Xref: utzoo comp.lang.prolog:984 comp.ai:1774
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!cvl!harwood
From: harwood@cvl.umd.edu (David Harwood)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog,comp.ai
Subject: Re: Logic Programming and Vision
Keywords: vision research, prolog, logic programming
Message-ID: <2868@cvl.umd.edu>
Date: 19 May 88 16:54:50 GMT
References: <632@hub.ucsb.edu>
Reply-To: harwood@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood)
Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md.
Lines: 38

In article <632@hub.ucsb.edu> nosmo@csilvax.ucsb.edu (Vince Kraemer) writes:
>I am currently looking for research in computer vision that is
>using a logic programming approach.  So far, the search has been
>less than successful.  If you have any references to research along
>these lines, I would be interested in hearing about it.
>
>Thanks all,
>     Vince Kraemer
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Well, we got dis-claimers and dat-claimers, which claimer would you prefer ??
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I developed a large expert vision system for interpreting
aerial photos, using Prolog to specify types and relations of objects
in images, also to specify a metatheory (a sort of constructive model
theory) for how to find a "large" interpretation of this image theory
by suitably restrictive topological search in analyzed image structures.
Image predicates and search procedures are evaluated by Lisp or C programs.
There is a report in the April 88 Proceedings of the Image Understanding
Workshop, at Cambridge, Mass., of application to interpretation of aerial
photos of suburban neighborhoods.
	More recently I have been designing Prolog/C vision systems for
biological research (mapping 3D neuronal branching structures visible by
confocal light microscopy). [I am quitting military-funded vision
research for conscientious reasons, so I haven't directly followed up
the earlier work, which so far as I know is the first large logic-based
system for image interpretation (considered as finding interpretations
for Prolog "image theories.") I'm also aware of a 3d "shape from perspective"
application published in CVGIP by a student of Haralick and Shapiro, in 1986
I believe.
	Another relevant report on potential use of logic programming
for computer vision is "The Logic of Depiction," by R. Reiter and A.
Mackworth, U. Toronto. I'm not familiar with their recent progress
since this 1987 TR, which does not report actual design of systems,
algorithms, or implementation, but which abstractly considers 
intrepretation of logical theories of images.

David Harwood