Using a mixed wave/ diffusion process to elicit the symmetry set

摘要

A form of damped wave process is described which appears to have considerable promise in early vision analysis. The authors demonstrate in particular its use in eliciting a version of the symmetry set — the locus of centres of circles bitangent to a curve. The wave process is a method of implementing the ‘symmetry transform’ of an image, which is defined and discussed briefly. An algorithm to implement this process is described, and it is shown that sufficient information may be extracted from the algorithm to permit reconstruction of the shape. The algorithm lends itself, not merely to parallel computation, but to analogue implementations1 which could run to completion in milliseconds.