Vision Talk

Title: Motion parallax: image models and computations
Speaker: Professor Mike Langer, McGill University
When/where: Thursday, April 28th, 2005, 11:00AM, AKW400

Abstract:

As we move and explore the world around us, we observe scenes and
objects from many different perspectives. These perspectives provide us
with visual information about scene layout and object geometry, as well
as about and our own motion. In particular, objects that are far away
move with a different image speed than nearby objects, a phenomenon
known as motion parallax. How do our visual systems extract information
about scenes using motion parallax? What computational problems do we solve?

In this talk I review the classical pipeline model of visual motion
processing. I then introduce a new type of visual motion called “optical
snow” which occurs when an observer moves through a cluttered 3d scene
such as a forest. Optical snow produces dense motion parallax.
I argue that the classical motion processing pipeline needs to be
modified - but only slightly - for the case of optical snow. This
modification may help us further understand motion processing in natural
vision, in particular, how the motion computations that are
be performed can vary with the type of scene.