Image classification with a five band camera

Introduction

Image classification is a central topic in computer vision in which images are lumped into categories via comparison and prediction. Many state-of-the-art classification systems follow a somewhat ubiquitous procedure of feature extraction via dense grid descriptor sampling, coding into higher dimensions, pooling, and finally classification. Integrated computer vision techniques like object and scene recognition are also gaining traction in consumer-grade electronics. Two now common examples of this in digital cameras are (1) scene recognition, in which the appropriate aperture, shutter speed, and nonlinear gamma settings are selected and (2) face detection, which is used to determine the appropriate autofocus parameters and locations for redeye removal.

Aside from pure software-based developments, data acquisition is central to the heart of this problem. Most silicon based digital camera sensors use CCD or CMOS sensor chips that are inherently sensitive to a broad spectrum of light, starting at short visible wavelengths, and reaching into the near-infrared. Many of these sensors have a series of filters that discretize or remove light, ending with three channels of digital data, each corresponding to an RGB color channel: red, green or blue. Such cameras are often termed "three band". It is argued here that a camera with more sensitivity over a broader spectrum of wavelengths could be helpful to many computer vision techniques.

To test this hypothesis, a set of 72 images of four different pieces of fruit were taken on a prototype Olympus brand five band camera donated to Stanford's Center for Image Systems Engineering (SCIEN) lab, sampled using SIFT feature descriptors, and compared using RANSAC.

Background

In 2011, Brown and Susstrunk [1] used a modified single lens reflex (SLR) camera to capture several hundred three band color and NIR image pairs to show that the addition of NIR image information leads to significantly improved performance in scene recognition tasks. The authors tested multiple feature descriptors in their analysis, including color-specific SIFT, multispectral SIFT, GIST (feature descriptors generated using three scales and eight orientations per scale), and HMAX (a hierarchy of filtering and max-pooling operations computed independently and concatenated for each band). In each case, the authors found a general trend that adding more information lead to better recognition performance, and that the SIFT based descriptors showed the greatest improvements (recognition rates of 59.6% vs. 73.1% for RGB versus RGB + NIR, respectively).

In 2012, Namin and Petersson [2] presented a method of distinguishing between different materials occurring in natural scenes using a seven band camera. Instead of using SIFT for object detection and localization, the authors used a texture based approach considering Fourier spectrum features from gray-level co-occurrence matrices (GLCMs), and classifiers built using support vector machines (SVM) and AdaBoost. Such an approach considers the entire image as one class of data, such as an image of grass or bushes, rather than identifying certain objects in an image. They found that adding extra spectral information helped them discriminate properties better, achieving an average classification accuracy of 91.9% and 89.1%, respectively for a ten class problem.

In support of recent success of image classification using multispectral imaging, many groups have begun adapting commonly used techniques for multi-band image data. For example, groups Saleem and Sablatnig [3] Xiao, Wu, and Yuan [4] developed adapted feature sampling and extraction techniques for multi-band images. As another example, groups Raja and Kolekar [5] and Salamanti, Germain, and Susstrunk [6] both developed improved shadow removal and image restoration techniques based on the use of extra spectral information.

Methods

Instruments

The camera used in this experiment was a prototype five band camera donated to our lab from Olympus. Due to it being a prototype, there are many unknowns about the camera, but we do know a few details. The sensor itself has a size of 1920 x 1080 pixels with a depth of 12 bits. When positioning, aiming, and focusing the camera, we were able to use all of its pixels in "1080P mode" using feedback from the preview software on the connected laptop. However, during data acquisition, the saved images were only 1280 x 720 per channel.

Raw files generated from the Matlab acquisition software are linear (meaning they have no gamma transform), 12-bit arrays with five channels per pixel. Each pixel measures one color (red, green, blue, orange, or cyan) based on its position in the color filter array. The demosaicing operation is unknown, but it is known that it can take in 12-bit data and returns 16-bit upscaled data. This data is then scaled down to 8-bits for RGB image formation.

The camera's spectral sensitivities were supplied with the camera, and unsurprisingly indicate highest peak sensitivity for the green channel and lowest peak sensitivity for the blue channel. Usable sensitivity values begin at about 450nm (with the exception of the blue sensor, which seems to extend beyond the 380nm limit to the data supplied) and end at about 680nm. It is also important to note just how much overlap there is between the green channel and the two "extra" cyan and orange channels. The better the separation between those channels, the more extra data that will be included in the five band data set. As with most consumer-grade cameras, sensitivity in the NIR is diminished, either because of the sensor itself or because of a "hot-mirror" between the lens and sensor filtering out these longer wavelengths.

Other than the camera, the only other items used were a PC laptop controlling the camera, a white paper backdrop for low-feature image backgrounds, and Mac laptop for processing the images and running the image processing / computer vision software.

Image demosaicing

Image demosaicing is a digital image processing algorithm used to reconstruct a RGB color image from an incomplete color sampling. This sampling is the result of an image sensor array overlaid with a color filter array (CFA). A good demosaicer would be one that is able to reconstruct a color image while (1) not introducing false color artifacts such as aliasing or fringing, (2) preserving spatial resolution, (3) keeping computational complexity low for fast processing times (especially important if the software is in the form of in-product firmware), and (4) being open-source enough to analyze noise and error.

The most common commercially used CFA configuration is the Bayer filter shown here.

Although many consumer-grade digital cameras can now save images in raw format and allow the user to demosaic their data using software other than from the company, we opted to use Olympus' demosaicer, which would be supplied in the form of built-in firmware should a product like this one reach the mass market.

Results

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Conclusions

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References

[1] Brown, M.; Susstrunk, S., "Multi-spectral SIFT for scene category recognition," Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2011 IEEE Conference on , vol., no., pp.177,184, 20-25 June 2011, doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2011.5995637. < http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5995637&isnumber=5995307>

[2] Namin, S.T.; Petersson, L., "Classification of materials in natural scenes using multi-spectral images," Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1393,1398, 7-12 Oct. 2012, doi: 10.1109/IROS.2012.6386074. < http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6386074&isnumber=6385431>

[3] Saleem, S.; Sablatnig, R., "A Robust SIFT Descriptor for Multispectral Images," Signal Processing Letters, IEEE , vol.21, no.4, pp.400,403, April 2014, doi: 10.1109/LSP.2014.2304073. <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6730675&isnumber=6732989>

[4] Yang Xiao; Jianxin Wu; Junsong Yuan, "mCENTRIST: A Multi-Channel Feature Generation Mechanism for Scene Categorization," Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on , vol.23, no.2, pp.823,836, Feb. 2014, doi: 10.1109/TIP.2013.2295756. < http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6690151&isnumber=6685907>

[5] Lloyds Raja, G.; Kolekar, M.H., "Illumination normalization for image restoration using modified retinex algorithm," India Conference (INDICON), 2012 Annual IEEE , vol., no., pp.941,946, 7-9 Dec. 2012, doi: 10.1109/INDCON.2012.6420752. < http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6420752&isnumber=6420575>

[6] Salamati, N.; Germain, A.; Susstrunk, S., "Removing shadows from images using color and near-infrared," Image Processing (ICIP), 2011 18th IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1713,1716, 11-14 Sept. 2011, doi: 10.1109/ICIP.2011.6115788. <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6115788&isnumber=6115588>

Appendix I

Presentation

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