Integrating vision modules with coupled MRFs

Abstract

I outline a project for integrating several early visual modalities based on coupled Markov Random Fields models of the physical processes underlying image formation, such as depth, albedo and orientation of surfaces. The key ideas are: a) to use as input data estimates of the various processes and their discontinuities, computed by several different algorithms. b) to implement with MRFs the physical and geometrical constraints of local "continuity" of the processes and of their discontinuities. Processes are coupled to each other: the most common form of coupling is a veto — one process vetoing another — as in the case of discontinuities and the associated continuous field.