Book website

I've now put up a main website for the book. It contains not only the draft but also powerpoint slides and other helpful links and information. You can find it at http://www.computervisionmodels.com.

Final Version

The final version of the book is now online. I've fixed a lot of mistakes in the last couple of weeks and I've written a proper introductory chapter. I've managed to decrease the size of the file a little too. The book has now been submitted to the publisher, but please mail me if you find any errata - I'm sure there are still loads. I can still correct things when I get the proofs (around December, apparently).

Final edits

Loads of tiny changes since last time, but nothing significant. Just trying to work out the remaining kinks now and don't expect to be adding any more content except for a short introduction. If you find any problems, please mail me about them ASAP before the book goes off to the publishers!

Shape models

Lots of minor changes but two big things. I've done quite a bit of work on the shape chapter, and I think it's finally got to the stage where I'm not too embarrassed about it any more. I've also moved the preprocessing appendix into the middle of the book at the request of several readers who thought it was too important to be appendicised.

In addition, I've done some work on the multi-view geometry chapter, responding to the comments of a (surprisingly helpful) reviewer.

Enjoy!

Minor update

Only a few minor changes since last time based on feedback people have sent me and a general clean-up of Chapter 18. Still plenty more mistakes in there though, I think, so please keep sending in the feedback.

Update

Since last time, I've just corrected a lot of tiny errors (thanks to people who helped me by mailing in errata) and worked on the index, which is now in much better shape. Plan for the next couple of weeks is to work on the shape and visual words chapters...

Update

Another update yesterday. I've corrected many small mistakes throughout the book. I've worked on the description of the EM algorithm and added a couple of figures. I've also done a lot of work on the shape chapter - I'm about half way through, but it's more coherent & correct now.

If you are planning on reading the book, then please please please try to find the time to mail me some comments. They are proving so useful to me and the quality is really increasing I think.

Update

Hi - I've just put a new version online. Since last time, i have done some work on the index (it's pretty good up to 'e' now). I've sorted out some problems with the description of sparse linear regression and relevance vector regression. I've also added sections on relevance vector classification; trees, forests and ferns; and a comparison to non-probabilistic classification methods. I've sorted out a lot of small problems, especially in chapters 8-14.

It's definitely going to be a little while before the book is complete (perhaps end of July?), so please if you read this, send me any comments / errata / feedback. A few people have already mailed me and its made a massive difference to the final product.

Back up

It should be back up again now. Still not completely sure this is resolved for good.

Link is down

I'm not sure why. I'm investigating.

New version

The new update is here - I've finished the first draft of the last chapter, and I've been working on the index. I've fixed about a thousand errors spread throughout the book since the last version as well. Since then someone posted a link here on a bulletin board and about 5000 people hit this site. If the download fails just wait a bit and try again. UCL's servers are pretty good and you'll definitely get a copy. Please don't torrent or repost to the internet; this is always going to be downloadable for free and I don't want half-baked versions out there. I'm updating this on a day to day basis and there's still a lot of mistakes in it.

The download is huge because I made the figures in Inkscape and it can't produce compressed PDFs. If anyone knows how to solve this problem, I'd be happy to hear about it...

Update - this is partially resolved now. I managed to compress it a bit using Quartz filters on the MAC without losing too much quality. Now its a mere 150Mb.

Hold on a second

Since a link to this book has just been posted to a prominent website, I've taken it down for a little while while I upload the most recent version that has a lot of small errors corrected. It will be back up in a couple of hours I expect. It's worth the wait...

Update

There's another update this morning. I've corrected a number of small errors throughout the manuscript and done some more work on chapter 18 which now features a roughly comprehensible discussion of latent Dirichlet allocation and the author-topic model. Thanks to people who have helped me eliminate errors.

Small edits

In the new version today, a lot of small mistakes have been eliminated from the later chapters and I've done some more work on the final chapter (chap 18). Trying to find a simple way to explain latent Dirichlet allocation. Not that easy. This chapter should reach levels of comprehensibility by the weekend (I hope).

Temporal models

Another small update last night. Lots of small errors eliminated from Chapter 10 and some work put into the temporal models chapter which was pretty sloppy.

More minor changes

Lots more tiny changes in chapters 11-14 especially but also in other places. I started making the figures for the final chapter. I've updated the main pdf and I'll put new versions of the individual sections up tomorrow with all of the changes made so far.... They're up now.

Minor updates

More minor updates today. No major changes, but a large number of tiny errors sorted out in chapters 1-11 and 15. Again, these can only be seen in the full version. I'll update the individual sections this weekend. Thank you very much to those who mailed me with comment -- you know who you are!

Minor changes

Some changes to the chapter on graphical models and the chapter on Markov random fields. Lots of minor errata corrected in the appendices on image preprocessing and optimization. I've only updated the full book as it is a bit of a bother splitting it into parts so often, so try to download that if you can.

Update

Just posted a new update. Many minor bug fixes in the first 9 chapters or so. I've also worked a bit on the regression chapter - there is an expanded discussion of non-linear regression and I think I've made the sparse regression model a little clearer. I've re-written a lot of the chapter on shape models (probably the weakest chapter, I think). It's still not great but I think it is moving in the correct direction. Thanks to all of the people who have mailed me errata so far!

New version

Many small errors fixed throughout the book. I've added the examples and literature review to the chapter on tracking.

More changes

Just posted another new version - this one has a first draft of the notes, problems and examples for the shape chapter (which BTW I don't really consider to be in great shape at this time). I've also managed to fix the annoying bug to do with hyperref that made the problems go off the bottom of the page.

New version

There was a new version posted this afternoon. It has everything complete up to the end of the chapter 14 (the end of the geometry section). I've also fixed numerous small errors that have been helpfully pointed out to me by various people. I've finally
managed to figure out how to get the hyper-links working in the text as well so it should be a more friendly PDF document from now on.

New post

Now completed first draft of the applications, problems, and literature review up to the end of Chapter 11 (Markov Random Fields). Fixed numerous errors. Thanks particularly to James Tompkin and Yun Fu for helping find these.

Applications

New update yesterday - now completed first draft of Applications, References, Algorithm and Problems up to chapter 9 and working on chapter 10. Various small errors found in earlier chapters and corrected.

Minor corrections

Two updates in two days. Put in many minor corrections suggested by Yun Fu and Mikhail Sizintsev. The changes are all in chapters 5-8.

New update

New update last night - added the version 0.0 of a chapter on Bag of Words models and fixed a lot of mistakes since last time. I'm now working my way through the book adding in problems, applications and references. Yes. After 550 pages there are finally (some) references.

No longer ashamed

New update yesterday. I think we have reached the point, where I am no longer ashamed of any of the content in the book. Surely this is some kind of milestone! Almost finished the main content now - one more chapter to go. Since last time, I have re-written chapter 10 completely and also done some work on chapter 11, added some more algorithms to the back and and sorted out some mistakes in chapter 1-5.

New update

New update last night. Since last time, I've added a lot to the chapter on shape although it still needs a lot of work. I've also added descriptions of a bunch more algorithms and a section on notation at the beginning and done some work on the first two chapters. Most of the main content is present now - I'm planning on going back and sorting out some of the stuff on dynamic programming/belief prop next week in the light of the new graphical models chapter.

Graphical models

Since last time - finished chapter on graphical models, started work on shape chapter. Sorted out some embarrassing errors in the chapter on transformation models, added a number of algorithms to the section at the back and sorted out the section on linear algebra. Basic text is looking quite complete now, but still no references..

Major update

If you've been reading this then you may be under the impression that I had died - not a lot of progress here over the last few weeks. However, I have been working hard trying to sort things out. Since last time, I have added four chapters. Three are on geometry and one on subspace models. I've also sorted out some problems with the tracking chapter, added some problems and made the first version of the index. Enjoy.