A formalism for integrating machine vision systems: Hierarchical token grouping

While the view of constructive and hierarchical vision prevails, the issues of cooperation and competition among individual modules become crucial. These issues are directly related to one of the most important aspects in computer vision research: integration. A major source of difficulty in developing a consistent and systematic integration formalism is the heterogeneity existing in modules, in information, and in knowledge. In this paper, we exploit, using the central theme of grouping, the homogeneous characteristics in vision problem solving and propose a general framework, called Hierarchical Token Grouping, that facilitates vision problem solving by providing a consistent and systematic environment for integrating modules, cues, and knowledge, all in a globally coherent mechanism.