Minimum length in the tangent bundle as a model for curve completion

The phenomenon of visual curve completion, where the visual system completes the missing part (e.g., due to occlusion) between two contour fragments, is a major problem in perceptual organization research. Previous computational approaches for the shape of the completed curve typically follow formal descriptions of desired, image-based perceptual properties (e.g, minimum total curvature, roundedness, etc...). Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to determine such desired properties psychophysically and indeed there is no consensus in the literature for what they should be. Instead, in this paper we suggest to exploit the fact that curve completion occurs in early vision in order to formalize the problem in a space that explicitly abstracts the primary vitex. We first argue that a suitable abstraction is the unit tangent bundle R2 × S1 and then we show that a basic principle of “minimum energy consumption” in this space, namely a minimum length completion, entails desired per...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Guy Ben-Yosef, Ohad Ben Shahar
• Keywords: Computer Vision, Curve Completion, CVPR 2010, Perceptual Properties, Visual Curve Completion