Apparatus and Method for Image Labeling

• US 20080310717A1
• Filed: 01/29/2007
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Motorola Mobility, Inc. (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Staab, Steffen, Saathoff, Carsten
• Application Number:
  US12/160,448
• Publication Number:
  US 20080310717A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/00 Image analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/187 involving region growing; involving region merging; involving connected component labelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/267 by performing operations on regions, e.g. growing, shrinking or watersheds
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/457 by analysing connectivity, e.g. edge linking, connected component analysis or slices

Abstract

An apparatus for labelling images comprises a segmentation processor (103) which segments an image into image segments. A segment label processor (105) assigns segment labels to the image segments and a relation processor (107) determines segment relations for the image segments. A CRP model processor (109) generates a Constraint Reasoning Problem model which has variables corresponding to the image segments and constraints reflecting the image segment relations. Each variable of the model has a domain comprising image segment labels assigned to an image segment of the variable. A CRP processor (111) then generates image labelling for the image by solving the Constraint Reasoning Problem model. The invention may allow improved automated labelling of images.

Claims

1. An apparatus for labelling images, the apparatus comprising:

means for segmenting an image into image segments;

assignment means for assigning segment labels to the image segments;

means for determining segment relations for the image segments;

model means for generating a Constraint Reasoning Problem model having variables corresponding to the image segments and constraints reflecting the image segment relations, each variable having a domain comprising image segment labels assigned to an image segment of the variable; and

means for generating image labelling for the image by solving the Constraint Reasoning Problem model.

2. The apparatus claimed in claim 1 wherein the image segment relations comprise spatial relations.

3. The apparatus claimed in claim 2 wherein the spatial relations comprise relative spatial relations.

4. The apparatus claimed in claim 2 wherein the spatial relations comprise absolute spatial relations.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the model means is arranged to determine the constraints in response to the segment relations and image domain data.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the assignment means is arranged to assign reliability indications for the segment labels.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the Constraint Reasoning Problem model is a fuzzy logic Constraint Reasoning Problem model.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising merging means for merging segments in response to the image labelling.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein segments are merged in response to an adjacency criterion.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein segments are merged in response to a segment labelling criterion.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the segment labelling criterion requires that all segments being merged have corresponding labels in all solutions of the Constraint Reasoning Problem model.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising means for selecting between solutions of the Constraint Reasoning Problem model in response to a user input.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 the apparatus is arranged to iterate a labelling of an image.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the image labelling comprises one or more solutions to the Constraint Reasoning Problem model, each solution comprising a segment label for each segment selected from the domain of the segment.

15. A method of labelling images, the method comprising:

segmenting an image into image segments;

assigning segment labels to the image segments;

determining segment relations for the image segments;

generating a Constraint Reasoning Problem model having variables corresponding to the image segments and constraints reflecting the image segment relations, each variable having a domain comprising image segment labels assigned to an image segment of the variable; and

generating image labelling for the image by solving the Constraint Reasoning Problem model.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the steps are iterated.