pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Environment Maps Editing using Inverse Rendering and Adversarial Implicit Functions
Authors: Antonio D'Orazio, Davide Sforza, Fabio Pellacini, Iacopo Masi
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Inverse Rendering

Editing High Dynamic Range (HDR) environment maps using an inverse differentiable rendering architecture is a complex inverse problem due to the sparsity of relevant pixels and the challenges in balancing light sources and background. The pixels illuminating the objects are a small fraction of the total image, leading to noise and convergence issues when the optimization directly involves pixel values. HDR images, with pixel values beyond the typical Standard Dynamic Range (SDR), pose additional challenges. Higher learning rates corrupt the background during optimization, while lower learning rates fail to manipulate light sources. Our work introduces a novel method for editing HDR environment maps using a differentiable rendering, addressing sparsity and variance between values. Instead of introducing strong priors that extract the relevant HDR pixels and separate the light sources, or using tricks such as optimizing the HDR image in the log space, we propose to model the optimized environment map with a new variant of implicit neural representations able to handle HDR images. The neural representation is trained with adversarial perturbations over the weights to ensure smooth changes in the output when it receives gradients from the inverse rendering. In this way, we obtain novel and cheap environment maps without relying on latent spaces of expensive generative models, maintaining the original visual consistency. Experimental results demonstrate the method's effectiveness in reconstructing the desired lighting effects while preserving the fidelity of the map and reflections on objects in the scene. Our approach can pave the way to interesting tasks, such as estimating a new environment map given a rendering with novel light sources, maintaining the initial perceptual features, and enabling brush stroke-based editing of existing environment maps.
Rethinking Attention: Polynomial Alternatives to Softmax in Transformers
Authors: Hemanth Saratchandran, Jianqiao Zheng, Yiping Ji, Wenbo Zhang, Simon Lucey
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00

This paper questions whether the strong performance of softmax attention in transformers stems from producing a probability distribution over inputs. Instead, we argue that softmax's effectiveness lies in its implicit regularization of the Frobenius norm of the attention matrix, which stabilizes training. Motivated by this, we explore alternative activations, specifically polynomials, that achieve a similar regularization effect. Our theoretical analysis shows that certain polynomials can serve as effective substitutes for softmax, achieving strong performance across transformer applications despite violating softmax's typical properties of positivity, normalization, and sparsity. Extensive experiments support these findings, offering a new perspective on attention mechanisms.
A Joint Representation Using Continuous and Discrete Features for Cardiovascular Diseases Risk Prediction on Chest CT Scans
Authors: Minfeng Xu, Chen-Chen Fan, Yan-Jie Zhou, Wenchao Guo, Pan Liu, Jing Qi, Le Lu, Hanqing Chao, Kunlun He
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain a leading health concern and contribute significantly to global mortality rates. While clinical advancements have led to a decline in CVD mortality, accurately identifying individuals who could benefit from preventive interventions remains an unsolved challenge in preventive cardiology. Current CVD risk prediction models, recommended by guidelines, are based on limited traditional risk factors or use CT imaging to acquire quantitative biomarkers, and still have limitations in predictive accuracy and applicability. On the other hand, end-to-end trained CVD risk prediction methods leveraging deep learning on CT images often fail to provide transparent and explainable decision grounds for assisting physicians. In this work, we proposed a novel joint representation that integrates discrete quantitative biomarkers and continuous deep features extracted from chest CT scans. Our approach initiated with a deep CVD risk classification model by capturing comprehensive continuous deep learning features while jointly obtaining currently clinical-established quantitative biomarkers via segmentation models. In the feature joint representation stage, we use an instance-wise feature-gated mechanism to align the continuous and discrete features, followed by a soft instance-wise feature interaction mechanism fostering independent and effective feature interaction for the final CVD risk prediction. Our method substantially improves CVD risk predictive performance and offers individual contribution analysis of each biomarker, which is important in assisting physicians' decision-making processes. We validated our method on a public chest low-dose CT dataset and a private external chest standard-dose CT patient cohort of 17,207 CT volumes from 6,393 unique subjects, and demonstrated superior predictive performance, achieving AUCs of 0.875 and 0.843, respectively.
On Model-Free Re-ranking for Visual Place Recognition with Deep Learned Local Features
Authors: Tomáš Pivoňka, Libor Přeučil
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Re-Ranking, Visual Place Recognition

Re-ranking is the second stage of a visual place recognition task, in which the system chooses the best-matching images from a pre-selected subset of candidates. Model-free approaches compute the image pair similarity based on a spatial comparison of corresponding local visual features, eliminating the need for computationally expensive estimation of a model describing transformation between images. The article focuses on model-free re-ranking based on standard local visual features and their applicability in long-term autonomy systems. It introduces three new model-free re-ranking methods that were designed primarily for deep-learned local visual features. These features evince high robustness to various appearance changes, which stands as a crucial property for use with long-term autonomy systems. All the introduced methods were employed in a new visual place recognition system together with the D2-net feature detector (Dusmanu, 2019) and experimentally tested with diverse, challenging public datasets. The obtained results are on par with current state-of-the-art methods, affirming that model-free approaches are a viable and worthwhile path for long-term visual place recognition.
Research on gesture recognition method based on SEDCNN-SVM
Authors: Mingjin Zhang, Jiahao Wang, Jianming Wang, Qi Wang
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, Gesture Recognition

Gesture recognition based on surface electromyographic signal (sEMG) is one of the most used methods. The traditional manual feature extraction can only extract some low-level signal features, this causes poor classifier performance and low recognition accuracy when dealing with some complex signals. A recognition method, namely SEDCNN-SVM, is proposed to recognize sEMG of different gestures. SEDCNN-SVM consists of an improved deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) and a support vector machine (SVM). The DCNN can automatically extract and learn the feature information of sEMG through the convolution operation of the convolutional layer, so that it can capture the complex and high-level features in the data. The Squeeze and Excitation Networks (SE-Net) and the residual module were added to the model, so that the feature representation of each channel could be improved, the loss of feature information in convolutional operations was reduced, useful feature information was captured, and the problem of network gradient vanishing was eased. The SVM can improve the generalization ability and classification accuracy of the model by constructing an optimal hyperplane of the feature space. Hence, the SVM was used to replace the full connection layer and the Softmax function layer of the DCNN, the use of a suitable kernel function in SVM can improve the model's generalization ability and classification accuracy. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed classification algorithm, this method is analyzed and compared with other comparative classification methods. The recognition accuracy of SEDCNN-SVM can reach 0.955, it is significantly improved compared with other classification methods, the SEDCNN-SVM model is recognized online in real time.
Local and Global Graph Modeling with Edge-weighted Graph Attention Network for Handwritten Mathematical Expression Recognition
Authors: Yejing Xie, Richard Zanibbi, Harold Mouchère
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Classification, Edge Classification, Graph Attention, Relation Classification

In this paper, we present a novel approach to Handwritten Mathematical Expression Recognition (HMER) by leveraging graph-based modeling techniques. We introduce an End-to-end model with an Edge-weighted Graph Attention Mechanism (EGAT), designed to perform simultaneous node and edge classification. This model effectively integrates node and edge features, facilitating the prediction of symbol classes and their relationships within mathematical expressions. Additionally, we propose a stroke-level Graph Modeling method for both local (LGM) and global (GGM) information, which applies an end-to-end model to Online HMER tasks, transforming the recognition problem into node and edge classification tasks in graph structure. By capturing both local and global graph features, our method ensures comprehensive understanding of the expression structure. Through the combination of these components, our system demonstrates superior performance in symbol detection, relation classification, and expression-level recognition.
Interpretable Representation Learning from Videos using Nonlinear Priors
Authors: Marian Longa, João F. Henriques
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Representation Learning

Learning interpretable representations of visual data is an important challenge, to make machines' decisions understandable to humans and to improve generalisation outside of the training distribution. To this end, we propose a deep learning framework where one can specify nonlinear priors for videos (e.g. of Newtonian physics) that allow the model to learn interpretable latent variables and use these to generate videos of hypothetical scenarios not observed at training time. We do this by extending the Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) prior from a simple isotropic Gaussian to an arbitrary nonlinear temporal Additive Noise Model (ANM), which can describe a large number of processes (e.g. Newtonian physics). We propose a novel linearization method that constructs a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) approximating the prior, and derive a numerically stable Monte Carlo estimate of the KL divergence between the posterior and prior GMMs. We validate the method on different real-world physics videos including a pendulum, a mass on a spring, a falling object and a pulsar (rotating neutron star). We specify a physical prior for each experiment and show that the correct variables are learned. Once a model is trained, we intervene on it to change different physical variables (such as oscillation amplitude or adding air drag) to generate physically correct videos of hypothetical scenarios that were not observed previously.
SMITE: Segment Me In TimE
Authors: Amirhossein Alimohammadi, Sauradip Nag, Saeid Asgari Taghanaki, Andrea Tagliasacchi, Ghassan Hamarneh, Ali Mahdavi Amiri
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation, Video Object Segmentation, Video Segmentation, Video Semantic Segmentation

Segmenting an object in a video presents significant challenges. Each pixel must be accurately labelled, and these labels must remain consistent across frames. The difficulty increases when the segmentation is with arbitrary granularity, meaning the number of segments can vary arbitrarily, and masks are defined based on only one or a few sample images. In this paper, we address this issue by employing a pre-trained text to image diffusion model supplemented with an additional tracking mechanism. We demonstrate that our approach can effectively manage various segmentation scenarios and outperforms state-of-the-art alternatives.
Beyond Color and Lines: Zero-Shot Style-Specific Image Variations with Coordinated Semantics
Authors: Jinghao Hu, Yuhe Zhang, Guohua Geng, Liuyuxin Yang, JiaRui Yan, Jingtao Cheng, Yadong Zhang, Kang Li
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Image to text, Image-Variation

Traditionally, style has been primarily considered in terms of artistic elements such as colors, brushstrokes, and lighting. However, identical semantic subjects, like people, boats, and houses, can vary significantly across different artistic traditions, indicating that style also encompasses the underlying semantics. Therefore, in this study, we propose a zero-shot scheme for image variation with coordinated semantics. Specifically, our scheme transforms the image-to-image problem into an image-to-text-to-image problem. The image-to-text operation employs vision-language models e.g., BLIP) to generate text describing the content of the input image, including the objects and their positions. Subsequently, the input style keyword is elaborated into a detailed description of this style and then merged with the content text using the reasoning capabilities of ChatGPT. Finally, the text-to-image operation utilizes a Diffusion model to generate images based on the text prompt. To enable the Diffusion model to accommodate more styles, we propose a fine-tuning strategy that injects text and style constraints into cross-attention. This ensures that the output image exhibits similar semantics in the desired style. To validate the performance of the proposed scheme, we constructed a benchmark comprising images of various styles and scenes and introduced two novel metrics. Despite its simplicity, our scheme yields highly plausible results in a zero-shot manner, particularly for generating stylized images with high-fidelity semantics.
Unsupervised semantic segmentation of urban high-density multispectral point clouds
Authors: Oona Oinonen, Lassi Ruoppa, Josef Taher, Matti Lehtomäki, Leena Matikainen, Kirsi Karila, Teemu Hakala, Antero Kukko, Harri Kaartinen, Juha Hyyppä
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Clustering, Semantic Segmentation, Unsupervised Semantic Segmentation

The availability of highly accurate urban airborne laser scanning (ALS) data will increase rapidly in the future, especially as acquisition costs decrease, for example through the use of drones. Current challenges in data processing are related to the limited spectral information and low point density of most ALS datasets. Another challenge will be the growing need for annotated training data, frequently produced by manual processes, to enable semantic interpretation of point clouds. This study proposes to semantically segment new high-density (1200 points per square metre on average) multispectral ALS data with an unsupervised ground-aware deep clustering method GroupSP inspired by the unsupervised GrowSP algorithm. GroupSP divides the scene into superpoints as a preprocessing step. The neural network is trained iteratively by grouping the superpoints and using the grouping assignments as pseudo-labels. The predictions for the unseen data are given by over-segmenting the test set and mapping the predicted classes into ground truth classes manually or with automated majority voting. GroupSP obtained an overall accuracy (oAcc) of 97% and a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 80%. When compared to other unsupervised semantic segmentation methods, GroupSP outperformed GrowSP and non-deep K-means. However, a supervised random forest classifier outperformed GroupSP. The labelling efforts in GroupSP can be minimal; it was shown, that the GroupSP can semantically segment seven urban classes (building, high vegetation, low vegetation, asphalt, rock, football field, and gravel) with oAcc of 95% and mIoU of 75% using only 0.004% of the available annotated points in the mapping assignment. Finally, the multispectral information was examined; adding each new spectral channel improved the mIoU. Additionally, echo deviation was valuable, especially when distinguishing ground-level classes.
A Note on Geometric Calibration of Multiple Cameras and Projectors
Authors: Tomislav Petkovic, Simone Gasparini, Tomislav Pribanic
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00

Geometric calibration of cameras and projectors is an essential step that must be performed before any imaging system can be used. There are many well-known geometric calibration methods for calibrating systems comprised of multiple cameras, but simultaneous geometric calibration of multiple projectors and cameras has received less attention. This leaves unresolved several practical issues which must be considered to achieve the simplicity of use required for real world applications. In this work we discuss several important components of a real-world geometric calibration procedure used in our laboratory to calibrate surface imaging systems comprised of many projectors and cameras. We specifically discuss the design of the calibration object and the image processing pipeline used to analyze it in the acquired images. We also provide quantitative calibration results in the form of reprojection errors and compare them to the classic approaches such as Zhang's calibration method.
Synth4Seg -- Learning Defect Data Synthesis for Defect Segmentation using Bi-level Optimization
Authors: Shancong Mou, Raviteja Vemulapalli, Shiyu Li, Yuxuan Liu, C Thomas, Meng Cao, Haoping Bai, Oncel Tuzel, Ping Huang, Jiulong Shan, Jianjun Shi
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Segmentation

Defect segmentation is crucial for quality control in advanced manufacturing, yet data scarcity poses challenges for state-of-the-art supervised deep learning. Synthetic defect data generation is a popular approach for mitigating data challenges. However, many current methods simply generate defects following a fixed set of rules, which may not directly relate to downstream task performance. This can lead to suboptimal performance and may even hinder the downstream task. To solve this problem, we leverage a novel bi-level optimization-based synthetic defect data generation framework. We use an online synthetic defect generation module grounded in the commonly-used Cut\&Paste framework, and adopt an efficient gradient-based optimization algorithm to solve the bi-level optimization problem. We achieve simultaneous training of the defect segmentation network, and learn various parameters of the data synthesis module by maximizing the validation performance of the trained defect segmentation network. Our experimental results on benchmark datasets under limited data settings show that the proposed bi-level optimization method can be used for learning the most effective locations for pasting synthetic defects thereby improving the segmentation performance by up to 18.3\% when compared to pasting defects at random locations. We also demonstrate up to 2.6\% performance gain by learning the importance weights for different augmentation-specific defect data sources when compared to giving equal importance to all the data sources.
Monge-Ampere Regularization for Learning Arbitrary Shapes from Point Clouds
Authors: Chuanxiang Yang, Yuanfeng Zhou, Guangshun Wei, Long Ma, Junhui Hou, YuAn Liu, Wenping Wang
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00

As commonly used implicit geometry representations, the signed distance function (SDF) is limited to modeling watertight shapes, while the unsigned distance function (UDF) is capable of representing various surfaces. However, its inherent theoretical shortcoming, i.e., the non-differentiability at the zero level set, would result in sub-optimal reconstruction quality. In this paper, we propose the scaled-squared distance function (S$^{2}$DF), a novel implicit surface representation for modeling arbitrary surface types. S$^{2}$DF does not distinguish between inside and outside regions while effectively addressing the non-differentiability issue of UDF at the zero level set. We demonstrate that S$^{2}$DF satisfies a second-order partial differential equation of Monge-Ampere-type, allowing us to develop a learning pipeline that leverages a novel Monge-Ampere regularization to directly learn S$^{2}$DF from raw unoriented point clouds without supervision from ground-truth S$^{2}$DF values. Extensive experiments across multiple datasets show that our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art supervised approaches that require ground-truth surface information as supervision for training. The code will be publicly available at https://github.com/chuanxiang-yang/S2DF.
Learn 2 Rage: Experiencing The Emotional Roller Coaster That Is Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Lachlan Mares, Stefan Podgorski, Ian Reid
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Driving, Autonomous Racing, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

This work presents the experiments and solution outline for our teams winning submission in the Learn To Race Autonomous Racing Virtual Challenge 2022 hosted by AIcrowd. The objective of the Learn-to-Race competition is to push the boundary of autonomous technology, with a focus on achieving the safety benefits of autonomous driving. In the description the competition is framed as a reinforcement learning (RL) challenge. We focused our initial efforts on implementation of Soft Actor Critic (SAC) variants. Our goal was to learn non-trivial control of the race car exclusively from visual and geometric features, directly mapping pixels to control actions. We made suitable modifications to the default reward policy aiming to promote smooth steering and acceleration control. The framework for the competition provided real time simulation, meaning a single episode (learning experience) is measured in minutes. Instead of pursuing parallelisation of episodes we opted to explore a more traditional approach in which the visual perception was processed (via learned operators) and fed into rule-based controllers. Such a system, while not as academically "attractive" as a pixels-to-actions approach, results in a system that requires less training, is more explainable, generalises better and is easily tuned and ultimately out-performed all other agents in the competition by a large margin.
Uncertainty-Error correlations in Evidential Deep Learning models for biomedical segmentation
Authors: Hai Siong Tan, Kuancheng Wang, Rafe McBeth
Date: 2024-10-24 00:00:00
Tasks: Active Learning, Image Segmentation, Segmentation, Semantic Segmentation, Uncertainty Quantification

In this work, we examine the effectiveness of an uncertainty quantification framework known as Evidential Deep Learning applied in the context of biomedical image segmentation. This class of models involves assigning Dirichlet distributions as priors for segmentation labels, and enables a few distinct definitions of model uncertainties. Using the cardiac and prostate MRI images available in the Medical Segmentation Decathlon for validation, we found that Evidential Deep Learning models with U-Net backbones generally yielded superior correlations between prediction errors and uncertainties relative to the conventional baseline equipped with Shannon entropy measure, Monte-Carlo Dropout and Deep Ensemble methods. We also examined these models' effectiveness in active learning, finding that relative to the standard Shannon entropy-based sampling, they yielded higher point-biserial uncertainty-error correlations while attaining similar performances in Dice-Sorensen coefficients. These superior features of EDL models render them well-suited for segmentation tasks that warrant a critical sensitivity in detecting large model errors.