Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention enable displaying a plurality of driving direction steps that form a driving directions path between a start address and a destination address; receiving input selecting a driving direction step of said plurality of driving direction steps; and displaying a panoramic image of a geographic area where a driving action associated with said selected driving direction step would be performed by a driver. In other embodiments, the panoramic image is replaced and/or complemented with one or more of 3D models, full-motion video, full-motion video of 360 degrees images, and live feeds from video cameras to provide enhanced driving directions.

Abstract: A method tracks non-rigid objects in a video acquired of a cluttered scene by a camera. The method uses a particle filter. The tracking includes the following steps: motion transition estimation, contour deformation detection, and contour regulation. The method uses a dynamic affine transform model and employs the particle filter to estimate the parameters of the model. The method generates a probabilistic map of deformation for tracking the contour of the object followed by a projection step to constrain or regulate the contour in a contour subspace.

Abstract: A method detects roads in an aerial image of ground topology by determining low-level features, such as intensities and gradients, for each pixel in the aerial image, determining middle-level features, such as an orientation for each pixel from the low-level features, and determining high-level features from the middle-level features. Each high-level feature is assigned a probability, and the probabilities of the high-level features for each pixel are normalized and aggregated to a single probability that the pixel is associated with a road.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method for populating a database with a set of images of an anatomical structure. The database is used to perform appearance matching in image pairs of the anatomical structure. A set of image pairs of anatomical structures is received, where each image pair is annotated with a plurality of location-sensitive regions that identify a particular aspect of the anatomical structure. Weak learners are iteratively selected and an image patch is identified. A boosting process is used to identify a strong classifier based on responses to the weak learners applied to the identified image patch for each image pair. The responses comprise a feature response and a location response associated with the image patch. Positive and negative image pairs are generated. The positive and negative image pairs are used to learn a similarity function. The learned similarity function and iteratively selected weak learners are stored in the database.

Abstract: A method for generating Pairwise Active Appearance Models (PAAMs) that characterize shape, appearance and motion of an object and using the PAAM to track the motion of an object is disclosed. A plurality of video streams is received. Each video stream includes a series of image frames that depict an object in motion. Each video stream includes an index of identified motion phases that are associated with a motion cycle of the object. For each video stream, a shape of the object is represented by a shape vector. An appearance of an object is represented by an appearance vector. The shape and appearance vectors associated at two consecutive motion phases are concatenated. Paired data for the concatenated shape and appearance vectors is computed. Paired data is computed for each two consecutive motion phases in the motion cycle. A shape subspace is constructed based on the computed paired data. An appearance subspace is constructed based on the computed paired data.

Abstract: A method tracks non-rigid objects in a video acquired of a cluttered scene by a camera. The method uses a particle filter. The tracking includes the following steps: motion transition estimation, contour deformation detection, and contour regulation. The method uses a dynamic affine transform model and employs the particle filter to estimate the parameters of the model. The method generates a probabilistic map of deformation for tracking the contour of the object followed by a projection step to constrain or regulate the contour in a contour subspace.

Abstract: A method detects roads in an aerial image of ground topology by determining low-level features, such as intensities and gradients, for each pixel in the aerial image, determining middle-level features, such as an orientation for each pixel from the low-level features, and determining high-level features from the middle-level features. Each high-level feature is assigned a probability, and the probabilities of the high-level features for each pixel are normalized and aggregated to a single probability that the pixel is associated with a road.