A Generalized Temporal Context Model for Semantic Scene Classification

Semantic scene classification is an open problem in computer vision especially when information from only a single image is employed. In applications involving image collections, however, images are clustered sequentially, allowing surrounding images to be used as temporal context. We present a general probabilistic temporal context model in which the first-order Markov property is used to integrate content-based and temporal context cues. The model uses elapsed time-dependent transition probabilities between images to enforce the fact that images captured within a shorter period of time are more likely to be related. This model is generalized in that it allows arbitrary elapsed time between images, making it suitable for classifying image collections. We also derived a variant of this model to use in image collections for which no timestamp information is available, such as film scans. We applied the context models to two problems, achieving significant gains in accuracy in both cases. The two algorithms used to implement inference within the context model, Viterbi and belief propagation, yielded similar results.