Survey of 3D Human Body Pose and Shape Estimation Methods for Contemporary Dance Applications

3D human body shape and pose estimation from RGB images is a challenging problem with potential applications in augmented/virtual reality, healthcare and fitness technology and virtual retail. Recent solutions have focused on three types of inputs: i) single images, ii) multi-view images and iii) videos. In this study, we surveyed and compared 3D body shape and pose estimation methods for contemporary dance and performing arts, with a special focus on human body pose and dressing, camera viewpoint, illumination conditions and background conditions. We demonstrated that multi-frame methods, such as PHALP, provide better results than single-frame method for pose estimation when dancers are performing contemporary dances.

Wavelet-based Reflection Symmetry Detection via Textural and Color Histograms

Symmetry is one of the significant visual properties inside an image plane, to identify the geometrically balanced structures through real-world objects. Existing symmetry detection methods rely on descriptors of the local image features and their neighborhood behavior, resulting incomplete symmetrical axis candidates to discover the mirror similarities on a global scale. In this paper, we propose a new reflection symmetry detection scheme, based on a reliable edge-based feature extraction using Log-Gabor filters, plus an efficient voting scheme parameterized by their corresponding textural and color neighborhood information. Experimental evaluation on four single-case and three multiple-case symmetry detection datasets validates the superior achievement of the proposed work to find global symmetries inside an image.

Multiple Reflection Symmetry Detection via Linear-Directional Kernel Density Estimation

Symmetry is an important composition feature by investigating similar sides inside an image plane. It has a crucial effect to recognize man-made or nature objects within the universe. Recent symmetry detection approaches used a smoothing kernel over different voting maps in the polar coordinate system to detect symmetry peaks, which split the regions of symmetry axis candidates in inefficient way. We propose a reliable voting representation based on weighted linear-directional kernel density estimation, to detect multiple symmetries over challenging real-world and synthetic images. Experimental evaluation on two public datasets demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed algorithm to detect global symmetry axes respect to the major image shapes.