Learning an Object's Function By Observing the Object in Action

Zoran Duric, Ehud Rivlin, and Azriel Rosenfeld.
Learning an Object's Function by Observing the Object in Action.
In IUW, 1437-1446, 1996

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Abstract

One way to learn the function of an object is by watching the object in use. As an example, an observer might "see" a knife being used to slice bread and learn the function of cutting and the context in which it can be used. This paper demonstrates that the function of an object can be inferred from its motion. We show that the motion of an object, when combined with information about the object's shape, provides strong constraints on possible functions that the object might be performing. In further studies, currently in progress, we will demonstrate that this approach can be used to learn the functionality of an unknown object by observing an image sequence that shows the object performing an action which accomplishes the function.

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Bibtex Entry

@inproceedings{DuricRR96i,
  title = {Learning an Object's Function by Observing the Object in Action},
  author = {Zoran Duric and Ehud Rivlin and Azriel Rosenfeld},
  year = {1996},
  booktitle = {IUW},
  pages = {1437-1446},
  keywords = {Function},
  abstract = {One way to learn the function of an object is by watching the object in use. As an example, an observer might "see" a knife being used to slice bread and learn the function of cutting and the context in which it can be used. This paper demonstrates that the function of an object can be inferred from its motion. We show that the motion of an object, when combined with information about the object's shape, provides strong constraints on possible functions that the object might be performing. In further studies, currently in progress, we will demonstrate that this approach can be used to learn the functionality of an unknown object by observing an image sequence that shows the object performing an action which accomplishes the function.}
}