I hate to mention galaxy classification here, because that phrase is loaded, and most astronomers associate classification with what I would call classical morphological classification
, which I believe has been a very unproductive method in astronomy (despite its incredibly successful adoption and widespread use). But that polemic is the subject of another post!
Today, Yann LeCun (NYU), Barron, and I discussed the possibility of performing an objective galaxy classification not in the space of 2-d galaxy images, but in a 3-d shape
space, with the 2-d images constraining the shapes and setting the diversity of 3-d types. This is like an inverse of the computer graphics problem, that is, it is not here are the 3-d objects, what is the scene?
but rather here is the scene, what are the 3-d objects?
The key to solving the problem is the hypothesis that the great diversity of galaxies emerges from a small number of (parameterized) types, plus viewing peculiarities. Will it work? We shall see.
I'm sure you've seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuoljANz4EA
ReplyDeletematthew: Your url 404s
ReplyDeleteThat's strange. It works for me. Here's the description for the video in case you're interested: "Researchers of Carnegie Mellon University has managed to teach a computer to recognize and transform 2D images into 3D."
ReplyDeleteokay got it; I must be incompetent at this whole internet thing. Nice video. They have a much harder problem, actually, because we have (near) transparency.
ReplyDelete