Multi-label Moves for MRFs with Truncated Convex Priors

Abstract

Optimization with graph cuts became very popular in recent years. As more applications rely on graph cuts, different energy functions are being employed. Recent evaluation of optimization algorithms showed that the widely used swap and expansion graph cut algorithms have an excellent performance for energies where the underlying MRF has Potts prior. Potts prior corresponds to assuming that the true labeling is piecewise constant. While surprisingly useful in practice, Potts prior is clearly not appropriate in many circumstances. However for more general priors, the swap and expansion algorithms do not perform as well. Both algorithms are based on moves that give each pixel a choice of only two labels. Therefore such moves can be referred to as binary moves. Recently, range moves that act on multiple labels simultaneously were introduced. As opposed to swap and expansion, each pixel has a choice of more than two labels in a range move. Therefore we call them multi-label moves. Range moves were shown to work better for problems with truncated convex priors, which imply a piecewise smooth labeling. Inspired by range moves, we develop several different variants of multi-label moves. We evaluate them on the problem of stereo correspondence and discuss their relative merits.