New Electronics 11/02/03
Software system set to shape up
Reproduced by kind permission of
New Electronics
Cambridge based break-step productions
has developed a software based
shape recognition system called Foveola, which creates numerical codes
in a database.
According to managing director Patrick Andrews: "The codes bear simple
relations to each other, so it's easy to write down a defined, simple
'numerical' relation, for instance between the codes for shapes P and
R. It's also possible for the software to make a sensible 'best guess'
about the identity of a shape which has not been seen before."
The software is based on Nobel Prize winning work, which found the visual
cortex to be highly structured, with many different identifiable functions
performed by cells there.
Andrews said that, currently, shapes are contained within a 50 x 50 pixel
frame. "It's the same way the human eye works. A small, high resolution
region - the foveola - can be flicked from point to point in a scene and
a decision made about what's at each position. We plan to add concentric,
scaled up versions of the 50 x 50 window to decrease sensitivity to shape
size and to allow some peripheral 'context' effects to help decide where
to look next."
Target applications for the software include interactive robots, toys and
handwriting recognition systems.
