Abstract: Comparing images regions are one of the core methods used on computer vision for tasks like image classification, scene understanding, object detection and recognition. Hence, this paper proposes a novel approach to determine similarity of image regions (patches), in order to obtain the best representation of image patches. This problem has been studied by many researchers presenting different approaches, however, the ability to find the better criteria to measure the similarity on image regions are still a challenge. The present work tackles this problem using a few-shot metric based meta-learning framework able to compare image regions and determining a similarity measure to decide if there is similarity between the compared patches. Our model is training end-to-end from scratch. Experimental results
have shown that the proposed approach effectively estimates the similarity of the patches and, comparing it with the state of the art approaches, shows better results.

Abstract: In this work, we explore the use of images from different spectral bands to classify defects in melamine faced panels, which could appear through the production process. Through experimental evaluation, we evaluate the use of images from the visible (VS), near-infrared (NIR), and long wavelength infrared (LWIR), to classify the defects using a feature descriptor learning approach together with a support vector machine classifier. Two descriptors were evaluated, Extended Local Binary Patterns (E-LBP) and SURF using a Bag of Words (BoW) representation. The evaluation was carried on with an image set obtained during this work, which contained five different defect categories that currently occurs in the industry. Results show that using images from beyond
the visual spectrum helps to improve classification performance in contrast with a single visible spectrum solution.

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel approach to estimate Normalized
Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from just the red channel of
a RGB image. The NDVI index is defined as the ratio of the difference
of the red and infrared radiances over their sum. In other words, information
from the red channel of a RGB image and the corresponding
infrared spectral band are required for its computation. In the current
work the NDVI index is estimated just from the red channel by training a
Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (CGAN). The architecture
proposed for the generative network consists of a single level structure,
which combines at the final layer results from convolutional operations
together with the given red channel with Gaussian noise to enhance
details, resulting in a sharp NDVI image. Then, the discriminative model
estimates the probability that the NDVI generated index came from the
training dataset, rather than the index automatically generated. Experimental
results with a large set of real images are provided showing that
a Conditional GAN single level model represents an acceptable approach
to estimate NDVI index.

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel approach to use cross-spectral
images to achieve a better performance with the proposed Adaptive Harris
corner detector comparing its obtained results with those achieved
with images of the visible spectra. The images of urban, field, old-building
and country category were used for the experiments, given the variety of
the textures present in these images, with which the complexity of the
proposal is much more challenging for its verification. It is a new scope,
which means improving the detection of characteristic points using crossspectral
images (NIR, G, B) and applying pruning techniques, the combination
of channels for this fusion is the one that generates the largest
variance based on the intensity of the merged pixels, therefore, it is that
which maximizes the entropy in the resulting Cross-spectral images.
Harris is one of the most widely used corner detection algorithm, so
any improvement in its efficiency is an important contribution in the
field of computer vision. The experiments conclude that the inclusion of
a (NIR) channel in the image as a result of the combination of the spectra,
greatly improves the corner detection due to better entropy of the
resulting image after the fusion, Therefore the fusion process applied to
the images improves the results obtained in subsequent processes such as
identification of objects or patterns, classification and/or segmentation.

Abstract: Multi-spectral RGB-NIR sensors have become ubiquitous in recent years. These sensors allow the visible and near-infrared spectral bands of a given scene to be captured at the same time. With such cameras, the acquired imagery has a compromised RGB color representation due to near-infrared bands (700–1100 nm) cross-talking with the visible bands (400–700 nm). This paper proposes two deep learning-based architectures to recover the full RGB color images, thus removing the NIR information from the visible bands. The proposed approaches directly restore the high-resolution RGB image by means of convolutional neural networks. They are evaluated with several outdoor images; both architectures reach a similar performance when evaluated in different scenarios and using different similarity metrics. Both of them improve the state of the art approaches.