Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
Displaying 21 - 30 of 61
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- Creators: Turaga, Pavan
Description
The performance of most of the visual computing tasks depends on the quality of the features extracted from the raw data. Insightful feature representation increases the performance of many learning algorithms by exposing the underlying explanatory factors of the output for the unobserved input. A good representation should also handle anomalies in the data such as missing samples and noisy input caused by the undesired, external factors of variation. It should also reduce the data redundancy. Over the years, many feature extraction processes have been invented to produce good representations of raw images and videos.
The feature extraction processes can be categorized into three groups. The first group contains processes that are hand-crafted for a specific task. Hand-engineering features requires the knowledge of domain experts and manual labor. However, the feature extraction process is interpretable and explainable. Next group contains the latent-feature extraction processes. While the original feature lies in a high-dimensional space, the relevant factors for a task often lie on a lower dimensional manifold. The latent-feature extraction employs hidden variables to expose the underlying data properties that cannot be directly measured from the input. Latent features seek a specific structure such as sparsity or low-rank into the derived representation through sophisticated optimization techniques. The last category is that of deep features. These are obtained by passing raw input data with minimal pre-processing through a deep network. Its parameters are computed by iteratively minimizing a task-based loss.
In this dissertation, I present four pieces of work where I create and learn suitable data representations. The first task employs hand-crafted features to perform clinically-relevant retrieval of diabetic retinopathy images. The second task uses latent features to perform content-adaptive image enhancement. The third task ranks a pair of images based on their aestheticism. The goal of the last task is to capture localized image artifacts in small datasets with patch-level labels. For both these tasks, I propose novel deep architectures and show significant improvement over the previous state-of-art approaches. A suitable combination of feature representations augmented with an appropriate learning approach can increase performance for most visual computing tasks.
The feature extraction processes can be categorized into three groups. The first group contains processes that are hand-crafted for a specific task. Hand-engineering features requires the knowledge of domain experts and manual labor. However, the feature extraction process is interpretable and explainable. Next group contains the latent-feature extraction processes. While the original feature lies in a high-dimensional space, the relevant factors for a task often lie on a lower dimensional manifold. The latent-feature extraction employs hidden variables to expose the underlying data properties that cannot be directly measured from the input. Latent features seek a specific structure such as sparsity or low-rank into the derived representation through sophisticated optimization techniques. The last category is that of deep features. These are obtained by passing raw input data with minimal pre-processing through a deep network. Its parameters are computed by iteratively minimizing a task-based loss.
In this dissertation, I present four pieces of work where I create and learn suitable data representations. The first task employs hand-crafted features to perform clinically-relevant retrieval of diabetic retinopathy images. The second task uses latent features to perform content-adaptive image enhancement. The third task ranks a pair of images based on their aestheticism. The goal of the last task is to capture localized image artifacts in small datasets with patch-level labels. For both these tasks, I propose novel deep architectures and show significant improvement over the previous state-of-art approaches. A suitable combination of feature representations augmented with an appropriate learning approach can increase performance for most visual computing tasks.
ContributorsChandakkar, Parag Shridhar (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis advisor) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Davulcu, Hasan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Generating real-world content for VR is challenging in terms of capturing and processing at high resolution and high frame-rates. The content needs to represent a truly immersive experience, where the user can look around in 360-degree view and perceive the depth of the scene. The existing solutions only capture and offload the compute load to the server. But offloading large amounts of raw camera feeds takes longer latencies and poses difficulties for real-time applications. By capturing and computing on the edge, we can closely integrate the systems and optimize for low latency. However, moving the traditional stitching algorithms to battery constrained device needs at least three orders of magnitude reduction in power. We believe that close integration of capture and compute stages will lead to reduced overall system power.
We approach the problem by building a hardware prototype and characterize the end-to-end system bottlenecks of power and performance. The prototype has 6 IMX274 cameras and uses Nvidia Jetson TX2 development board for capture and computation. We found that capturing is bottlenecked by sensor power and data-rates across interfaces, whereas compute is limited by the total number of computations per frame. Our characterization shows that redundant capture and redundant computations lead to high power, huge memory footprint, and high latency. The existing systems lack hardware-software co-design aspects, leading to excessive data transfers across the interfaces and expensive computations within the individual subsystems. Finally, we propose mechanisms to optimize the system for low power and low latency. We emphasize the importance of co-design of different subsystems to reduce and reuse the data. For example, reusing the motion vectors of the ISP stage reduces the memory footprint of the stereo correspondence stage. Our estimates show that pipelining and parallelization on custom FPGA can achieve real time stitching.
We approach the problem by building a hardware prototype and characterize the end-to-end system bottlenecks of power and performance. The prototype has 6 IMX274 cameras and uses Nvidia Jetson TX2 development board for capture and computation. We found that capturing is bottlenecked by sensor power and data-rates across interfaces, whereas compute is limited by the total number of computations per frame. Our characterization shows that redundant capture and redundant computations lead to high power, huge memory footprint, and high latency. The existing systems lack hardware-software co-design aspects, leading to excessive data transfers across the interfaces and expensive computations within the individual subsystems. Finally, we propose mechanisms to optimize the system for low power and low latency. We emphasize the importance of co-design of different subsystems to reduce and reuse the data. For example, reusing the motion vectors of the ISP stage reduces the memory footprint of the stereo correspondence stage. Our estimates show that pipelining and parallelization on custom FPGA can achieve real time stitching.
ContributorsGunnam, Sridhar (Author) / LiKamWa, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Jayasuriya, Suren (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Mixture of experts is a machine learning ensemble approach that consists of individual models that are trained to be ``experts'' on subsets of the data, and a gating network that provides weights to output a combination of the expert predictions. Mixture of experts models do not currently see wide use due to difficulty in training diverse experts and high computational requirements. This work presents modifications of the mixture of experts formulation that use domain knowledge to improve training, and incorporate parameter sharing among experts to reduce computational requirements.
First, this work presents an application of mixture of experts models for quality robust visual recognition. First it is shown that human subjects outperform deep neural networks on classification of distorted images, and then propose a model, MixQualNet, that is more robust to distortions. The proposed model consists of ``experts'' that are trained on a particular type of image distortion. The final output of the model is a weighted sum of the expert models, where the weights are determined by a separate gating network. The proposed model also incorporates weight sharing to reduce the number of parameters, as well as increase performance.
Second, an application of mixture of experts to predict visual saliency is presented. A computational saliency model attempts to predict where humans will look in an image. In the proposed model, each expert network is trained to predict saliency for a set of closely related images. The final saliency map is computed as a weighted mixture of the expert networks' outputs, with weights determined by a separate gating network. The proposed model achieves better performance than several other visual saliency models and a baseline non-mixture model.
Finally, this work introduces a saliency model that is a weighted mixture of models trained for different levels of saliency. Levels of saliency include high saliency, which corresponds to regions where almost all subjects look, and low saliency, which corresponds to regions where some, but not all subjects look. The weighted mixture shows improved performance compared with baseline models because of the diversity of the individual model predictions.
First, this work presents an application of mixture of experts models for quality robust visual recognition. First it is shown that human subjects outperform deep neural networks on classification of distorted images, and then propose a model, MixQualNet, that is more robust to distortions. The proposed model consists of ``experts'' that are trained on a particular type of image distortion. The final output of the model is a weighted sum of the expert models, where the weights are determined by a separate gating network. The proposed model also incorporates weight sharing to reduce the number of parameters, as well as increase performance.
Second, an application of mixture of experts to predict visual saliency is presented. A computational saliency model attempts to predict where humans will look in an image. In the proposed model, each expert network is trained to predict saliency for a set of closely related images. The final saliency map is computed as a weighted mixture of the expert networks' outputs, with weights determined by a separate gating network. The proposed model achieves better performance than several other visual saliency models and a baseline non-mixture model.
Finally, this work introduces a saliency model that is a weighted mixture of models trained for different levels of saliency. Levels of saliency include high saliency, which corresponds to regions where almost all subjects look, and low saliency, which corresponds to regions where some, but not all subjects look. The weighted mixture shows improved performance compared with baseline models because of the diversity of the individual model predictions.
ContributorsDodge, Samuel Fuller (Author) / Karam, Lina (Thesis advisor) / Jayasuriya, Suren (Committee member) / Li, Baoxin (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging of objects not visible to either the camera or illumina-
tion source is a challenging task with vital applications including surveillance and robotics.
Recent NLOS reconstruction advances have been achieved using time-resolved measure-
ments. Acquiring these time-resolved measurements requires expensive and specialized
detectors and laser sources. In work proposes a data-driven approach for NLOS 3D local-
ization requiring only a conventional camera and projector. The localisation is performed
using a voxelisation and a regression problem. Accuracy of greater than 90% is achieved
in localizing a NLOS object to a 5cm × 5cm × 5cm volume in real data. By adopting
the regression approach an object of width 10cm to localised to approximately 1.5cm. To
generalize to line-of-sight (LOS) scenes with non-planar surfaces, an adaptive lighting al-
gorithm is adopted. This algorithm, based on radiosity, identifies and illuminates scene
patches in the LOS which most contribute to the NLOS light paths, and can factor in sys-
tem power constraints. Improvements ranging from 6%-15% in accuracy with a non-planar
LOS wall using adaptive lighting is reported, demonstrating the advantage of combining
the physics of light transport with active illumination for data-driven NLOS imaging.
tion source is a challenging task with vital applications including surveillance and robotics.
Recent NLOS reconstruction advances have been achieved using time-resolved measure-
ments. Acquiring these time-resolved measurements requires expensive and specialized
detectors and laser sources. In work proposes a data-driven approach for NLOS 3D local-
ization requiring only a conventional camera and projector. The localisation is performed
using a voxelisation and a regression problem. Accuracy of greater than 90% is achieved
in localizing a NLOS object to a 5cm × 5cm × 5cm volume in real data. By adopting
the regression approach an object of width 10cm to localised to approximately 1.5cm. To
generalize to line-of-sight (LOS) scenes with non-planar surfaces, an adaptive lighting al-
gorithm is adopted. This algorithm, based on radiosity, identifies and illuminates scene
patches in the LOS which most contribute to the NLOS light paths, and can factor in sys-
tem power constraints. Improvements ranging from 6%-15% in accuracy with a non-planar
LOS wall using adaptive lighting is reported, demonstrating the advantage of combining
the physics of light transport with active illumination for data-driven NLOS imaging.
ContributorsChandran, Sreenithy (Author) / Jayasuriya, Suren (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Dasarathy, Gautam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Speech is generated by articulators acting on
a phonatory source. Identification of this
phonatory source and articulatory geometry are
individually challenging and ill-posed
problems, called speech separation and
articulatory inversion, respectively.
There exists a trade-off
between decomposition and recovered
articulatory geometry due to multiple
possible mappings between an
articulatory configuration
and the speech produced. However, if measurements
are obtained only from a microphone sensor,
they lack any invasive insight and add
additional challenge to an already difficult
problem.
A joint non-invasive estimation
strategy that couples articulatory and
phonatory knowledge would lead to better
articulatory speech synthesis. In this thesis,
a joint estimation strategy for speech
separation and articulatory geometry recovery
is studied. Unlike previous
periodic/aperiodic decomposition methods that
use stationary speech models within a
frame, the proposed model presents a
non-stationary speech decomposition method.
A parametric glottal source model and an
articulatory vocal tract response are
represented in a dynamic state space formulation.
The unknown parameters of the
speech generation components are estimated
using sequential Monte Carlo methods
under some specific assumptions.
The proposed approach is compared with other
glottal inverse filtering methods,
including iterative adaptive inverse filtering,
state-space inverse filtering, and
the quasi-closed phase method.
a phonatory source. Identification of this
phonatory source and articulatory geometry are
individually challenging and ill-posed
problems, called speech separation and
articulatory inversion, respectively.
There exists a trade-off
between decomposition and recovered
articulatory geometry due to multiple
possible mappings between an
articulatory configuration
and the speech produced. However, if measurements
are obtained only from a microphone sensor,
they lack any invasive insight and add
additional challenge to an already difficult
problem.
A joint non-invasive estimation
strategy that couples articulatory and
phonatory knowledge would lead to better
articulatory speech synthesis. In this thesis,
a joint estimation strategy for speech
separation and articulatory geometry recovery
is studied. Unlike previous
periodic/aperiodic decomposition methods that
use stationary speech models within a
frame, the proposed model presents a
non-stationary speech decomposition method.
A parametric glottal source model and an
articulatory vocal tract response are
represented in a dynamic state space formulation.
The unknown parameters of the
speech generation components are estimated
using sequential Monte Carlo methods
under some specific assumptions.
The proposed approach is compared with other
glottal inverse filtering methods,
including iterative adaptive inverse filtering,
state-space inverse filtering, and
the quasi-closed phase method.
ContributorsVenkataramani, Adarsh Akkshai (Author) / Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia (Thesis advisor) / Bliss, Daniel W (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Modern systems that measure dynamical phenomena often have limitations as to how many sensors can operate at any given time step. This thesis considers a sensor scheduling problem in which the source of a diffusive phenomenon is to be localized using single point measurements of its concentration. With a linear diffusion model, and in the absence of noise, classical observability theory describes whether or not the system's initial state can be deduced from a given set of linear measurements. However, it does not describe to what degree the system is observable. Different metrics of observability have been proposed in literature to address this issue. Many of these methods are based on choosing optimal or sub-optimal sensor schedules from a predetermined collection of possibilities. This thesis proposes two greedy algorithms for a one-dimensional and two-dimensional discrete diffusion processes. The first algorithm considers a deterministic linear dynamical system and deterministic linear measurements. The second algorithm considers noise on the measurements and is compared to a Kalman filter scheduling method described in published work.
ContributorsNajam, Anbar (Author) / Cochran, Douglas (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Wang, Chao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Several music players have evolved in multi-dimensional and surround sound systems. The audio players are implemented as software applications for different audio hardware systems. Digital formats and wireless networks allow for audio content to be readily accessible on smart networked devices. Therefore, different audio output platforms ranging from multispeaker high-end surround systems to single unit Bluetooth speakers have been developed. A large body of research has been carried out in audio processing, beamforming, sound fields etc. and new formats are developed to create realistic audio experiences.
An emerging trend is seen towards high definition AV systems, virtual reality gears as well as gaming applications with multidimensional audio. Next generation media technology is concentrating around Virtual reality experience and devices. It has applications not only in gaming but all other fields including medical, entertainment, engineering, and education. All such systems also require realistic audio corresponding with the visuals.
In the project presented in this thesis, a new portable audio hardware system is designed and developed along with a dedicated mobile android application to render immersive surround sound experiences with real-time audio effects. The tablet and mobile phone allow the user to control or “play” with sound directionality and implement various audio effects including sound rotation, spatialization, and other immersive experiences. The thesis describes the hardware and software design, provides the theory of the sound effects, and presents demonstrations of the sound application that was created.
An emerging trend is seen towards high definition AV systems, virtual reality gears as well as gaming applications with multidimensional audio. Next generation media technology is concentrating around Virtual reality experience and devices. It has applications not only in gaming but all other fields including medical, entertainment, engineering, and education. All such systems also require realistic audio corresponding with the visuals.
In the project presented in this thesis, a new portable audio hardware system is designed and developed along with a dedicated mobile android application to render immersive surround sound experiences with real-time audio effects. The tablet and mobile phone allow the user to control or “play” with sound directionality and implement various audio effects including sound rotation, spatialization, and other immersive experiences. The thesis describes the hardware and software design, provides the theory of the sound effects, and presents demonstrations of the sound application that was created.
ContributorsDharmadhikari, Chinmay (Author) / Spanias, Andreas (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Ingalls, Todd (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This work examines two main areas in model-based time-varying signal processing with emphasis in speech processing applications. The first area concentrates on improving speech intelligibility and on increasing the proposed methodologies application for clinical practice in speech-language pathology. The second area concentrates on signal expansions matched to physical-based models but without requiring independent basis functions; the significance of this work is demonstrated with speech vowels.
A fully automated Vowel Space Area (VSA) computation method is proposed that can be applied to any type of speech. It is shown that the VSA provides an efficient and reliable measure and is correlated to speech intelligibility. A clinical tool that incorporates the automated VSA was proposed for evaluation and treatment to be used by speech language pathologists. Two exploratory studies are performed using two databases by analyzing mean formant trajectories in healthy speech for a wide range of speakers, dialects, and coarticulation contexts. It is shown that phonemes crowded in formant space can often have distinct trajectories, possibly due to accurate perception.
A theory for analyzing time-varying signals models with amplitude modulation and frequency modulation is developed. Examples are provided that demonstrate other possible signal model decompositions with independent basis functions and corresponding physical interpretations. The Hilbert transform (HT) and the use of the analytic form of a signal are motivated, and a proof is provided to show that a signal can still preserve desirable mathematical properties without the use of the HT. A visualization of the Hilbert spectrum is proposed to aid in the interpretation. A signal demodulation is proposed and used to develop a modified Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) algorithm.
A fully automated Vowel Space Area (VSA) computation method is proposed that can be applied to any type of speech. It is shown that the VSA provides an efficient and reliable measure and is correlated to speech intelligibility. A clinical tool that incorporates the automated VSA was proposed for evaluation and treatment to be used by speech language pathologists. Two exploratory studies are performed using two databases by analyzing mean formant trajectories in healthy speech for a wide range of speakers, dialects, and coarticulation contexts. It is shown that phonemes crowded in formant space can often have distinct trajectories, possibly due to accurate perception.
A theory for analyzing time-varying signals models with amplitude modulation and frequency modulation is developed. Examples are provided that demonstrate other possible signal model decompositions with independent basis functions and corresponding physical interpretations. The Hilbert transform (HT) and the use of the analytic form of a signal are motivated, and a proof is provided to show that a signal can still preserve desirable mathematical properties without the use of the HT. A visualization of the Hilbert spectrum is proposed to aid in the interpretation. A signal demodulation is proposed and used to develop a modified Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) algorithm.
ContributorsSandoval, Steven, 1984- (Author) / Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia (Thesis advisor) / Liss, Julie M (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Kovvali, Narayan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This thesis aims to explore the language of different bodies in the field of dance by analyzing
the habitual patterns of dancers from different backgrounds and vernaculars. Contextually,
the term habitual patterns is defined as the postures or poses that tend to re-appear,
often unintentionally, as the dancer performs improvisational dance. The focus lies in exposing
the movement vocabulary of a dancer to reveal his/her unique fingerprint.
The proposed approach for uncovering these movement patterns is to use a clustering
technique; mainly k-means. In addition to a static method of analysis, this paper uses
an online method of clustering using a streaming variant of k-means that integrates into
the flow of components that can be used in a real-time interactive dance performance. The
computational system is trained by the dancer to discover identifying patterns and therefore
it enables a feedback loop resulting in a rich exchange between dancer and machine. This
can help break a dancer’s tendency to create similar postures, explore larger kinespheric
space and invent movement beyond their current capabilities.
This paper describes a project that distinguishes itself in that it uses a custom database
that is curated for the purpose of highlighting the similarities and differences between various
movement forms. It puts particular emphasis on the process of choosing source movement
qualitatively, before the technological capture process begins.
the habitual patterns of dancers from different backgrounds and vernaculars. Contextually,
the term habitual patterns is defined as the postures or poses that tend to re-appear,
often unintentionally, as the dancer performs improvisational dance. The focus lies in exposing
the movement vocabulary of a dancer to reveal his/her unique fingerprint.
The proposed approach for uncovering these movement patterns is to use a clustering
technique; mainly k-means. In addition to a static method of analysis, this paper uses
an online method of clustering using a streaming variant of k-means that integrates into
the flow of components that can be used in a real-time interactive dance performance. The
computational system is trained by the dancer to discover identifying patterns and therefore
it enables a feedback loop resulting in a rich exchange between dancer and machine. This
can help break a dancer’s tendency to create similar postures, explore larger kinespheric
space and invent movement beyond their current capabilities.
This paper describes a project that distinguishes itself in that it uses a custom database
that is curated for the purpose of highlighting the similarities and differences between various
movement forms. It puts particular emphasis on the process of choosing source movement
qualitatively, before the technological capture process begins.
ContributorsIyengar, Varsha (Author) / Xin Wei, Sha (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Coleman, Grisha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The rapid growth of social media in recent years provides a large amount of user-generated visual objects, e.g., images and videos. Advanced semantic understanding approaches on such visual objects are desired to better serve applications such as human-machine interaction, image retrieval, etc. Semantic visual attributes have been proposed and utilized in multiple visual computing tasks to bridge the so-called "semantic gap" between extractable low-level feature representations and high-level semantic understanding of the visual objects.
Despite years of research, there are still some unsolved problems on semantic attribute learning. First, real-world applications usually involve hundreds of attributes which requires great effort to acquire sufficient amount of labeled data for model learning. Second, existing attribute learning work for visual objects focuses primarily on images, with semantic analysis on videos left largely unexplored.
In this dissertation I conduct innovative research and propose novel approaches to tackling the aforementioned problems. In particular, I propose robust and accurate learning frameworks on both attribute ranking and prediction by exploring the correlation among multiple attributes and utilizing various types of label information. Furthermore, I propose a video-based skill coaching framework by extending attribute learning to the video domain for robust motion skill analysis. Experiments on various types of applications and datasets and comparisons with multiple state-of-the-art baseline approaches confirm that my proposed approaches can achieve significant performance improvements for the general attribute learning problem.
Despite years of research, there are still some unsolved problems on semantic attribute learning. First, real-world applications usually involve hundreds of attributes which requires great effort to acquire sufficient amount of labeled data for model learning. Second, existing attribute learning work for visual objects focuses primarily on images, with semantic analysis on videos left largely unexplored.
In this dissertation I conduct innovative research and propose novel approaches to tackling the aforementioned problems. In particular, I propose robust and accurate learning frameworks on both attribute ranking and prediction by exploring the correlation among multiple attributes and utilizing various types of label information. Furthermore, I propose a video-based skill coaching framework by extending attribute learning to the video domain for robust motion skill analysis. Experiments on various types of applications and datasets and comparisons with multiple state-of-the-art baseline approaches confirm that my proposed approaches can achieve significant performance improvements for the general attribute learning problem.
ContributorsChen, Lin (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis advisor) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Wang, Yalin (Committee member) / Liu, Huan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016