EQUIPE RFAI
Reconnaissance des formes et analyse d'images
Responsables d’équipe : JY RAMEL, N. RAGOT
Membres permanents :
Docteurs, Postdoc :
Doctorants :
EQUIPE RFAI
Reconnaissance des formes et analyse d'images
1. Scientific skills and main contributions
The RFAI group is working in pattern recognition and image analysis fields since many years. Along this time, a
lot of evolution have occurred and now Pattern recognition is often considered as a high level processing but it
is still highly dependent on low level processing to clean, filter and prepare initial data with feature extraction
for example. At the same time high level decision and processing could be very useful to help and drive lower
level processing. This is why the group has always considered that all the processes in a decision or analyzing
system were deeply interdependent, especially considering pattern recognition and image analysis. The
strength and the originality of the research works investigated in the team come from the exploitation of these
relationships in different manner:
The RFAI group highly contributes to the study and development of interactive methods and tools for
image and data analysis and classification. To increase more this aspect, the decision of merging with
the FOVEA group has been taken just after the last evaluation of the Laboratory (4 years ago).
Researchers of this group were and are still working on visual data mining methods and interactive
data analysis and visualization algorithms. For this, they are using meta-heuristics, machine learning
and graph based methods that are very close and connected with the methods and tools that use for
pattern recognition purpose (feature extraction and selection, clustering methods, relevance
feedbacks, …)
A large number of researchers of the group contribute to the researches on graph based methods for
image analysis and structural pattern recognition. Graphs allow to create easily relationships between
the low level part (image or data representation) and the high level part (data mining, pattern
recognition, clustering, classification,…) of a decision system. As mentioned before, it is one of the
scientific goal and, furthermore, graph is becoming a more and more used and studied tool during
these last years because of the recent advances in data management, sharing, and proliferation (social
networks, heterogeneous and big data, …)
Concerning higher level processing and analysis of data streams, the RFAI group has also made
significant contributions in a research field that we abusively call “meta-learning”. For us, it
corresponds to different works on representation learning (adaptive HMM) and dynamic and
incremental learning methods (One class classifiers …) that we have proposed in a recent past.
In the image analysis aspect, the expertise of the team comes mainly from the specificities of the data
we have to deal with. On one side, original adaptations of image analysis methods initially dedicated
to natural images (detection, indexing and matching of keypoints) to be efficient also on binary images
(images of digitized documents) have been proposed. On the other side, original frameworks for the
segmentation of medical images (2D,3D, 3D+T, videos) have been proposed based on specific features
and representations of their contents
Interactive methods and tools
In this context, we have more specifically worked on:
 FOVEA
 User-driven image analysis (Agora, Paulhac, Galisot).
 Interactive optimization of OCC (Girard, DOD-DIC)
Graph based-methods and tools
In this context, we have more specifically worked on:
 Neighborhood graphs for data clustering and visualization (Octavio, Rayar)
 Explicit Graph embedding techniques able to incorporate topological information (Sidere) and statistical
information (Luqman)
 Optimization of GED methods (Abu-Asheih).
 Benchmarking of Graph matching methods : GEM (Conte et AL) and GED (Abu-Asheih)
Meta-Learning
The RFAI group develops general pattern recognition solutions that can be further adapted to the problems it
has to deal with. The group is more particularly interested in the elaboration of models and of learning
methods based on incremental or dynamic process.
In this context, we have more specifically worked on:
 OCC for incremental learning and interactive classification (Ngoho, Girard)
 The learning and structure determination of graphical models. Two kinds of graphical models were
investigated: Bayesian networks (M. Luqman) and Hidden Markov Models (Ait-Mohand).
 Optimization of sequence matching and prediction methods to improve the forecast precision (Cherif,
Mondal).
 Meta-heuristics not yet ?? but in the future ???. => du coup peut etre faut il revoir le terme “metalearning” ?
Specific Feature and representation methods for nD+T image analysis
The works done by the RFAI group are concerning methods and algorithms for characterization and
segmentation of 2D and 3D images. A special effort is focused on what is the combination of algorithms,
human-computer interaction, using a priori knowledge and information fusion. The town of Tours is a
recognized center for the training and research in the areas of Health and Medicine. Several collaborations are
currently underway between our team and the University Hospital of Tours.
In this context, we have more specifically worked on:
 Regarding the segmentation of 3D medical images by active surfaces, we have proposed improvements in
the incorporation of a priori knowledge in the models (Ahmed).
 The adaptation of 3D image segmentation methods to textured images has also been studied (Paulhac)
 Keypoint detection indexing and matching (The Ahn).
 Graph based representation for images and videos analysis (Conte)
2. Scientific Production
The group maintains several indictors about its scientific publications such as statistics about ranked
publications into international databases (ISI, Scopus and CORE), both for journals and conferences. Below are
the overall publications statistics:
Scientific production
ACL
ACNL
ACL + ACLN
ACTI
ACTN
OS et OV
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
to appear
DO
PhD
HdR
Co-auteurs inter-equipe LI
Co-auteurs Regional
Co-auteurs National
Co-auteurs International
Prix, best papers, …
The overall number of publications has decreased since 2006, but still remains higher than the ones of years
2003-2004. In fact, there was a peak in 2006 corresponding to the end of many PhD in the group. Considering
the quality of our publications, lots of conferences in our research field are quite selective (acceptance rate less
than 50%) and recognized by the community: publications in these conferences are well considered for the
qualification stage of assistant professor. This is why the group published a lot in those ones. Nevertheless, we
are aware of the importance to also publish into high-level journals. Consequently, during the last three years,
we have reduced our number of publications into conferences (except for recognized ones that are referenced
into Core and Scopus) to provide higher efforts to publish into high-level Journals (most of them have impact
factor (ISI), or are referenced into the CORE and Scopus databases). These efforts must continue.
3. Projects, collaborations and social impact
A. International collaborations and Research projects
Much international collaboration are still active:
-
-
-
with the Universidade da Beira Interior (Covilhã, Portugal) and the Artificial Intelligence and Computer
Science Laboratory (LIACC, Univ. Porto, Portugal). A PhD thesis on the design of a novel biometric
system has been carried out (S. Cauchie, ended 12/2009) under the joint supervision of France and
Portugal. Our team was responsible for the "pattern recognition" axis while Portugal has lent its
expertise in security and cryptography. This has resulted in 4 collaborative publications and the coorganization of 2 international workshops: Information Security'06 and Information Security'07.
with the DAG group of the CVC (Computer Vision Center) led by Professor Josep Lladós in Barcelona
(Spain) working in the field of indexing and recognition of document images. This collaboration is in
two main areas: (1) continuation of Mathieu Delalandre's research work of (former member of the
DAG, recruited in team RFAI since September 2009) (2) co-supervision of the M. Luqman's PhD thesis.
3 common publications are yet identified.
with the group "Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence" led by Professor Horst Bunke, Bern
(Switzerland) working in the field of recognition of structural forms (graphs). One of our doctoral
students (N. Sidere) will conduct a 1 month stay in this team in March 2010.
RFAI team participated in the assembly of the European Project TRANSERE (submitted and not accepted in
2008) in response to the call FP7 Capacities Work Program: Infrastructures INFRA-2008-1.1.2.29: developing
improved access to historical archives and cultural collections for research purposes. The coordinator was Mary
Elizabeth BOUTROUE of IRHT CNRS Paris.
B. National collaborations and Research Projects
Nationally, the team is currently involved in the project ANR Navidomass (call restrained / 2006-2010). This
project is located, as the project PIVOAN, in the field of image indexing of documents. It is the continuation of
the ACI Madonne (2003-2006) whose themes were similar but during which the group RFAI had worked
primarily with the L3I (La Rochelle) and the LIRIS (Insa Lyon). Navidomass brought together 6 teams of research
participants and additional experts in the field of image analysis and pattern recognition: LI Tours L3i La
Rochelle, Rouen LITIS, IRISA Rennes 1, LIPADE Paris 5 and LORIA Nancy.
ACI Madonne : RFAI = 15K€ - ANR Navidomass : RFAI = 71K€
Number of joint publications: 5 + 3 (LITIS Rouen) - 8 (L3I La Rochelle) – 7 (LIRIS Lyon)
Beside the Navidomass ANR project, the group is working with the LITIS lab from Rouen and with the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF) on the elaboration of an OCR evaluation protocol. These works are
conducted thanks to the PhD of K. Ait-Mohand who is an associate researcher at the BnF in reply to the BnF call
for associate researcher on new technologies n°48 in 2008-2009 (Analyse des résultats de conversion par
océrisation des documents imprimés numérisés de la Bibliothèque nationale de France). This project was
prolongated for the year 2010.
The team also participated in the national project EPEIRES Techno-Vision (2004-2009) supported by the
ministries of research and defense. The objective of the proposed EPEIRES is to create an environment for
evaluating performance of some of the treatments required to achieve the recognition and location of symbols
in the document images incorporating graphic components. This project involves many partners such as the
Laboratory LORIA (Nancy), L3i (University of La Rochelle), the LITIS (University of Rouen), Team DAG CCV
(Barcelona), the Laboratory ONE (France Telecom R & D) and society Algo'Tech Computers.
Technovision EPEIRES: RFAI = 12K€ - Number of joint publications: 2 (CVC)
C. Local and Regional Projects
Within the IFR 135 (functional imaging), we are actively working on the segmentation applied to 3D ultrasound
image of high resolution. Work is underway with a local academic partner to describe images acquired using a
new piezoelectric 3D sensor. A thesis proposing the use of new descriptors of 3D textures and co-supervised
with the team 5 of INSERM is ending and helps making available to dermatologists of CHRU Tours a software
tool that provides 3D segmentation and volume parameters in order to follow more precisely in time the skin
lesions.
Another collaboration concerns the characterization of cells images. In connection with the INSERM units U921
and U618, we aims at automatically quantify certain parameters of the images in the context of research
against cancer. Two kinds of applications are involved: the counting of cells on images obtained by fluorescent
light and the measure of the speed of healing by the wound healing technique. This work fits into the project
CRIMOCI filed with the "région Centre" in September 2009 and bringing the INSERM units U921, U966, the
cancer institute Gustave Roussy (Villejuif) and us. The objective of this project is to provide the community with
an automated tool for screening chemical compounds in order to discover anti-metastatic ones.
Number of joint publications: 3 (INSERM team 5) + 2 (Unit U921)
In another context, the group has piloted the PIVOAN project, finaced by the Région Centre (2007-2009). The
aim of this project is to elaborate a digitalization and retrieval system dedicated to old documents of the
Renaissance period so that the CESR (Centre d’étude Supérieur de la Renaissance, UMR CNRS) can easily add
new digitalized document to the Bibliothèque Virtuelle Humaniste (Virtual Humanistic Libraries). The group
BDTLN from the same laboratory has also participated to this project. This collaboration should continue in the
context of R4 project (piloted by the BDTLN group) just submitted to the Region Centre. Its goal is to complete
the textual indexing system of the BVH-CESR project by a vocal transcription of the documents.
APR Region Centre PIVOAN: 50K€ Coordinateur RFAI = 33K€ + CESR = 17K€
Number of joint publications: 3 (CESR)
D. Collaborations with industrial Partners
All these actions can validate more academic research. RFAI worked closely with four companies including:
 A strong collaboration with Snecma began in 2007 and resulted in co-financing (with the region Centre) for
a PhD thesis since 2008 (C. Rouzière). This work aims at the automatic recognition of numbers engraved on
mechanical parts for the aerospace industry.
 We still have a good partnership with the ATOS Worldline Corporation: the works initiated on biometrics
(handwritten signature authentication) went on based on CIFRE PhD collaboration (J. Fortune).
 Another CIFRE PhD (S. Hocquet) wass made in collaboration with Cap Monétique society in the field of
biometrics.
 The collaboration with the Faiveley society was mainly focused on the video monitoring problems.
 Some other collaborations were also established with the following companies: Access Solution
(Grenoble): Localization of graphical objects in WYSIWYG interfaces - 6 K€ - Eskape (Tours): Contract
ANVAR A0312096F on the financing of a transfer technology as part of an electronic document
management in intranet environment.
The members of the team participate to numerous research projects at a regional, national or international
level, as well as participant (P) than as coordinator (C).
Project
Adapt + IF135
APR Pivoan
APR Dermlab3D
APR R4, Crimoci
ACI Madonne
ANR Navidomass
Appel à chercheurs de la BnF
Technovision Epeires
ANR Digidoc
ANR Digidoc
FP7 INFRA Transere
Role of RFAI
C
C
C
P
P
P
c/p
P
P
P
P
Area
Regional
Régional
Regional
Régional
National
National
National
national
National
National
International
Year
2007
2004-2007
2010
2010-2011
2003-2006
2006-2010
2008-2010
2004-2007
2009-2012
2010-2013
2008
Funding
rejected
RFAI = 33K€ + CESR = 17K€
Rejected
Submitted
RFAI = 15K€
RFAI = 71K€
not financed
RFAI = 12K€
Rejected
Submitted
Rejected
Valconum???
E. Dissemination, Software and valorisation
Training
Industrial Valorisation
Open source software and prototype
Databases / Benchmarks
A half-day of practical work lesson about using tools developed
during paradiit project is scheduled each year since 2012 in the
Master “Patrimoine numérique” propose par le CESR de Tours (15
etudiants/an)
A training of 2 days has also been done (same software) for
researchers (SHS and SPI) from Nantes interested by these tools.
SATT
Retro software:
VizAssist
GBR4GED: graph based repository for GED method evaluation (ob
IAPR-TC15 web site)
F. Vulgarization, social and cultural impact
4. Research animation and Visibility
A. At the International level
B. At the National level
C. At the Local and Regional level
Within the IFR 135 (functional imaging), we are actively working on the segmentation applied to 3D ultrasound
image of high resolution. Work is underway with a local academic partner to describe images acquired using a
new piezoelectric 3D sensor. A thesis proposing the use of new descriptors of 3D textures and co-supervised
with the team 5 of INSERM is ending and helps making available to dermatologists of CHRU Tours a software
tool that provides 3D segmentation and volume parameters in order to follow more precisely in time the skin
lesions.
D. Synthesis about research animation
Regional
RFAI Seminars
National
International
1 semnar every 3 weeks
Presentation in working groups
GDR = JY Ramel (2), S Cauchie
(1), S Delest (1)
General seminars invitation
Animation of seminars (manque
aussi les assoc)
Organisation of conferences
CVC(JY
Ramel),
UBI(T
Brouard)
ANAGRAM'06,
2
journées
GRCE
RFIA 2006 à Tours, 241
participants
IFR
135
(Imagerie
of Fonctionnelle), PPF GIC (Tours, AFRIF,
GRCE
et
ASTI
Orléans, Poitiers, la Rochelle et (membre du bureau)
Limoges).
program
TSI, RFIA 2010, CIFED 2010, ICSNC
2006-2010,
RFIA 2008...
IS2006-2007
Participation
to
animation
associations or working groups
Participation
committees
to
Presidence of program committee
Invited associated editor
Reviewing (Journals)
5. Team composition, management and animation
A. Team composition
Equipe multisite – forte croissance !
Generally, 7 or 8 PhD students (around 1 per permanent member) are working within the team. Ten obtained
their PhD degree between 2006 and 2009. Most of them also succeed in their professional career (lots of them
are assistant professor) which seems to indicate they are well prepared. Every year, several master students do
their internship within the team.
At the level of local involvement, many team members participate on the board of the laboratory and the CSDP
(the committee which proposes the selection committees). The team members have also managed the
computer research master (5 years) and 3 modules of this master. They represent the laboratory to graduate
schools (the former ED SST and the new in creation ED MIPT). They also operate a teaching module of the ED.
Recrutement à l’international => MCF Postdoc
The RFAI team hosts regularly foreigner PhD students. 4 were welcomed between 2006-2010: 1 from Iran and
3 from Pakistan: 2005-2008: PhD grant of R.J. Qureshi, program of PhD Scholarships for Natural and Basic
Sciences France, Higher Education Comission - Pakistan,
2008-2011: PhD grants of M. Luqman and F. Ameed, program of Overseas Scholarship for PhD in Selected Field
(Phase-II), Higher Education Comission - Pakistan,
We also hosted 3 internship students (2 from India, 1 from Tunisia).
Recruitment since 2003 is mostly non-local: PR 2 locals and 2 non-locals, MCF 1 local and 2 non-locals.
B. Animation and management
The team is managed by a team leader and a co-team leader who are elected for 4 years.
A weekly seminar is organized consisting of a scientific presentation, a team meeting and a meeting of
permanent. The seminar meets three requirements:
- Training of our PhD students to make presentations, ask questions and answer them. It also allows sharing
between our diverse areas of expertise and bringing new ideas.
- Improving communication between members who are dispersed over many components and sites (IUT, UFR,
Polytech'Tours, ENIVL) and taking main decisions.
6. Future works and objectives
The RFAI group will persevere to work on its actual domains of expertise with the goal of continuing to be a
reference in these domains at the national and international level.
Between all the opportunities to achieve this goal, we can mention the following (but not exhaustive):
Concerning interactive methods and tools for image and data analysis and classification. To increase
more this aspect, the decision of merging with the FOVEA group has been taken just after the last
evaluation of the Laboratory (4 years ago). Researchers of this group were and are still working on
visual data mining methods and interactive data analysis and visualization algorithms. For this, they
are using meta-heuristics, machine learning and graph based methods that are very close and
connected with the methods and tools that use for pattern recognition purpose (feature extraction
and selection, clustering methods, relevance feedbacks, …)
Concerning graph based methods for image analysis and structural pattern recognition. Graphs allow
to create easily relationships between the low level part (image or data representation) and the high
level part (data mining, pattern recognition, clustering, classification,…) of a decision system. As
mentioned before, it is one of the scientific goal and, furthermore, graph is becoming a more and
more used and studied tools during this last years because of the recent advances in data
management, sharing, and proliferation (social networks, big data, …)
Concerning “meta-learning”, similarly as what we have successfully done with FOVEA team, we have
also decided to join forces with the members of HANT team and to integrate them (done since
September 2015) in our group to take benefic of their expertise in meta_heuristics and to work
together on the use of these kind of approaches in the context of interactive and visual data and
image analysis, indexation an retrieval tasks