IEEE Workshop on Context-Based Vision
June 19, 1995
This workshop aims to stimulate and exchange research ideas on the use
of context and stored knowledge for the development of reliable
computer visionsytems. Most current research on computer vision seeks
automated methods for extracting information from imagery without the
use of a priori information, except perhaps some knowledge of the
image acquisition (camera model, light source, etc.).  Such approaches
are very general, but have notyet proven capable of coping with the
wide range of variability encountered in real world scenes.  

Another school of thought seeks to increase the robustness of computer
vision systems by adopting more restrictive assumptions.  The use of
specific prior information about the geometry, photometry, and semantic
constraints in a scene can permit reliable visual understanding by
relatively simple vision algorithms.

There are many applications in which the existence of prior scene
knowledge is readily available or easily obtainable and provides 
context for selecting and conditioning computer vision algorithms.
For example:

        --  Maps or 3D geometric scene models constrain recognition
            and change detection algorithms.

        --  Incrementally compiled world maps aid image interpretation 
            for mobile robots.

        --  Anatomical descriptions guide analysis of medical imagery.

        --  Manual graphical annotations aid semiautomated computer 
            vision tasks.

        --  Linguistic descriptions of scenes can be used to focus search

The key questions to be discussed at this workshop are:

*What contextual information, if made available beforehand, could best
enhance the reliability of computer vision systems? 

*How can computer vision algorithms be designed to best exploit prior
knowledge about a scene? 

Workshop Format:
The workshop format will be formed from invited and contributed
papers.  It is expected there will be 25-30 attendees with a program
of about 10 papers.  The papers will be 30 minutes each including a
5-minute question period.  A published proceedings will be available
at the workshop.  There is a fee of $80 to attend. 

Co-Chairs               Joseph L. Mundy                 Thomas M. Strat
                        GE Corporate R & D              SRI International
                        Schenectady, NY                 Menlo Park, CA
                        mundy@crd.ge.com                strat@ai.sri.com


Program Committee:

   Eamon Barrett    Aaron Bobick   Kim Boyer 
   Lockheed Corp.   MIT Media Lab  Ohio State

 Dan Huttenlocher     Avi Kak       Laveen Kanal   Mike Kelly 
   Cornell Univ.     Purdue Univ.  LNK Associates     BDM

  Jean Ponce        Azriel Rosenfeld    Demetri Terzopoulos    Ed Zelnio 
Univ. of Illinois   Univ. of Maryland     Univ.of Toronto     Wright Labs