With the availability of digital imaging devices, users world-wide generate and collect vast amounts of image and video data, and digital visual content has become an integral part of our everyday life. Our research targets at the development of novel approaches for exploiting this content efficiently. This includes intelligent search and browsing functionality, as well as techniques for extracting higher-level semantic information directly from the visual content. Our main research topics are:
Image- and Video Retrieval & Browsing
To utilise huge image and video collections, advanced search and
browsing functionality is required. We are working on content-based techniques
that do not require a manual acquisition of meta-data, with core aspects
of our research being:
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Visual Classification & Concept Detection
The automatic recognition of semantic concepts in image and video data is a core challenge of modern multimedia management, opening applications like intelligent content filters, surveillance, personal video recommendation, or content-based advertisement. We focus on the following research topics in the area:
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Text in Image Recognition
While optical character recognition (OCR) is well-developed in
the document analysis domain, the detection and recognition of textual
information in arbitrary image data is still an unsolved research topic.
Here, recognition algorithms have to deal with challenges like
strongly varying illumination and scale, different forms of distortion, and uncommon
fonts. Our work addresses the following topics:
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In spite of the increasing relevance of electronic documents, the digitalisation and processing of traditional paper-based documents is still a crucial step in many business processes. MADM is developing advanced algorithms for supporting the automated analysis and interpretation of document images with a focus on the following topics:
Layout Analysis
Beyond the digitalisation of pure textual information with Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) algorithms, the interpretation of the layout is also crucial for understanding and digitising the content of a document. We are working on basic layout analysis technologies including
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Counterfeit Detection
Another focus of our research are novel approaches for verifying the
originality of sensitive documents like receipts, certificates, or contracts. Important research topics here are:
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