990 17:06:44 EST
From: Dave.McKeown@maps.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Conference on Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing

                         IAPR TC 7 Workshop on
             Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing

               University of Maryland University College
                       Center of Adult Education
                    College Park, Maryland, U. S. A.

                            June 14-15, 1990

The International Association for Pattern Recognition's Technical 
Committee 7 on Applications in Remote Sensing is organizing a Workshop 
on Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing.  The workshop, which 
is being co-sponsored by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 
Greenbelt, MD, will consist of invited and submitted papers in the 
following areas:

   o Remote-Sensing data sources and their characteristics

   o Integrative methods for across-sensor data registration

   o Gathering, validating and registering of ground reference data

   o Development of multi-source data sets, and

   o The utilization of multi-source data sets in Earth Science 
     applications.

Time will be scheduled for discussing tactics for facilitating the 
exchange of multi-source data sets between investigators.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will publish the Workshop 
Proceedings as a NASA Conference Publication.  The Workshop is scheduled 
so as to feed into the IAPR's 10th International Conference on Pattern 
Recognition, which will be held on June 17-21, 1990 at Atlantic City, 
NJ.  If interest warrants, a bus will be chartered to transport the 
participants from College Park, MD to Atlantic City, NJ after the 
Workshop.

                               Deadlines

     February 28, 1990       Paper summary submission*
     April 1, 1990           Author notification
     June 14, 1990           Camera-ready manuscript due at Workshop

     * 4 page, double spaced paper summary plus a 300 word single spaced 
     abstract on a separate (single) page.  The abstract page should 
     include the paper title, and the name, mailing address, 
     affiliation, phone number, FAX number and electronic mail address 
     (if any) for each author.  Abstracts will be published in final 
     program.

                            Paper Submission

Submit papers to:  Dr. James C. Tilton, Mail Code 636, NASA Goddard 
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, U.S.A.  Phone: (301) 286-9510.  
Fax: (301) 286-3221.  E-Mail: tilton@chrpisis.gsfc.nasa.gov  
(tilton@[128.183.112.25]).

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 18:28:54 EST
From: jose@neuron.siemens.com (Steve Hanson)
Subject: NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals

                           REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
                     NIPS-90 Post-Conference Workshops
                     November 30 and December 1, 1990


       Following the regular NIPS program, workshops on  current  topics
       on  Neural Information Processing will be held on November 30 and
       December 1, 1990, at a ski  resort  near  Denver.   Proposals  by
       qualified   individuals   interested  in  chairing  on  of  these
       workshops are solicited.

       Past topics  have  included:   Rules  and  Connectionist  Models;
          Speech;    Vision;   Neural   Network   Dynamics;   Neurobiology;
          Computational  Complexity  Issues;  Fault  Tolerance  in   Neural
          Networks; Benchmarking and Comparing Neural Network Applications;
          Architectural Issues; Fast Training  Techniques;  VLSI;  Control;
          Optimization, Statistical Inference, Genetic Algorithms.

       The format of the workshop is informal.  Beyond reporting on past
          research,  their  goal  is  to  provide  a  forum  for scientists
          actively working in the field to freely discuss current issues of
          concern  and  interest.  Sessions will meet in the morning and in
          the afternoon of both days, with free time  in  between  for  the
          ongoing individual exchange or outdoor activities.  Specific open
          or controversial issues are encouraged and preferred as  workshop
          topics.   Individuals  interested  in  chairing   a workshop must
          propose a topic of current interest and must be willing to accept
          responsibility for their group's discussion.  Discussion leaders'
          responsibilities include:  arrange brief  informal  presentations
          by   experts   working  on  this  topic,  moderate  or  lead  the
          discussion, and report its high points, findings and  conclusions
          to  the  group during evening plenary sessions, and in a short (2
          page) summary.

       Submission Procedure:  Interested parties should submit  a  short
          proposal  for  a workshop of interest by May 17, 1990.  Proposals
          should include a title  and  a  short  description  of  what  the
          workshop  is  to address and accomplish.  It should state why the
          topic is of interest or controversial, why it should be discussed
          and  what  the  targeted  group of participants is.  In addition,
          please send a brief resume of  the  prospective  workshop  chair,
          list  of publications and evidence of scholarship in the field of
          interest.

       Mail submissions to:
               Dr. Alex Waibel
               Attn: NIPS90 Workshops
               School of Computer Science
               Carnegie Mellon University
               Pittsburgh, PA 15213

          Name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail net address 
	  (if applicable) must be on all submissions.

      Workshop Organizing Committee:

          Alex Waibel, Carnegie-Mellon, Workshop Chairman;
          Kathie Hibbard, University of Colorado, NIPS Local Arrangements;
          Howard Watchel, University of Colorado, Workshop Local Arrangements;

              PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY MAY 17,1990
                             Please Post

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1990 10:54:52 PST
From: "Michael G. Walker" <walker@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: systematic biology & computing workshop

WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: 
 
       Artificial Intelligence and Modern Computer Methods
            in Systematic Biology (ARTISYST Workshop)
 
The Systematic Biology Program of the National Science Foundation is
sponsoring a Workshop on Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, and
Modern Computer Methods in Systematic Biology, to be held September 9
to 14, 1990, at the University of California, Davis.  There will be
about 45 participants representing an even mixture of biologists and
computer scientists.
 
Expenses for participants will be paid, including hotel (paid directly
by the workshop organizers), food (per diem of US $35), and travel
(with a maximum of US $500 for travel expenses).  Attendance at the
workshop is by invitation only.
 
These are the subject areas for the workshop:

  Machine vision and feature extraction applied to systematics. 
  Expert systems, expert workstations and other tools for identification;
  Phylogenetic inference and mapping characters onto tree topologies;
  Literature data extraction and geographical data;
  Scientific workstations for systematics;

  
The workshop will examine state-of-the-art computing methods and
particularly Artificial Intelligence methods and the possibilities
they offer for applications in systematics.  Methods for knowledge
representation as they apply to systematics will be a central focus of
the workshop.  This meeting will provide systematists the opportunity
to make productive contacts with computer scientists interested in
these applications.  It will consist of tutorials, lectures on
problems and approaches in each area, working groups and discussion
periods, and demonstrations of relevant software.
 
Participants will present their previous or proposed research in a
lecture, in a poster session, or in a software demonstration session.
In addition, some participants will present tutorials in their area of
expertise.
 
Preference will be given to applicants who are most likely to continue
active research and teaching in this area.  The Workshop organizers
welcome applications from all qualified biologists and computer
scientists, and strongly encourage women, minorities, and persons with
disabilities to apply.
 
If you are interested in participating, please apply by sending to the
workshop organizers the information suggested below:
 
1) your name, address, telephone number, and electronic mail address;
2) whether you apply as a computer scientist or as a biologist;
3) a short resume; 
4) a description of your previous work related to the workshop topic; 
5) a description of your planned research and how it relates to the workshop;
6) whether you, as a biologist (or as a computer scientist), have
taken or would like to take steps to establish permanent collaboration
with computer scientists (or biologists).  A total of two pages or
less is preferred.  This material will be the primary basis for
selecting workshop participants.
 
If you have software that you would like to demonstrate at the
workshop, please give a brief description, and indicate the hardware
that you need to run the program.  Several PC's and workstations will
be available at the workshop.
 
Mail your completed application to:
 
Renaud Fortuner, ARTISYST Workshop Chairman, 
California Department of Food and Agriculture
Analysis & Identification, room 340
P.O. Box 942871
Sacramento, CA 94271-0001
 
(916) 445-4521
E-mail: rfortuner@ucdavis.edu
 
APPLICATIONS RECEIVED AFTER APRIL 15, 1990 WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED
 
Notification of acceptance of proposal will be made before May 31, 1990 
 
For further information, contact Renaud Fortuner, Michael Walker,
Program Chairman, (Walker@sumex-aim.stanford.edu), or a member of the
steering committee:
 
Jim Diederich, U.C. Davis (dieder@ernie.berkeley.edu)
Jack Milton, U.C. Davis (milton@eclipse.stanford.edu)
Peter Cheeseman, NASA AMES (cheeseman@pluto.arc.nasa.gov)
Eric Horvitz, Stanford University (horvitz@sumex-aim.stanford.edu)
Julian Humphries, Cornell University (lqyy@crnlvax5.bitnet)
George Lauder, U.C Irvine (glauder@UCIvmsa.bitnet)
F. James Rohlf, SUNY (rohlf@sbbiovm.bitnet)
James Woolley, Texas A&M University (woolley@tamento.bitnet)
 
 
The following is a brief description of problems in systematics
related to machine vision. Abstracts for the four other topic areas are
available from Renaud Fortuner or Michael Walker.

 
 
  MACHINE VISION AND FEATURE EXTRACTION APPLIED TO SYSTEMATICS
 
                         F. James Rohlf
 
               Department of Ecology and Evolution
                  State University of New York
                  Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245  
 
 
 
     Most data presently used in systematics are collected through the
visual examination of specimens.  Features are usually found by the
visual comparison of specimens and most measurements are taken
visually.  These activities can be quite time consuming. Thus there is
the potential for saving a systematist's time if appropriate hardware
and software were available that would enable routine measurements to
be made automatically.  This would permit more extensive large- scale
quantitative studies.
 
     But automation is difficult in systematics since the features to
be measured are usually not easily separated from the background,
i.e., the visual scene is often cluttered, and the structures of
interest may not have distinct colors or intensities as in many
industrial applications of image analysis. The problem is especially
difficult for certain groups of organisms.  The problem is further
complicated due to biological variability.  One usually cannot depend
upon homologous structures having consistent geometrical features that
can be used to automatically identify landmarks of interest.  Other
important complications are that most structures of interest are
3-dimensional and that the "texture" of surfaces often contains
taxonomically useful information.  Both aspects are difficult to
capture with presently available hardware and software.
 
     For these reasons present applications of image analysis in
systematics have been quite modest.  In studies where data are
recorded automatically, time is spent simplifying the image.  For
example, structures of interest are physically separated from the rest
of the specimen and placed upon a contrasting plain background so the
outline can be found with little error.  Alternatively, an
investigator can identify structures of interest by pointing to them
with a mouse, watching how a program finds an outline, and them
editing the trace if necessary.  Working from this outline, additional
landmarks can be identified by the operator.  In some cases these
landmarks can be associated with geometrical features of the outline
and it will be possible for the software to help the operator to
accurately locate these points.  Due to the difficulty of solving the
general problems of the automatic analysis of complex biological
scenes, a more immediate goal should be to develop powerful tools that
a systematist can interact with to isolate structures, locate
landmarks, and compute various measurements.  In addition, it would be
desirable for the software to "learn" how to recognize the structures
so that the process will go faster as both the software and the
systematist become more experienced.
 
   Once the structures and landmarks have been found they are usually
recorded so that, if necessary, additional measurements can be made
without having to go back to the original image. These are usually in
the form of x,y-coordinates of landmarks or chain-coded outlines.  For
very large studies, methods to compress this raw descriptive
information need to be used.
 
   The features that are measured are usually the same types of
features that would have been measured by hand -- 2-dimensional
distances between landmarks or angles between pairs of landmarks. In
some studies the features used are parameters from functions (such as
Fourier, cubic splines, Bezier curves) fitted to the shapes of
structures or of entire outlines of organisms.  More work is needed to
develop new types of features and to evaluate the implications of
their use relative to traditional methods.




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End of VISION-LIST
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