Automated Synthesis of Image Processing Procedures
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AUTOMATED SYNTHESIS OF IMAGE PROCESSING PROCEDURES FOR A LARGE-SCALE IMAGE DATABASE Steve A. Chien Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology 4800 O ak Grove Drive, M / S 525-3660, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 chienQaig. phasa. go v ABSTRACT This paper describes the Mu!timission VICAR Planner (MVP) system, which uses models of the image processing programs t o automatically construct executable image pro- cessing procedures to fill science requests made to the JPL Multimission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) . Th e MVP system allows the user to specify the image process- ing requirements in ter ms of th e various types of correction required. Given this information, MVP which use Artificial Intelligence (AI) Planning techniques to derive unspecified required processing steps a nd determines appropriate image processing programs and parameters to achieve the speci- fied image processing goals. This information is out put as an executable image processing program which can then be executed to fill the processing request. 1. INTRODUCTION As NASA instruments and observation platforms increase in power, the number of science da ta products and amounts of scie ntifi c dat a to be processed are increasing a t an alarming pace. While ensuring physical access to the data may be accomplished, making the interface and data preparation routines operable by the average user is a far mor e difficul t task. In order to achieve this goal, NASA has been fielding general processing languages an d interfaces to allow users to acc ess and processi ng related data from a common interface. For image processing, the VICAR system (Video Im- age Communication and Retrieval ) [ 5 ] is a major con- stituent of JP L' s image processing capability. VI CAR pro- vides a standard interface to allow a user to retrieve video image dat a an d apply sophisticated image pr oces sing algo- rithms. The principle focus of the VICAR system is plan- etary imaging, and as such it supports imaging for JPL flight projects including VOYAGER, VIKING, MAGEL- LAN, GALILEO, CASSINI, etc. VICAR has been applied to other space imaging missions such as IBIS and LAND- SAT. The VIC AR system has also been applied to numerous This work wa s performed by the Je t Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the Na- tional Aeronautics and Space Administration. Other past and present members of the MVP team are Christine Ying, Shouyi Hsiao. Alex Gray, Jo e Nieten, an d Jean Lorre. 'This name is somewhat misleading as VICAR is used to process considerable non-video image data such as MAGELLAN synthetic aperture radar data. other applicati ons including: astronomy , ear th res ources, land use, biomedicine, and forens ics. V ICA R is a principle component of the Multimission Image Processing Labora- tory (MIPL). Outside of JPL, VICAR users include uni- versities , t he military, rese arch in stitutions, aerospace cor- porations, companies, and Galileo HIIPS (home in stitution image processing subsystem) sites with a total user group in the hundreds. The primary function of VICAR is to allow individ- ual image processing steps (called VICAR programs) to be combined into more complex imag e processing script s calle d procedure definition files (PDFs). As one of their primary duties, MIPL analysts construct PDFs to perform image corr ection. image enhancement, construct mosaic s, an d to create movies and render objects. Individ ual processing programs perform functions such as: photometric correction - correcting the image for light- ing conditions due to t he positi on of the sun relative to the imaging device and target, radiometric correction - correcting for varying cam era response depending on where in the field of view the image is read, line fillin - interpolating missing lines caused by data transmission errors. By composing individual programs which perform these specialized functions. analysts can create complex image processing procedures (PDFs) t o perform multiple types of correction and register the images to allow combination of multiple images into larger images. Currently, a group of human experts, called analysts. receive written requests from scientists for image da ta pro- cessed and formatted in a certain manner. These analysts then determine the relevant data and appropriate image processi ng steps required to produce th e requested dat a an d write VICAR scripts to produce the appropriate d ata prod- uct. tJnfortunately, this current mode of operations is ex- tremely labor and knowledge intensive. Thi s task is labor intensive in that constructing the image processing proce- dures is a complex, tedious process which can take up to several months of effort. There are currently tens of ana- lysts at MIPL for who spend a considerable proportion of their time time constructing these VICAR programs. Many other users at JPI, and other sites also occasionally write 0-8186-6950-0/94 4.00 1994 EEE 7 96
