[Oops, your browser will not display java applets.]

This applet allows the user to draw an image of their choice, and then have the computer attempt to find either "faces" (i.e., two eyes and a nose), or "blobs" (i.e., simple oval shapes) of concentrated dots on the image. An explanation of the image controls (yellow buttons) is as follows:

• SPRINKLE DOTS: place 100 image dots uniformly at random
• SEARCH ONCE: perform a Monte Carlo search for a blob, clearing any previous searches
• SEARCH AGAIN: perform a search for a blob, without clearing previous searches
• CLEAR SEARCH: erase any previous searches
• DUMP DATA: dump the current image data to the Java virtual console (for testing purposes)
• RESTORE DATA: read in a particular test image, which consists of a simple face-like image near the center, plus a few random dots. (More random dots can then be added by clicking on "SPRINKLE DOTS".)
• BLOB / FACE: select whether to search for simple blobs (ovals), or faces (two eyes and a nose)

In addition, the applet's control buttons (blue) allow for adjusting a number of parameters of the search algorithm. For more details, see my recent research paper.

Note that the algorithm does not "cheat" by making use of the order in which the dots were created, nor which dots were created by the user and which ones at random. Rather, it makes use of the final image array and nothing more.

In the future, I hope to allow for importing external images (e.g. photographs) rather than just drawing them.

My interest in computer vision is quite recent, and was inspired partially by a talk by Yali Amit and meeting Sven Dickinson.