Computer Vision: Evolution And Promise

In this paper we give a somewhat personal and perhaps biased overview of the field of Computer Vision.First, we define computer vision and give a very brief history of it.Then, we outline some of the reasons why computer vision is a very difficult research field.Finally, we discuss past, present, and future applications of computer vision.Especially, we give some examples of future applications which we think are very promising. What is Computer Vision?Computer Vision has a dual goal.From the biological science point of view, computer vision aims to come up with computational models of the human visual system.From the engineering point of view, computer vision aims to build autonomous systems which could perform some of the tasks which the human visual system can perform (and even surpass it in many cases).Many vision tasks are related to the extraction of 3D and temporal information from time-varying 2D data such as obtained by one or more television cameras, and more generally the understanding of such dynamic scenes.Of course, the two goals are intimately related.The properties and characteristics of the human visual system often give inspiration to engineers who are designing computer vision systems.Conversely, computer vision algorithms can offer insights into how the human visual system works.In this paper we shall adopt the engineering point of view.