Research Projects
Image Data Base Retrieval 9807-NTT03 Start date: 07/98	Paul Viola MIT AI Lab Tsutomu Horikoshi NTT
Project summary

This work uses machine learning methods and statistical computer vision tools to create trainable visual search engines.

This a collaborative research project with NTT on image and video database search. We plan to study and create systems that can scan images and video to locate items of interest. For example, such a system should be able to scan a travel documentary for images of distinct locations and objects, like ``Buddhist temples'', ``gothic cathedrals'', or ``statues on horseback''. We believe that by leveraging our existing work in this area, we can play a key role in setting the standard for research in visual information retrieval. At the same time, this research provides an excellent opportunity for transition to practical applications. We believe that the complementary skills of MIT and NTT are well suited for pursuing this dual path of developing practical applications of image indexing in conjunction with fundamental progress in associated science and engineering.

		An example of the system in action. Given the sample queries shown at the left, the system finds the indicated images from the database as the best matches.
		An example of the system in action. Given the sample queries shown at the left, the system finds the indicated images from the database as the best matches.

• IMAGE DATABASE SEARCH DEMO PAGE

  This demo allows you to run a live demo of the system. It is not public, but is restricted to members of the NTT-MIT collaboration.

• Paul Viola (email)
• Tsutomu Horikoshi (email)

Poster - page 1:
Poster - page 2:

January 1999 Meeting, MIT:

Image data base flexible templates: 

March 1999 Meeting, NTT:

August 1999 Meeting, MIT:

Posters:

• Image data base poster: 


• Image data base equation recognition: 


• Image data base face detection: 

"Boosting Image Retrieval", Kinh Tieu and Paul Viola,
Submitted to CVPR 2000.
Not for distribution, but may be viewed by members of the NTT-MIT Collaboration.

"A Cluster-Based Statistical Model for Object Detection.", Tom Rikert, Mike Jones and Paul Viola,
Proceedings of ICCV, September, 1999

"Recognition of Handwritten Mathematical Expressions.", Nicholas Matsakis,
MIT Master's Thesis, 1999

"Restructuring Sparse High Dimensional Data for Effective Retrieval.", Charles Lee Isbell and Paul Viola,
Advances in Neural Information Processing, 1998

"Texture Recognition Using a Non-parametric Multi-Scale Statistical Model.", J. S. De Bonet and P. Viola
Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 1998

Proposals:

• proposal 1998: 
• proposal 1999: 

NTT Bi-Annual Progress Report, July to December 1998:

• project report: 


• presentation slides: 

NTT Bi-Annual Progress Report, January to June 1999:

• project report: 


• presentation slides: 

NTT Bi-Annual Progress Report, July to December 1999:

• project report: 


• presentation slides: 

NTT Bi-Annual Progress Report, January to June 2000:

• project report: 


• presentation slides: 

• Learning and Vision Group