EE368/CS232 Project Proposal • Winter 2014 • Ingersoll
Visualization of Hummingbird Flight
Rivers Ingersoll
Stanford University
[email protected]
I.
Motivation
Hummingbirds are one of nature’s most fascinating creatures. They have been shown to flap their
wings over 40 times a second [1] and quickly perform areal maneuvers while drinking nectar
from flowers. Their swiftness is far too fast for the human eye to capture in real time, but with
the use of high speed video cameras, we can slow down and view their movement on a different
scale. In my research, I am currently studying the time resolved forces generated by a hovering
hummingbird. While I enjoy building my experiment and unraveling the fundamental principles
these birds rely on to fly, I also would like to highlight the beauty and elegance of their flight.
Partial inspiration for this project is from Dennis Hlynsky on Vimeo [3] [4] who filmed birds flying
in the air at standard frame rates and used Adobe After Effects to display the paths of the birds
over time as shown below:
II.
Goals
I hope to take high speed (2000 fps, Phantom Miro LC310) color videos of hummingbirds in their
natural habitat feeding from flowers. I plan to use image processing techniques to separate the
birds from the background and create a visually appealing time lapse of their movement. The final
goal will be to create a MATLAB GUI that allows the user to import a high speed video of a bird,
specify desired parameters, then the program will use those parameters to process and output
a unique video file containing the visually appealing time lapse. Below are some screenshots of
high speed hummingbird video I have shot in the past year. I plan to test my algorithm on these
videos as well as new videos I will shoot over the next few weeks specifically for this project.
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EE368/CS232 Project Proposal • Winter 2014 • Ingersoll
III.
Objectives
My first objective will be to create a ghosting effect where the image of the bird in the previous
frames is still visible but becomes slightly more transparent as the video continues. I will also
implement an anti camera shake algorithm to stabilize the video. Depending on how much time is
remaining in the quarter, I might be able to incorporate other features using image processing such
as tracking the wing tips over time and displaying that on the final outputted video using object
tracking algorithms [2]. I could also implement a feature that displays the previous bird image in
a different color tint depending on the type of motion detected during that instant. Maruyama et
al. showed that they could distinguish flapping and gliding behavior using a tracking window
[5]. Overall I plan to develop an easy method for anyone to create visually appealing movie clips
using image processing techniques from high speed video. This project will not use an Android
device.
References
[1] Altshuler, D.L., Quicazan-Rubio, E.M., Segre, P.S. & Middleton, K.M. Wingbeat kinematics and
motor control of yaw turns in Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte anna). Journal of Experimental
Biology (2012).
[2] Cika, P.; Zukal, M.; Libis, Z.; Dutta, M.K., "Tracking and speed estimation of selected object
in video sequence," Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP), 2013 36th International
Conference , vol., no., pp.881,884, 2-4 July 2013 doi: 10.1109/TSP.2013.6614066
[3] Hlynsky, D. Starlings at Sunset Vimeo [video]. Retrieved January 31, 2014 from
http://vimeo.com/78737089 (2013).
[4] Hlynsky, D. Black Vultures Vimeo [video]. Retrieved January 31,
http://vimeo.com/78188069 (2013).
2014 from
[5] Maruyama, K.; Saitoh, T.; Konishi, R., "Bird tracking and flapping motion recognition for
monitoring system," ICCAS-SICE, 2009 , vol., no., pp.3613,3618, 18-21 Aug. 2009
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