Human-vision-based selection of image processing algorithms for planetary exploration

Independent and automatic image processing is a fundamental objective of the computer vision community. Understanding the role of the eye movement scanpath in human vision is an important step toward the achievement of this objective. This top-down model of higher human vision is a new approach to bottom-up image processing algorithms and provides an important new metric and tool in computer vision. We have demonstrated that a small and manageable collection of image processing algorithms, experimentally selected and then combined together can serve in a task such as predicting human eye fixations identifying geological features. Thus, automatic picture analysis based upon human vision could be an essential element in planetary exploration.