Visual classification by a hierarchy of semantic fragments

We describe visual classification by a hierarchy of semantic fragments. In fragment-based classification, objects within a class are represented by common sub-structures selected during training. Here we propose two extensions to the basic fragment-based scheme. The first extension is the extraction and use of feature hierarchies. We describe a method that automatically constructs complete feature hierarchies from image examples, and show that features constructed hierarchically are significantly more informative and better for classification compared with similar non-hierarchical features. The second extension is the use of so-called semantic fragments to represent object parts. The goal of a semantic fragment is to represent the different possible appearances of a given object part. The visual appearance of such object parts can differ substantially, and therefore traditional image similarity-based methods are inappropriate for the task. We show how the method can automatically learn the part structure of a new domain, identify the main parts, and how their appearance changes across objects in the class. We discuss the implications of these extensions to object classification and recognition.

Joint work with Prof. Shimon Ullman.