Computer Vision - telivaina/ai GitHub Wiki

๐Ÿ‘๏ธโ€๐Ÿ—จ๏ธ Computer Vision in AI

Computer Vision is a field of Artificial Intelligence that enables machines to understand, analyze, and make decisions based on visual inputs such as images, videos, and real-world scenes.


๐Ÿ” Real-World Analogy

Imagine teaching a child to identify animals in a photo book. At first, they may guess. But over time, they learn from examples โ€” this is similar to how computer vision systems are trained using data.

Computer Vision typically relies on Deep Learning, especially Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), to analyze visual data.


๐Ÿ† Prominent Use Cases

Use Case Description
๐Ÿš— Autonomous Vehicles Detect lanes, pedestrians, and traffic signs.
๐Ÿ“ท Face Recognition Unlock phones, detect identities in surveillance.
๐Ÿ›๏ธ Retail & E-commerce Product search, visual recommendations, try-on features.
๐Ÿฅ Medical Imaging Identify tumors, analyze X-rays and MRIs.
๐Ÿ“Š Manufacturing & Inspection Detect defects in products or machinery parts.
๐Ÿค– Robotics Help robots navigate and interact with environments.
๐ŸŒ AR/VR & Gaming Track motion, map environments, detect gestures.

๐Ÿงฉ Key Concepts in Computer Vision

  • Image Classification: Categorize images (e.g., cat vs. dog).
  • Object Detection: Locate and label multiple objects in a scene.
  • Segmentation: Divide an image into meaningful regions (e.g., separating background from foreground).
  • Pose Estimation: Understand human or object movement and posture.
  • Image Captioning: Generate text describing an image.
  • Scene Understanding: Recognize relationships between multiple objects.

๐Ÿง  Most Common Models & Architectures

Model / Architecture Purpose Known For
๐Ÿ“ท CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) Feature extraction from images Core of modern CV tasks
๐Ÿงฑ ResNet Deep CNN with skip connections Very deep, stable networks
๐ŸŒ‰ VGG Simpler deep CNN ImageNet classification
๐Ÿš€ YOLO Real-time object detection Speed and efficiency
๐Ÿ“ฆ Faster R-CNN Object detection High accuracy
๐Ÿง  Vision Transformer (ViT) Transformer-based vision model Emerging SOTA in vision tasks
๐ŸŽฏ Mask R-CNN Object detection + segmentation Advanced instance segmentation
๐Ÿงฉ UNet Semantic segmentation Medical imaging
๐ŸงŠ GAN (Generative Adversarial Networks) Image generation / synthesis Deepfakes, art generation

๐Ÿ“ Common Algorithms & Techniques

Algorithm / Method Application
Convolution + Pooling Feature extraction
Non-Maximum Suppression Clean bounding box predictions
Data Augmentation Improve generalization
Transfer Learning Use pre-trained models
Feature Maps Visual pattern detection
Attention Mechanisms Focus on relevant regions
Edge Detection (Sobel, Canny) Traditional CV techniques

๐Ÿ”ฌ Popular Tools & Libraries

  • OpenCV: Traditional computer vision toolkit (C++, Python).
  • TensorFlow / PyTorch: Deep learning libraries for CNNs and other DL models.
  • Detectron2 (by Meta): High-quality object detection & segmentation.
  • MMDetection: Open-source detection toolbox.
  • LabelImg, CVAT: Image annotation tools.

๐ŸŒŸ Companies & Applications

Company Application Area
๐Ÿ“ฑ Apple Face ID, camera optimization
๐Ÿง  Google Google Lens, self-driving cars (Waymo)
๐Ÿ“ฆ Amazon Amazon Go (checkout-free stores)
๐Ÿš— Tesla Autonomous driving visual systems
๐Ÿฅ Zebra Medical Radiology and medical image diagnostics

๐Ÿ”ฎ Future of Computer Vision

  • ๐Ÿš€ Greater integration with multimodal models (vision + text + audio).
  • ๐Ÿง  More general-purpose models like Vision Transformers.
  • ๐ŸŒ Applications in climate, agriculture, and space research.
  • ๐Ÿ’ฌ Better fusion with Natural Language Processing (e.g., image captioning).
  • ๐Ÿค– Use in AI-powered assistants, AR/VR, and robotics.

๐Ÿง  In Summary:
Computer Vision is an exciting domain at the intersection of AI and visual understanding. With deep learning at its core, itโ€™s transforming how machines perceive and interact with the world around them.