Segmentation and description based on perceptual organization

The authors present a description framework, motivated by perceptual organization, which consists of representations of the geometrical organizations of intensity discontinuities. The descriptors in this framework are called collated features, and are groupings identified by perceptual organization. The processes that operate on the image to obtain these descriptors and the visual processes that utilize them are discussed. The detection of collated features is robust to local problems. The structural information encoded in them aids various visual tasks such as object segmentation, correspondence processes (stereo, motion, and model matching), and shape inferences. Two primary grouping processes, cocurvilinearity and symmetry are applied to intensity edge contours to generate the collated features, including curves, symmetries, and ribbons. These collations can be used to segment into visible surfaces of objects and to describe the 2D shapes of those surfaces