Natural image profiles are most likely to be step edges

TY - JOUR

T1 - Natural image profiles are most likely to be step edges

AU - Griffin, Lewis D.

AU - Lillholm, Martin

AU - Nielsen, Mads

PY - 2004

Y1 - 2004

N2 - We introduce Geometric Texton Theory (GTT), a theory of categorical visual feature classification that arises through consideration of the metamerism that affects families of co-localised linear receptive-field operators. A refinement of GTT that uses maximum likelihood (ML) to resolve this metamerism is presented. We describe a method for discovering the ML element of a metamery class by analysing a database of natural images. We apply the method to the simplest case––the ML element of a canonical metamery class defined by co-registering the location and orientation of profiles from images, and affinely scaling their intensities so that they have identical responses to 1-D, zeroth- and first-order, derivative of Gaussian operators. We find that a step edge is the ML profile. This result is consistent with our proposed theory of feature classification.

AB - We introduce Geometric Texton Theory (GTT), a theory of categorical visual feature classification that arises through consideration of the metamerism that affects families of co-localised linear receptive-field operators. A refinement of GTT that uses maximum likelihood (ML) to resolve this metamerism is presented. We describe a method for discovering the ML element of a metamery class by analysing a database of natural images. We apply the method to the simplest case––the ML element of a canonical metamery class defined by co-registering the location and orientation of profiles from images, and affinely scaling their intensities so that they have identical responses to 1-D, zeroth- and first-order, derivative of Gaussian operators. We find that a step edge is the ML profile. This result is consistent with our proposed theory of feature classification.

U2 - 10.1016/j.visres.2003.09.025

DO - 10.1016/j.visres.2003.09.025

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0042-6989

VL - 44

SP - 407

EP - 421

JO - Vision Research

JF - Vision Research

IS - 4

ER -