User-directed interaction with an image structure map representation of

Abstract

A data structure representation of an image called an image structure map (ISM) accurately and explicitly represents the geometry, topology and signal properties of regions in an original image and allows for efficient and accurate spatial indexing of the image and those regions. The ISM may serve as the basis for an image interaction system in which a user interacts with a rendered view of an original image that is produced from the ISM data structure. The rendered view of the original image represents the geometry and topology of the original image as represented in the ISM. The user interacts with the rendered view to make alterations to, or to query, the structures in the ISM. The user may also modify the ISM by interacting directly with a displayed view of the original image. The user may further invoke automatic operations to be performed using the original image data structure that produce image region data, such as signal property descriptors and boundary data, that may be used to modify the ISM. An image interaction system implemented in this manner takes full advantage of automatic computation methods to capture the geometric and topological properties of an image while permitting a user to employ human perceptual skills to augment the automatic operations. An illustrated implementation of the system uses an ISM having the form of a vertical cell decomposition that is mathematically robust, topologically consistent with the original image and is able to be modified dynamically--that is, without recomputing the entire ISM when a change is made.