Robustly estimating changes in image appearance
We propose a generalized model of image ''appearance change" in which brightness variation over time is represented as a probabilistic mixture of different causes, We define four generative models of appearance change due to (1) object or camera motion: (2) illumination phenomena: (3) specular reflections: and (4) "iconic changes" which are specific to the objects being viewed. These iconic changes include complex occlusion events and changes in the material properties of the objects. We develop a robust statistical framework for recovering these appearance changes in image sequences. This approach generalizes previous work on optical flow to provide a richer description of image events and more reliable estimates of image motion in the presense of shadows and specular reflections. (C) 2000 Academic Press.
specularities iconic change optical flow mixture models outliers probabilistic models illumination change