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Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 704

Bidyut B. Chaudhuri
Mohan S. Kankanhalli
Balasubramanian Raman Editors

Proceedings of
2nd International
Conference on
Computer Vision &
Image Processing
CVIP 2017, Volume 2
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Volume 704

Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory, applications,
and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually all disciplines such as
engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce,
environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent
systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks,
fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion of these paradigms, social intelligence, ambient
intelligence, computational neuroscience, artificial life, virtual worlds and society, cognitive science and
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e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric computing, recommender systems, intelligent
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The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily proceedings
of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover significant recent developments in the
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e-mail: escorchado@usal.es
Hani Hagras, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
e-mail: hani@essex.ac.uk
László T. Kóczy, Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
e-mail: koczy@sze.hu
Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, USA
e-mail: vladik@utep.edu
Chin-Teng Lin, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: ctlin@mail.nctu.edu.tw
Jie Lu, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: Jie.Lu@uts.edu.au
Patricia Melin, Tijuana Institute of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico
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Nadia Nedjah, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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e-mail: Ngoc-Thanh.Nguyen@pwr.edu.pl
Jun Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
e-mail: jwang@mae.cuhk.edu.hk

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11156

Bidyut B. Chaudhuri Mohan S. Kankanhalli
•

Balasubramanian Raman
Editors

Proceedings of 2nd
International Conference
on Computer Vision & Image
Processing
CVIP 2017, Volume 2

123
Editors
Bidyut B. Chaudhuri Balasubramanian Raman
Computer Vision and Pattern Department of Computer Science
Recognition Unit and Engineering
Indian Statistical Institute Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Kolkata Roorkee, Uttarakhand
India India

Mohan S. Kankanhalli
School of Computing
National University of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore

ISSN 2194-5357 ISSN 2194-5365 (electronic)

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
ISBN 978-981-10-7897-2 ISBN 978-981-10-7898-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7898-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963008

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Preface

The Second International Conference on Computer Vision and Image Processing

(CVIP 2017) was organized at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR),
Greater Noida Extension Center, during September 09–12, 2017. The conference
was endorsed by International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR) and was
primarily sponsored by MathWorks. CVIP 2017 brought together delegates from
around the globe in the focused area of computer vision and image processing,
facilitating exchange of ideas and initiation of collaborations. Among 175 paper
submissions, 64 (37%) were accepted based on multiple high-quality reviews
provided by the members of our technical program committee from ten different
countries. We, the organizers of the conference, were ably guided by its advisory
committee comprising distinguished researchers in the field of computer vision and
image processing from seven different countries. A rich and diverse technical
program was designed for CVIP 2017 comprising five plenary talks and paper
presentations in seven oral and two poster sessions. Emphasis was given to the latest
advances in Cybernetic Health, Perception of Visual Sentiment, Reshaping of
Human Figures in Images and Videos using 3D Morphable Models, Vision and
Language, and Challenges in Biometric System Development. The papers for the
technical sessions were divided based on their theme relating to Computer Vision
Applications, Document Image Analysis, Machine Learning and Uncertainty
Handling, Surveillance and Security, Summarization, Retrieval and Recognition,
and Low-level Computer Vision. This edited volume contains the papers presented
in the technical sessions of the conference, organized session-wise.
Organizing CVIP 2017, which culminates with the compilation of the volume of
proceedings, has been a gratifying and enjoyable experience for us. The success
of the conference was due to synergistic contributions of various individuals and
groups including the international advisory committee members with their invalu-
able suggestions, the technical program committee members with their timely
high-quality reviews, the keynote speakers with informative lectures, the local
organizing committee members with their unconditional help, and our sponsors and

v
vi Preface

endorsers with their timely support. Finally, we would like to thank Springer for
agreeing to publish the proceedings in their prestigious Advances in Intelligent
Systems and Computing (AISC) series. We hope the technical contributions made
by the authors in these volumes presenting the proceedings of CVIP 2017 will be
appreciated by one and all.

Kolkata, India Bidyut B. Chaudhuri

Singapore, Singapore Mohan S. Kankanhalli
Roorkee, India Balasubramanian Raman
Committees

General Chairs
Bidyut Baran Chaudhuri, ISI Kolkata, India
Mohan Kankanhalli, NUS, Singapore

Organizing Chairs
Balasubramanian Raman, IIT Roorkee, India
Sanjeev Kumar, IIT Roorkee, India
Partha Pratim Roy, IIT Roorkee, India
Vinod Pankajakshan, IIT Roorkee, India

Program Chairs
Debashis Sen, IIT Kharagpur, India
Sudipta Mukhopadhyay, IIT Kharagpur, India
Dilip Prasad, NTU, Singapore
Mukesh Saini, IIT Ropar, India

Workshop Chairs
Brajesh Kaushik, IIT Roorkee, India
N. Sukavanam, IIT Roorkee, India

Plenary Chairs
Dharmendra Singh, IIT Roorkee, India
R. D. Garg, IIT Roorkee, India

International Advisory Committee

A. G. Ramakrishnan, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Arpan Pal, Tata Consultancy Services, Kolkata, India
B. Krishna Mohan, IIT Bombay, India

vii
viii Committees

Gian Luca Foresti, University of Udine, Italy

Jonathan Wu, University of Windsor, Canada
Josep Lladós, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Michael Blumenstein, Griffith University, Australia
Phalguni Gupta, IIT Kanpur, India
Pradeep Atrey, State University of New York, Albany, USA
Prem K. Kalra, IIT Delhi, India
Santanu Choudhury, IIT Delhi, India
Subhasis Chaudhuri, IIT Bombay, India
Umapada Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
Publication Chairs
Debi Prosad Dogra, IIT Bhubaneshwar, India
Rajarshi Pal, IDBRT Hyderabad, India
Biplab Banerjee, IIT Roorkee, India
Area Chairs
Ananda S. Chowdhury, Jadavpur University, India
Arnav Bhavsar, IIT Mandi, India
Christian Micheloni, University of Udine, Italy
Gaurav Bhatnagar, IIT Jodhpur, India
Ibrahim Venkat, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Kidiyo Kpalma, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Rennes, France
Maheshkumar H. Kolekar, IIT Patna, India
Pritee Khanna, IIIT Jabalpur, India
Rajiv Ratn Shah, IIIT Delhi, India
Shanmuganathan Raman, IIT Gandhinagar, India
Subrahmanyam Murala, IIT Ropar, India
Vijayan K. Asari, University of Dayton, USA

Technical Program Committee

A. V. Subramanyam, IIIT Delhi, India
Abhishek Midya, NIT Silchar, India
Ajoy Mondal, Indian Statistical Institute, India
Alireza Alaei, Université de Tours, France
Amanjot Kaur, IIT Ropar, India
Amit Kumar Verma, NIT Meghalaya, India
Ananda Chowdhury, Jadavpur University, India
Anil Gonde, Shri Guru Gobind Singhji Institute of Engineering and Technology,
India
Anindya Halder, North-Eastern Hill University, India
Ankush Mittal, Graphic Era University, India
Ashis Dhara, IIT Kharagpur, India
Aveek Shankar Brahmachari, Stryker Global Technology Center, India
Committees ix

Badrinarayan Subudhi, NIT Goa, India

Bijaylaxmi Das, IIT Kharagpur, India
Dinabandhu Bhandari, Heritage Institute of Technology, India
Dwarikanath Mohapatra, IBM Research, Australia
Enmei, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Gan Tian, School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University,
China
Gao Tao, North China Electric Power University, China
Gaurav Gupta, The NorthCap University, Gurgaon, India
Grace Y. Wang, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Guoqiang, Ocean University of China, China
Harish Katti, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Hemanth Korrapati, National Robotics Engineering Center, Carnegie Mellon
University, USA
Himanshu Agarwal, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India
Jatindra Dash, IIT Kharagpur, India
Jayasree Chakraborty, Research Fellow, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,
USA
K. C. Santosh, Department of Computer Science, The University of South Dakota,
USA
Kaushik Roy, West Bengal State University, India
Krishna Agarwal, University of Tromso, Norway
Ma He, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China
Mandar Kale, IIT Kharagpur, India
Manish, University of Nantes, France
Manish Chowdhury, KTH, Sweden
Manish Narwaria, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication
Technology, India
Manoj Kumar, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Central University, India
Manoj Thakur, IIT Mandi, India
Meghshyam G. Prasad, Kolhapur Institute of Technology, India
Minakshi Banerjee, RCC Institute of Information Technology, India
Naveen Kumar, NIT Kurukshetra, India
Nidhi Taneja, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women, India
P. Shivakumara, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Padmanabha Venkatagiri, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Partha Pratim Kundu, Indian Statistical Institute, India
Prabhu Natarajan, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Puneet Goyal, IIT Ropar, India
S. K. Gupta, IIT Roorkee, India
Sankaraiah Sreeramula, Fusionex International, Malaysia
Santosh Vipparthi, MNIT Jaipur, India
Sarif Kumar Naik, Philips, India
Shrikant Mehre, IIT Kharagpur, India
Sobhan Dhara, NIT Rourkela, India
x Committees

Subramanyam, IIIT Delhi, India

Suchi Jain, IIT Ropar, India
Sudhish N. George, NIT Calicut, India
Suman Mitra, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication
Technology, India
Tanmay Basu, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, India
Tu Enmei, Rolls-Royce, NTU, Singapore
Vijay Kumar B. G., Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, Australia
Vikrant Karale, IIT Kharagpur, India
Xiangyu Wang, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore
Ying Zhang, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore
Zhong Guoqiang, Ocean University of China, China

Publicity Chairs
Navneet Kumar Gupta, IIT Roorkee, India
Asha Rani, IIT Roorkee, India
Priyanka Singh, State University of New York, Albany, USA
Suresh Merugu, IIT Roorkee, India

Web site
Himanshu Buckchash, Webmaster, IEEE UP Section
Contents

A Novel Method for Logo Detection Based on Curvelet

Transform Using GLCM Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu, Ch Sai Krishna
and A. V. Narasimhadhan
Bayesian Approach for Landslide Identification from
High-Resolution Satellite Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Pilli Madalasa, Gorthi R. K. Sai Subrahmanyam, Tapas Ranjan Martha,
Rama Rao Nidamanuri and Deepak Mishra
Classification of Breast Masses Using Convolutional Neural
Network as Feature Extractor and Classifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Pinaki Ranjan Sarkar, Deepak Mishra and Gorthi R. K. Sai Subrahmanyam
D-PNR: Deep License Plate Number Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Krishan Kumar, Shambhavi Sinha and Piyushi Manupriya
Performance Analysis of Median Filter Demosaicking Algorithm
Using New Extended Bilinear Demosaicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Medha Gupta, Jyoti Dosad and Puneet Goyal
Person Identification with Pose and Identification of Known
Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Arun Singh
Gabor Filter meanPCA Feature Extraction for Gender
Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Sandeep K. Gupta and Neeta Nain
Object Proposals-Based Significance Map for Image Retargeting . . . . . 89
Diptiben Patel and Shanmuganathan Raman
Dense Optical Flow Trajectory-Based Human Activity Recognition
Using Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Deba Prasad Dash and Maheshkumar H Kolekar

xi
xii Contents

Edge-Aware Spatial Filtering-Based Motion Magnification . . . . . . . . . . 117

Manisha Verma and Shanmuganathan Raman
Linear Regression-Based Skew Correction of Handwritten
Words in Indian Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Rahul Pramanik and Soumen Bag
AB Divergence for Fine Tuning Subject Wise Person
Re-Identification Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
V. S. Harikrishnan, D. Sowmiya and P. Anandhakumar
Robust Image Sharing Scheme Using One Dimensional Chaotic
Logistic Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Vikrant Kumar Saini, Amitesh Singh Rajput and Balasubramanian Raman
A Bottom-Up Saliency-Based Segmentation for High-Resolution
Satellite Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Ashu Sharma and Jayanta Kumar Ghosh
A Computer Vision Approach for Lung Cancer Classification
Using FNAC-Based Cytological Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Moumita Dholey, Atasi Sarkar, Maitreya Maity, Amita Giri, Anup Sadhu,
Koel Chaudhury, Soumen Das and Jyotirmoy Chatterjee
Printed Gujarati Character Classification Using High-Level
Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Mukesh M. Goswami and Suman K. Mitra
Fire Detection Using Dense Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Arun Singh Pundir, Himanshu Buckchash, Amitesh Singh Rajput,
Vishesh Kumar Tanwar and Balasubramanian Raman
Robust Ellipse Detection via Duality Principle with a False
Determination Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Huixu Dong, I-Ming Chen and Dilip K. Prasad
Autonomous Staircase Navigation System for Multi-floor Tasks . . . . . . 235
Imran A. Syed, P. Shine, Karri D. Naidu, Bishwajit Sharma, Sartaj Singh
and Dipti Deodhare
Investigation on the Influence of Hip Joint Loading in Peak Stress
During Various Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Ponnusamy Pandithevan and Varatharajan Prasannavenkadesan
A Local Self-Similarity-Based Vehicle Detection Approach Using
Single Query Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Bhakti Baheti, Krishnan Kutty, Suhas Gajre and Sanjay Talbar
Contents xiii

Kannada Character Recognition in Images Using Histogram of

Oriented Gradients and Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Devendra Pratap Yadav and Mayank Kumar
Meta-Classifier Approach with ANN, SVM, Rotation Forest, and
Random Forest for Snow Cover Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Rahul Nijhawan, Balasubramanian Raman and Josodhir Das
Characterization of Dense Crowd Using Gibbs Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Shreetam Behera, Debi Prosad Dogra and Partha Pratim Roy
Image Denoising Using Fractional Quaternion Wavelet
Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Savita Nandal and Sanjeev Kumar
Extraction of Long-Duration Moving Object Trajectories from
Curtailed Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Sk. Arif Ahmed, Debi Prosad Dogra, Samarjit Kar
and Partha Pratim Roy
Wild Animal Detection Using Deep Convolutional Neural
Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Gyanendra K. Verma and Pragya Gupta
Temporal Activity Segmentation for Depth Cameras Using Joint
Angle Variance Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Syed Jafar, Pranav Kumar Singh and Arnav Bhavsar
Bird Region Detection in Images with Multi-scale HOG Features
and SVM Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Rahul Kumar, Ajay Kumar and Arnav Bhavsar
Image Encryption Using Chaotic 3-D Arnold’s Cat Map and
Logistic Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Farhan Musanna, Asha Rani and Sanjeev Kumar
Word Spotting Based on Pyramidal Histogram of Characters
Code for Handwritten Text Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Tofik Ali and Partha Pratim Roy
Video Summarization Using Novel Video Decomposition
Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Saumik Bhattacharya, KS Venkatesh and Sumana Gupta
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
About the Editors

Prof. Bidyut B. Chaudhuri is INAE Distinguished Professor and J. C. Bose

Fellow of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Unit at Indian Statistical
Institute, Kolkata. He received his B.Sc (Hons.), B.Tech, and M.Tech from Calcutta
University, India, in 1969, 1972, and 1974, respectively, and Ph.D. from IIT
Kanpur in 1980. He did his Postdoc work during 1981–82 from Queen’s
University, UK. He also worked as a Visiting Faculty at Tech University,
Hannover, during 1986–87 as well as at GSF institute of Radiation Protection (now
Leibnitz Institute), Munich, in 1990 and 1992. His research interests include digital
document processing, optical character recognition; natural language processing
including lexicon generation, ambiguity analysis, syntactic and semantic analysis in
Bangla and other Indian languages; statistical and fuzzy pattern recognition
including data clustering and density estimation; computer vision and image pro-
cessing; application-oriented research and externally funded project execution; and
cognitive science. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE, International Association for Pattern
Recognition (IAPR), Third World Academy of Science (TWAS), Indian National
Sciences Academy (INSA), National Academy of Sciences (NASc), Indian
National Academy of Engineering (INAE), Institute of Electronics and
Telecommunication Engineering (IETE), West Bengal Academy of Science and
Technology, Optical Society of India, and Society of Machine Aids for Translation.
He has published over 400 papers in journals and conference proceedings of
national and international repute.
Dr. Mohan S. Kankanhalli is a Dean of School of Computing and Provost’s
Chair Professor of Computer Science at National University of Singapore. Before
that, he was the Vice-Provost (Graduate Education) for NUS during 2014–2016 and
Associate Provost (Graduate Education) during 2011–2013. He was earlier the
School of Computing Vice-Dean for Research during 2001–2007 and Vice-Dean
for Graduate Studies during 2007–2010. He obtained his B.Tech (Electrical
Engineering) from IIT Kharagpur in 1986 and M.S. and Ph.D. (Computer and
Systems Engineering) from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1988 and 1990,
respectively. He subsequently joined the Institute of Systems Science. His research

xv
xvi About the Editors

interests include multimedia computing, information security, image/video

processing, and social media analysis. He is a Fellow of IEEE. He has published
over 250 papers in journals and conference proceedings of international repute.
Dr. Balasubramanian Raman is currently an Associate Professor in the
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Roorkee, India. He
completed his Ph.D. (Mathematics and Computer Science) from IIT Madras,
Chennai, in 2001. His areas of interest include computer vision—optical flow
problems, fractional transform theory, wavelet analysis, image and video process-
ing, multimedia security: digital image watermarking and encryption, biometrics,
content-based image and video retrieval, hyperspectral and microwave imaging and
visualization, and volume graphics. He has published over 100 papers in refereed
journals and contributed seven chapters in books.
A Novel Method for Logo Detection
Based on Curvelet Transform Using
GLCM Features

G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu, Ch Sai Krishna and A. V. Narasimhadhan

Abstract Automatic logo detection is a key tool for document retrieval, document
recognition, document classification, and authentication. It helps in office automation
as it enables the effective identification of source of a document. In this paper, a novel
approach for logo detection using curvelet transform is proposed. The curvelet trans-
form is employed for logo detection because of its ability to represent curved singu-
larities efficiently when compared to wavelet and ridgelet transforms. The proposed
algorithm consists of five steps, namely segmentation, noncandidate elimination,
computation of curvelet coefficients, gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) fea-
tures extraction, followed by classification using a pretrained support vector machine
classifier. The proposed algorithm is tested on a standard dataset, and the performance
is compared with the state-of-the-art methods. The results show good improvement
in the accuracy when compared with the competitors.

Keywords Logo detection · Curvelet transform · GLCM features

1 Introduction

The detection of logo can be considered as an important clue for document image
analysis and retrieval. Logos are special visual objects that are commonly used in
business and government documents as a declaration of document source and own-
ership. Logos are generally used to aid and promote instant public recognition for an
organization. The document retrieval is easier using logo recognition than a keyword
search. Methods for document retrieval using logo detection are presented in [12,
18, 29, 37]. A method for categorization of documents based on logo detection is
described in [26].

G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu (B) · A. V. Narasimhadhan

National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India
e-mail: snd.786@gmail.com
C. Sai Krishna
Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Krishna, Nuzvid, India

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 1

B. B. Chaudhuri et al. (eds.), Proceedings of 2nd International Conference
on Computer Vision & Image Processing, Advances in Intelligent Systems
and Computing 704, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7898-9_1
2 G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu et al.

Many algorithms have been developed by several researchers for logo detection
and recognition. A brief literature review is presented in Table 1. These methods are
broadly categorized into three types, namely heuristic methods [16, 21, 27, 31, 32],
spatial density-based methods [2, 25, 28], and multi-resolution methods [36].

1.1 Heuristic Methods

Seiden et al. [27] used the top-down X-Y cut segmentation algorithm to analyze a
binary document to extract 16 features from each connected component, and a rule-
based classifier for classification of the logos. Wang et al. [32] extracted all feature
rectangles from the entire document to detect the logos. A feature rectangle is a min-
imum virtual rectangle which fully embraces at least one foreground pixel and their
edges have all background pixels. Once all the feature rectangles are extracted from
whole document image, classification is performed using a decision tree classifier.

1.2 Spatial Density-Based Methods

Pham [25] and Ahmed [2] proposed logo detection methods that are based on spatial
density of foreground pixels within a given window. The fundamental assumption
in these methods is that the spatial density related to logo regions is greater than
that of non-logo regions. The preprocessing steps are followed by the estimation of
spatial density using mountain function [33], and classification is performed using a
decision tree classifier.

1.3 Multi-resolution Analysis-Based Methods

Shirdhonkar et al. [28] used discrete wavelet transform (DWT) [24] to calculate spa-
tial density. The document image is divided into different nonoverlapping blocks
of fixed size. The DWT coefficients of these blocks of the document image are
computed. Using the DWT coefficients, two features namely energy and standard
deviation of each window from all the sub-bands are computed to differentiate logo
and non-logo blocks in the document image. In [28], author made an assumption
that the complete logo is present in a single block. A segmentation step can be used
to avoid such an assumption. The DWT coefficients can represent point singularities
effectively, but fails to represent curve singularities. Ridgelet transform [6, 10] can
represent line singularities; however, it also fails in representing curve singularities.
Curvelet transform can represent the curved singularities in a better way when com-
pared to wavelets and ridgelets [7, 22, 23, 30]. The logos generally contain curve
singularities, and therefore curvelet transform is a good choice for detection of logos.
A Novel Method for Logo Detection Based on Curvelet Transform … 3

Table 1 Literature review of logo detection methods

Papers Key features of algorithm
Hassanzadeh et al. [16] Morphological operations, decision tree
classifier, and merging separated parts in logo
Shirdhonkar et al. [28] Discrete wavelet transform, spatial density
using two features—mean and variance
Wang [31] RAG data structure and Bayesian modeling
Li et al. [21] Axial lines, shape descriptors
Wang et al. [32] Feature rectangles
Ahmed et al. [2] Colorimetric uniformity and spatial
compactness using mountain function
Zhu et al. [36] Multi-scale approach
Pham [25] Mountain function
Seiden et al. [27] X-Y cut segmentation, rule-based classifier
Doermann et al. [11] Geometric invariants

On the other hand, in literature, an approach with two features and a decision tree-
based classifier for logo detection is typically used. Usage of more number of features
and a sophisticated classifier like support vector machine classifier (SVM) [8] can
produce a better accuracy. In this work, logo detection is performed by means of
segmentation, noncandidate elimination, computation of GLCM features from each
sub-band of curvelet coefficients, followed by classification using SVM classifier.
The organization of the paper is as follows. In Sect. 2- theory related to the methods
employed is presented. In Sect. 3, a brief description of the different blocks is pro-
vided. In Sect. 4, the performance analysis of the proposed method and comparison
with the state of the art are analyzed, followed by conclusion in Sect. 5.

2 Theory

2.1 Fast Discrete Curvelet Transform

Curvelet transform [5] is a nonadaptive approach of representing images at multiple

scales and multiple angles. It is a higher dimensional generalization of the wavelet
transform and overcomes the limitation of wavelets in terms of representing curved
singularities.
In the proposed method, fast discrete curvelet transform (FDCT) [4] is employed.
The FDCT of an image is defined as,
k1 n 1 k2 n 2
i2π( L + L )
c( j, k, l) = n 1 ,n 2  P j fˆ[n 1 , n 2 − n 1 tan θl ]U˜ j [n 1 , n 2 ]e 1, j 2, j . (1)
4 G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu et al.

where c( j, k, l) is representing discrete curvelet coefficient at scale 2 j , location

k = [k1 k2 ], angle θl and U j (with length L 1, j and width L 2, j ) is a Cartesian (rect-
angular) generalization of the polar (circular) window that isolates the digital fre-
−j
quencies [n 1 , n 2 ] at the wedges, θl = 2π 2 2 l, l = 0, 1, 2, ... and P j = {(n 1 , n 2 ) :
n 1,0 ≤ n 1 ≤ n 1,0 + L 1, j , n 2,0 ≤ n 2 ≤ n 2,0 + L 2, j }. The curvelet transform is used in
texture analysis in [3].

2.2 GLCM Features

The GLCM is a tool to measure texture as it represents the distribution of the co-
occurring values in an image. The texture features generated and used are Haral-
ick features [15]. GLCM is a matrix in which the number of rows and columns
is equal to the number of gray levels G in the image. The GLCM matrix element
P(i, j|x, y) is the relative frequency with which two pixels, separated by a pixel
distance (x, y), occur within a given neighborhood. Given an image I of size
N × N , the element of in ith, jth column of normalized GLCM matrix P can be
defined as,


N 
N
P(i, j) = δ(I (x, y) − i)δ(I (x + x, y + y) − j) (2)
x=1 y=1

where δ(.) is impulse function. Let us assume that μ is the mean value of P, and μx ,
μ y , σx , σ y are the means and standard deviations of the marginal densities Px , Py .
The marginal densities Px and Py are related to P(i, j) as described below.


G 
G
Px (i) = P(i, j), Py ( j) = P(i, j) (3)
j=1 i=1

The expressions for Px+y (k) and Px−y (k) are given below.


G 
G
Px+y (k) = P(i, j)i+ j=k ; k = 2, 3, . . . 2N (4)
i=1 j=1


G 
G
Px−y (k) = P(i, j)|i− j|=k ; k = 0, 1, . . . N − 1 (5)
i=1 j=1

The 12 GLCM features used in this work are defined in Table 2. Angular second
moment gives the homogeneity in the image. Contrast provides an insight into the
local gray level variation in image, while inverse difference moment gives the sim-
ilarity among nonzero entries in the image. The correlation represents gray value
A Novel Method for Logo Detection Based on Curvelet Transform … 5

Table 2 Definition of 12 features extracted from GLCM matrix

G−1 G−1
j=0 {P(i, j)}
2
Angular second moment
i=0
G−1 2  G  G
Contrast n=0 n { i=1 j=1 |i− j|=n P(i, j)}
G−1 G−1 (i× j)×P(i, j)−(μx ×μ y )
Correlation i=0 j=0 σx ×σ y
G−1 G−1
j=0 (i − μ) P(i, j)
Variance 2
i=0
G−1 G−1 1
Inverse difference moment i=0 j=0 1+(i− j)2 P(i, j)
G−1 G−1
Entropy − i=0 j=0 P(i, j) × log(P(i, j))
2G−2
Average G i Px+y (i)
 2G−2
Sum entropy − i=0 Px+y (i)log(Px+y (i))
G−1
Difference entropy − i=0 Px−y (i)log(Px−y (i))
G−1 G−1
j=0 (i − j) × P(i, j)
Inertia 2
i=0
G−1 G−1
j=0 (i + j − μx − μ y ) × P(i, j)
Shade 3
i=0
G−1 G−1
j=0 (i + j − μx − μ y ) × P(i, j)
Prominance 4
i=0

linear dependencies in the image. Entropies give the statistical disorderliness in the
image. The average and variance represent the central tendency and the spread in
GLCM matrix (not of the image). Inertia, cluster prominence, and shade are higher
order statistic related to texture. The GLCM features are used in various applications
involving texture classification in [17, 35]. GLCM features are also used along with
multi-scale transforms in [13, 34].

3 Description of the Algorithm

The block diagram of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 1. The proposed algorithm
initially performs segmentation, using morphological operations [14] and connected
component analysis (CCA) [9]. The improbable logo candidates are removed based
on heuristic features in noncandidate elimination phase. Curvelet coefficients of the
remaining logo candidates are obtained using FDCT. Subsequently, 12 features are
computed from GLCM matrix obtained from each wedge of curvelet coefficients that
are extracted in eight different directions in order to obtain the texture clues in all
the directions. A pretrained SVM classifier is used for removal of false logo blocks
using the GLCM features. The detailed explanation of each stage is discussed in the
following subsections.

Fig. 1 Block diagram of the proposed method

6 G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu et al.

3.1 Segmentation

Segmentation is the foremost step in logo detection. The inclusion of segmentation

may increase the computational complexity; nevertheless, it gives an advantage of
avoiding the assumption that the logo has to be in a single block under consideration,
as mentioned in [28]. The proposed scheme employs a segmentation algorithm which
is based on connected components analysis. In a document image, a segment is a
portion which has all connected components near to each other. Hence, connecting
the nearest connected components for clubbing them together to make a segment is
achieved by applying morphological operations. A morphological dilation operation
with a rectangular structuring element of size 15 × 90 is performed on the com-
plement of the input binary image. This dilation operation is followed by a closing
operation with the same structuring element in order to connect the similar patterns
in the image. CCA is performed on the resulting image from the morphological
operations to find the coordinates of all possible bounding boxes. A typical output
of segmentation is shown in Fig. 2.

3.2 Noncandidate Elimination

The purpose of this step is to remove obvious non-logo candidates in order to reduce
the load on classifier and computational complexity. Out of all the blocks obtained
from CCA, the obvious false positives are removed using two heuristic clues, namely
aspect ratio and foreground pixel density. The connected components with aspect
ratio less than 3 and foreground pixel density greater than 70% are considered as logo
candidates. These thresholds are obtained by computing the values of aspect ratio and
spatial density of 100 logo objects. All probable logo candidates from segmentation
step are first filtered with the aspect ratio criteria, and those do not satisfy the criteria
are identified as non-logo candidates. The remaining probable logo candidates are
further refined using the foreground pixel density criteria. Using the aspect ratio, clue
large paragraphs containing text are removed, and using foreground density, criteria
typically headings are eliminated as non-logo objects. The remaining possible logo
candidates after the removal of non-logo candidates by enforcing the aforementioned
constraints are considered for further processing.

3.3 FDCT

For all the possible logo candidates, FDCT is calculated with number of scales equal
to 4. The number of scales is chosen as 4 by trial and error procedure. The computation
of FDCT is performed using the non-equispaced FFT method proposed in [4]. Total
number of wedges resulting from the computation of FDCT in this work is 130.
A Novel Method for Logo Detection Based on Curvelet Transform … 7

Fig. 2 Example image and

its segmented blocks

(a) Input image

(b) Corresponding output blocks

of segmentation
8 G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu et al.

3.4 GLCM Features

Texture in logos is an important clue as logos generally contain patterns inside them
along with the text. The GLCM features along with the curvelet coefficients are
used to extract the textural clues in the logos. In the proposed scheme, 12 features
mentioned in Table 2 are extracted from each wedge of FDCT obtained from the
previous step. A total of 130 wedges, 8 directions, and 12 features results in 12, 480
features per each block are computed as a part of feature extraction and used for
training a SVM classifier.

3.5 SVM Classifier

A pretrained SVM classifier [8] is used to separate logo candidates from all the
possible logo candidates. SVM classifier is a supervised binary classifier based on
linear discriminants. It considers the extreme data samples near the boundary called
support vectors and maximizes the margin between the classes. In nonlinear boundary
case where it is not a linearly separable problem, SVM treats the nonlinear function as
a linear function by projecting the data into a higher dimensional case. SVM provides
an optimal decision for binary classification problem and is chosen for the binary
classification problem of logo objects. In this work, 20 logos and 200 non-logos are
used for training the SVM classifier with linear kernel which outputs the true logo
objects.

4 Experiments and Results

The proposed method is tested on Tobacco-800 dataset1 [1, 19, 20] which is com-
posed of 1151 binary images. Tobacco 800 is a public dataset which is a part of IIT
CDIP dataset that contains about 42 million document images collected from UCSF.
This dataset is widely used by many researchers [2, 16, 25, 28, 36] for testing the
logo detection methods. A total of 20 logo candidates and 200 non-logo candidates
are used for training and the remaining for testing. Performance of the proposed work
is evaluated using below performance metrics.

TP
Accuracy = (6)
TP +TN
T P + FN
Pr ecision = (7)
T P + FP + FN + T N

1 The database is available at http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~zhugy/tobacco800.html.

A Novel Method for Logo Detection Based on Curvelet Transform … 9

Fig. 3 Examples of logos detected (true positives)

Fig. 4 Examples of non-logos detected as logos (false positives)

Table 3 Results of algorithm

Category Logos Non-logos
Training 20 200
Correctly classified 66 1747
Miss classified 6 29
Total 92 1976

where
TP: True positives (Total number of correctly detected logos)
TN: True negatives (Number of non-detected logos)
FP: False positives (Not a logo but algorithm detected it as logo)
FN: False negatives (Not a logo and the algorithm detected as non-logo).
Some of the correctly detected logos are shown in Fig. 3, and false positives are
shown in Fig. 4.
The proposed algorithm gives an accuracy of 91.47% and precision of 98.1%. The
results obtained using the proposed method are presented in Table 3. From Fig. 3, it
can be seen that if there is a text block associated with the logo, the proposed method
is able to obtain the logo completely along with the text part, which is an advantage.
Figure 4 shows typical false positives, and most of the times they are cluttered text
regions which almost look like a logo. The accuracy obtained using the proposed
method is compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms and is given in Fig. 5. It can
be observed that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other methods in terms of
accuracy of detection of logos. The significant improvement in the accuracy can be
attributed to the ability of curvelet transform in representing the curve discontinuities.
The inclusion of segmentation in proposed method removes the assumption that
entire logo needs to be in a single block which is fed to the classifier. However, the
computational complexity increases because of inclusion of segmentation involving
morphological operations.
10 G. V. S. S. K. R. Naganjaneyulu et al.

Fig. 5 Comparison of accuracies of different algorithms for logo detection

5 Conclusion

In this work, a novel approach for logo detection using curvelet transform has been
proposed. The proposed algorithm gives an accuracy of 91.47% with a precision of
98.1%. It has been observed that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm is better than
the other competitors with a competitive precision. The inclusion of segmentation
automated the process of selection of the probable logo candidates. Consequently,
the proposed method has removed the assumption that the logo must be in a single
block that is sent to the classifier which is a drawback in other methods. A better
precision has been obtained because of the noncandidate elimination. The algorithm
is able to include the text part near to the logo, which is an advantage.

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Bayesian Approach for Landslide
Identification from High-Resolution
Satellite Images

Pilli Madalasa, Gorthi R K Sai Subrahmanyam, Tapas Ranjan Martha,

Rama Rao Nidamanuri and Deepak Mishra

Abstract Landslides are one of the severe natural catastrophes that affect
thousands of lives and cause colossal damage to infrastructure from small to region
scales. Detection of landslide is a prerequisite for damage assessment. We propose
a novel method based on object-oriented image analysis using bi-temporal satel-
lite images and DEM. The proposed methodology involves segmentation, followed
by extraction of spatial and spectral features of landslides and classification based
on supervised Bayesian classifier. The proposed framework is based on the change
detection of spatial features which capture the spatial attributes of landslides. The
proposed methodology has been applied for the detection and mapping of landslides
of different sizes in selected study sites in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, India.
For this, high-resolution multispectral images from the IRS, LISS-IV sensor and
DEM from Cartosat-1 are used in this study. The resultant landslides are compared
and validated with the inventory landslide maps. The results show that the proposed
methodology can identify medium- and large-scale landslides efficiently.

P. Madalasa · R. R. Nidamanuri
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology,
Trivandrum, India
G. R. K. Sai Subrahmanyam (B)
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Tirupati,
Andhra Pradesh, India
e-mail: rkg@iittp.ac.in
D. Mishra
Department of Avionics, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology,
Thiruvananthapuram, India
T. R. Martha
Geosciences Group, National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad, India

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 13

B. B. Chaudhuri et al. (eds.), Proceedings of 2nd International Conference
on Computer Vision & Image Processing, Advances in Intelligent Systems
and Computing 704, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7898-9_2
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 CHAPTER XV
Dance Tunes Grow Up—Suites—Violin Makers of Cremona

In our range of musical mountains, we see just ahead of us one of the

mightiest giants of them all, Johann Sebastian Bach, dwarfing
everything around it and we must resist the temptation of skipping
all the smaller mountains, for there is no musical aeroplane by
means of which we can fly across and land safely on Mt. Bach. This
grand old mountain, Bach, is such a tremendous landmark in the
growth of music, that when we reach it we realize that everything
that we have passed has been a journey of preparation. Bach is not
the only peak, for there are Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin,
Schumann, Brahms, Wagner and others who stand out against the
musical horizon.
Before coming to Bach, however, we must bridge over the time
when music was still in its youth in the 16th and 17th centuries, to
when it became full grown and mature in the 18th. Music has now
come of age: it has perfected scales, notation, and developed form
and instruments; it is ready to go into the world and take its place
with painting, sculpture, poetry, drama and architecture as a full
grown art!
Nothing through which music has passed has been lost, but it has
been built like the great Egyptian Pyramids by adding one huge block
on top of another. It has gone from the noise of primitive man with
his drum, to the attempts of the savage to sing and to make crude
instruments, to the music of the ancient nations in their religious
ceremonies and entertainments, to the Arab singer who handed his
art to the western world through the troubadours, to the people of all
times and nations who danced and sang for the joy of it. It passed
from the Greek drama and music schools where definite scales and
modes were formed, to the early Christian Church which kept it alive
during the Dark Ages and gradually invented ways to write it, and
later to the “Golden Age” of the Catholic Church. It had seen the rise
of schools and the perfection of the polyphonic system give way to
the recitative and the aria, which in turn brought about opera,
oratorio, and instrumental music. It has seen counterpoint give way
to harmony, and yet the growth of music is not complete and never
will be, but constantly new forms will blossom out of the old.
The 15th and 16th centuries were vocal. The 17th was instrumental
and opened the way for so-called modern music, that is, for Bach’s
compositions and all that followed.
 Birth of Chamber Music

Gabrieli in the 16th century in Venice, sometimes wrote madrigals

for instruments instead of for voices, and he added instruments to
accompany the motets and masses (page 157); this led to composing
works for groups of instruments instead of playing madrigals that
had been composed for voices. The English often wrote on their
compositions, “fit for voices and for viols.” After they once started
playing the part songs on viols, the composers soon found out that
they could write more interesting and more difficult things for
instruments than they could for voices; this led to the writing of very
florid music for instruments alone. This florid part-writing, not
unlike the Gloss of the Arabs, and the improvisations of the soloists
in the early Catholic Church, soon became so overloaded with trills,
fancy turns and runs that it had to be reformed again.
In the 17th century, the lute, the popular instrument of the court
and the home for so many years, even centuries, suddenly found its
rival in the little keyboard instrument called the spinet and virginal
in England, and the clavecin in France. In Italy and France, as in
England, there were famous performers and composers for these
instruments, and many volumes of charming music were written for
it.
 Dance Tunes Grow up Into Suites

One of the first requirements of art works of all kinds is contrast.

The line and the curve are found in primitive art, light must have
shadow, one wing of a building must have another to balance it, and
a slow serious piece of music is usually followed by a gay one for
contrast. The Arabs understood this law of contrast, for in their
ancient songs we find the seed of a form that has been most
important in the growth of music. They made little suites by putting
two, three, four or more songs together; each song had its mode, and
one would be slow and sad, and the next fast and gay. The principal
music of the 17th century was the Suite, a group of pieces which had
grown out of the old folk dances. (Chapter IX.) The 17th century
composers, like the Arabs, feeling the need of contrast, strung several
of these dances together to form the Suite. So Suites were written for
clavecins and harpsichords, for violins alone and for organs, for
groups of stringed instruments and other chamber music
combinations. Some of these dances were in duple time, some in
triple; some were slow and some were fast; some were stately and
some gay. The different pieces forming a suite, had to be written in
the same key. These suites were known by different names in
different countries, such as partitas, exercises, lessons, sonate da
camera, ordres. In England the name suite was given to this form,
then the Germans adopted it, and later the great Bach wrote suites
which he also called partitas. In Italy, the suite was called sonata da
camera (chamber sonata) and sonata da chiesa (church sonata) and
out of all this have grown the very important sonata, symphony and
chamber music quartet, trio, quintet, etc.
Here are some of the dance forms used in the suite:
Allemande (duple time or measure: moderately slow), Sarabande
(triple time: slow, stately), Loure (duple time: slow), Gavotte (duple
time: moderately fast), Musette (duple time: moderately fast),
Bourrée (duple time: a little faster than the Gavotte), Minuet (triple
time: moderately fast), Passepied (triple time: a fast minuet),
Rigaudon (duple time: slower than the Bourrée), Tambourin (duple
time: fast), Pavan (duple time: rather slow), Courante, Corrente
(triple time: fast), Chaconne (triple time: moderately fast),
Passacaglia (like Chaconne, but more stately) and Gigue (sometimes
duple and sometimes triple time: very fast: almost always the last
movement of a suite).
The Italians of the 17th century wrote suites, and Italy still held the
place as leading the world in musical composition, just as it had in
the 15th and 16th. We find the names of Frescobaldi, Michelangelo
Rossi, Legrenzi, Bononcini, Giovanni Battista Vitali, Alessandro
Scarlatti and his son Domenico, and going over into the seventeen-
hundreds, Niccolo Porpora, Padre Martini, Paradies, and Baldassare
Galuppi, whom we know through Robert Browning’s poem, A
Toccata of Galuppi’s. Most of these names you will find on the
concert programs of today.
 “Serious” Scarlatti and Opera Writers

Alessandro Scarlatti (1659–1725) is one of the most important

Italian composers of the 17th century, and although he did not have
great success during his lifetime, his compositions have outlived
those of other writers, whose works were popular during his day. He
was called “serious Scarlatti,” and it was probably the very
seriousness with which he looked upon his work that made him write
without seeking public approval. Besides composing pieces for the
spinet and harpsichord, and symphonies, sonatas, suites and
concertos for different instruments, he wrote 125 operas, and over
500 cantatas, oratorios and church music. He was one of several
Italians who continued the work of the first opera writers. Francesco
Cavalli (1599–1676), Giacomo Carissimi (1603–1674), Luigi Rossi,
Marc Antonio Cesti (1628–1669), Francesco Provenzale (1610–
1704), Stradella (1645–1682), Caldara (1670–1736), Lotti (1667–
1740), Marcello (1686–1739), Leo (1694–1746), and others carried
the ideas of Scarlatti into the 18th century. Many of these carried
Italian opera into England, Germany and France, where it became
the model for their opera.
Stradella is quite as famous for his romantic love story, as he is for
the operas he left. This made an interesting libretto in the 19th
century for a German opera writer, Flotow, who was also the
composer of the well-known opera Martha.
 “La Serva Padrona” Points the Way

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), who died when he was

only twenty-six years old, was looked upon as a genius, and in his
early youth had written two works that were models for many that
followed, a Stabat Mater and a comic opera, La Serva Padrona,
which was played recently in America under the title of The Mistress
Maid. When this little opera was performed in Paris (1752) it caused
a very famous musical quarrel known as the “war of the buffoons.”
(Page 230.)
Jomelli (1714–1774), the composer of fifty-five operas, was a
Neapolitan but he lived in Germany for so many years, that he had
more influence on early German opera than on the Italian.
All the opera of this period, particularly the Italian, was very
loosely put together and was not opera as we have it today. Later
Gluck brought it to the point where it came of age.
 Metastasio—Maker of Opera Librettos

These writers of the 18th century used the librettos of a poet and
dramatist, Metastasio (1698–1782), who had a strong influence in
the development of opera not only in his native Italy, but in other
countries. He supplied texts for 1200 operatic scores! He understood
music so well, that he was a great help to the composers who listened
with attention to his advice. His life covered practically all of the 18th
century.
 A Celebrated Singing Teacher and Composer

When you read of Haydn, you will see that he played

accompaniments and acted as valet to the eminent singing teacher
Niccolo Porpora (1686–1767). This famous Italian had many pupils
in the opera houses all over Europe, and was considered the greatest
singing teacher in the world. One of his pupils in Dresden was the
young princess Marie Antoinette before she became Queen of
France. Porpora was a fine composer, and wrote many operas,
cantatas, masses, oratorios, and sonatas of which form he was one of
the inventors. Among his pupils were Haydn, Marcello, Tartini, Leo,
Galuppi, Padre Martini, Jomelli, Pergolesi, Caffarelli and Farinelli.
This list shows that he trained composers as well as singers.
 The Violin Makers of Cremona

Important changes, such as instrumental music coming into

fashion, do not happen without good reasons. We are so accustomed
to the violin, that we forget that there was a time when it did not
exist, but until about three centuries ago, there was none. We are
always eager to have new pianos, for the old ones wear out, but with
violins the older they are, the better! But they must be masterpieces
to begin with. All the famous violinists of the day like Kreisler,
Elman, Heifetz, etc., have marvelous old violins that cost fortunes,
and most of them were made by the violin makers of Cremona, a
little town in northern Italy, the birthplace of Monteverde.
The troubadours played the accompaniments to their songs on
stringed instruments called violes or vielles, which were the
grandparents of the violins. In the 15th century bowed instruments
were made similar in range to the human voice; these were called
treble or discant viol, tenor viol, bass viol and the double-bass, and
in England these went into the “chest of viols” (Page 198). Many
improvements were made in the shape, size and tone of the
instruments and by the middle of the 17th century the Italian makers
were ready to create violins, perfect of their kind, which have never
been surpassed. The secret of the tone of these instruments is said to
be in the varnish which the Cremona makers used, the recipe of
which has been lost, but we met a violin maker recently in Paris who
had discovered it in an old Italian book, and he has spent years in
trying to reproduce it. The old Italian varnish and the mellowing of
the wood with time are two reasons why age makes the old violins
better.
For several centuries, practically all the lutes and the viols that
supplied Europe were made by colonies of instrument makers who
lived in Lombardy (North Italy) and the Tyrol (South Austria). Two
towns in Lombardy became especially famous for their violins,
Brescia in which Gaspara di Salo and Maggini lived, and Cremona
which was the home of the Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri families.
In The Orchestra and Its Instruments, Esther Singleton says: “It is
thrilling to realize that in this little town, in three workshops side by
side, on the Piazza San Domenico, all the great violins of the world
were made and in friendly competition by the three families.” This
covered the period from 1560 to 1760. These men worked together
with just one object in life,—to turn out of their shops the most
perfect instruments that could possibly be made! With what care
they selected the wood! How they worked to make the tone of each
instrument as beautiful as possible! Now you will know when you
hear of an Amati violin, or a Stradivarius, a Guanerius or a Maggini,
that they are worth their weight in gold and are among the rarest art
treasures of the world. These were not the only violin makers in
Lombardy, for there were long lists of them, and there were also
many in the Tyrol. One of the most famous of these was Stainer who
lived at Innsbruck. “It is said that this old maker used to walk
through the wooded slopes of the Tyrolean mountains with a
hammer in his hand and that he would knock the trunks of the trees
and listen to the vibrations. When he found a tree that suited him, he
had it cut down to use in making his instruments.” (Esther
Singleton.)
These instrument makers made not only violins, but also lutes,
mandolins, guitars, violas, violoncellos, and double-basses. The
Italians were the first to develop the last two. The ’cello, as we call
the violoncello for short, was the child of an instrument named the
viola da gamba (translated leg-viola because it was held against the
leg), which for many years was the most popular of all bowed
instruments. We do not find many examples of the instruments even
in museums for they were made over into ’cellos when the latter
came into fashion. There is one viola da gamba in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, however, which was imported from France by the
Sisterhood of the General Hospital in Montreal before the conquest
of Canada, and was used in the convent choir many years before
there were any organs and pianos in the New World. The first ’cello
to attract attention was made in 1691 by a famous wood carver and
presented to the Duke of Modena. A member of the Amati family in
the 16th century was the first to turn the viola da gamba into a
violoncello. The ’cello and the double-bass were made more
successfully by Bergonzi than by the Cremona makers, although
Maggini, Amati and Galiano made very fine ones.
 The viola is a descendant of the viola d’amore. These and the later
violas, used in the string quartets, orchestras, and as solo
instruments, were made by a Tyrolese named Gaspard Duiffaprugcar
in the 16th century. His instruments are marvelous works of art. In
the back of one is a riddle in Latin: can you guess the answer? “I was
living in the forest; the cruel axe killed me. Living, I was mute; dead,
I sing sweetly.” When madrigals and motets were first played on
stringed instruments, the principal melody was given to the tenor
viol, the ancestor of the viola, even today called the alto or the tenor,
but after the violin came into general use, the viola was treated like a
step-child, for it is too large for a violin and too small for a
violoncello. We have Mozart to thank for discovering that the viola
had something beautiful and important to say as a solo instrument
especially in passages where he needed a tender, sad or melancholy
voice. You will read later that Beethoven, too, loved the poor
neglected viola. He, Berlioz and Wagner used the instrument to great
advantage.
In 1572 Pope Pius V sent Charles IX, King of France, a present of
thirty-eight bowed instruments made by the first Amati. During the
French Revolution, the mob broke into the palace at Versailles, and
all but two violins and a ’cello were destroyed! What a loss to art such
destruction was!
 Showing Off the New Instruments

With this development of exquisite instruments, came the desire to

use them and to write new compositions to show them off. These
instruments gave unlimited possibilities for technic and tone, and
created the school of Italian violinists and composers of the 17th and
18th centuries. If polyphonic music had still been in the lead, the
development of solo instruments would have been impossible, but in
trying to find new forms, the first opera inventors had broken the
backbone of polyphony, and had replaced it with monody, or single
line melody. Then, too, folk dances had taken the public fancy and
had been made into suites, which could be played on solo bowed
instruments with accompaniments, on spinets and organs, or on
groups of instruments. The sonata da camera was really a suite of
dances and was the first form used by these new composers for
violin. About the middle of the 17th century, instrumental
performances without any vocal music came to be a part of the
services of the Catholic Church for the priests were quick to see in
the violin playing, a refining influence. Here the sonata da camera
or “room sonata” was turned into the more serious sonata da chiesa
or “church sonata” gradually losing its dance character, and thus
became the seed of the sonata form of Haydn, Mozart and
Beethoven.
Giovanni Battista Vitali (1644–1692) is the first great master of the
violin sonata; after him, Torelli (1657–1716) added a new and
important kind of violin composition,—the Concerto. He called his
compositions, Concerti da Camera and Concerti Grossi, which
names and form were used by Vivaldi, Corelli, Handel and Bach. This
Concerto Grosso was a sonata da chiesa accompanied not by a single
instrument as was the habit with the sonata da chiesa and the
sonata da camera, but by a group of bowed instruments to which a
lute, organ and, later, a harpsichord were added.
At this time, all musicians were, as a matter of course, violinists,
just as today all great composers can play the piano. One of the
greatest of these composer-violinists was Arcangelo Corelli (1653–
1713), whose works are often played by violinists of our own time,
and have served as models for composers. He was one of the first to
try to write music that should show off the beauty and possibilities of
the violin.
The “Golden Age” of the Italian violin composers dated from 1720
to 1750, and was the time of Locatelli, Pugnani, Nardini, Veracini,
Tartini and Vivaldi who added oboes and horns to the orchestral
accompaniment of the Concerti Grossi. Corelli and Vivaldi were the
models used by the German school of violinists who appeared about
this time. Tartini was the musical authority of his century, and no
violinist felt sure of his place as an artist until he had been heard and
approved by Tartini. He was the composer of the famous piece called
The Devil’s Trill. Although Vivaldi was not looked upon with great
esteem in his own time, he was used as a model by Johann Sebastian
Bach.
Padre Martini, recognized by all Europe as the greatest authority
on musical subjects, lived in Bologna where he was visited by such
musicians as Grétry, Gluck, Mozart and one of the sons of Bach.
Padre, or Father, Martini was a Franciscan monk, a fine composer, a
learned historian, a master of counterpoint, and the owner of a
musical library of 17,000 volumes! He helped everyone who sought
him, and was loved by the entire musical world.
Once a year a great music festival was held in Bologna by the
Philharmonic Society and new works by the Bolognese composers
were performed. One hundred musicians took part in the orchestra
and the choruses, and each composer conducted his own work. It
was an honor to be present at this annual festival, and Italian and
foreign musicians came from all over Europe to attend it. Young
composers sometimes became famous over night here, for the critics
were all invited and serious decisions were made as to the value of
new music. Dr. Burney, a famous English musical historian of the
18th century, tells of meeting Leopold Mozart and his young son,
Wolfgang Amadeus, at one of these festivals. Through the kind
scheming of Padre Martini were they admitted!
Rome, in the 18th century was still the great music center, and
guided the religious music of the world. It had wonderful collections
of old music which attracted students from all over; it had seven or
eight very famous theatres, where opera seria and opera buffa were
given. (Today we call them grand opera and comic opera.) The
Roman public was very difficult to please and because of the severity
of their judgments, opera writers suffered every time their new works
had first performances. Just think how you would feel if you had
composed an opera, and by accident had put in a melody that
sounded something like one that Mozart, Wagner, Puccini or Verdi
had composed, if the whole house should break into shouts of
“Bravo, Mozart!” or “Bravo, Wagner!” or “Bravo, Puccini!!” etc. This
is what used to happen in Rome, but no doubt it was a good thing
because it stopped a habit the composers had in those days, of
helping themselves to each other’s melodies.
 Domenico Scarlatti

But here we must pause for a moment to tell you of the life and
work of Alessandro Scarlatti’s son, Domenico, who was born in
Naples in 1685, the same year as Bach and Handel. When you recall
how many operas the father wrote, it seems queer that his son did
not follow in his footsteps. The truth is that he did write operas for
the private theatre of the Queen of Poland in Rome, and also sacred
music while he was chapel master of St. Peter’s, but he became
immortal as a composer of harpsichord music. In the influence he
had in the growing up of piano music, he can be compared to Chopin
and Liszt, and is a founder of piano music style, an honor, which he
shares with the French Couperin and Rameau, his contemporaries.
The difference is that the two Frenchmen have a delicacy and grace
that recall their period of wigs and satins and laces, while Scarlatti’s
works have strength, vigor and daring that take them out of any
special period and place them beside the great piano compositions of
all time.
Scarlatti’s sonatas are sonatas in the Italian sense of a sound-piece;
they are not, like the suites, in several movements, but each is in one
movement, which forecasts the modern sonata form with its two
main contrasting themes and development.
The “serious Scarlatti” understood his son’s talent, for he sent him
at the age of 20 to Florence to a member of the powerful de Medici
family with this letter: “This son of mine is an eagle whose wings are
grown; he ought not to stay idle in the nest, and I ought not to hinder
his flight.”
Three years later Handel and Scarlatti met in Rome in an organ
and harpsichord competition, and while Handel won as organist,
even Scarlatti declaring that he did not know that such playing
existed, no decision was made as to which was the better harpsichord
player. This contest seems to have caused no hard feelings for the
two young men of the same age became devoted friends.
Scarlatti had a trick of crossing his hands in his compositions.
Who does not remember with joy his first piece in which he had to
cross his hands? But sad to relate as he grew old, he became so fat
that he could no longer cross hands with comfort, so in the last
compositions the crossing of hands is noticeably absent!
It is hard to know where an inspiration is next coming from, but
wouldn’t you be surprised were you a composer, if your pet cat
presented you with a perfectly good theme? This happened to
Domenico Scarlatti! His cat walked across the keyboard, and the
composer used his musical foot prints as the subject of a very fine
fugue! Maybe Zez Confrey’s Kitten on the Keys is a descendant of this
pussy’s piece.
The Scarlattis were the last of the great Italian instrumental
composers. For two centuries Italy had been the generous dispenser
of culture, and like an unselfish mother had sent her children out
into the world to carry knowledge and works to all the nations of
Europe. The sun of Italy’s greatness was setting just as it began to
rise in Germany.
 CHAPTER XVI
Opera in France—Lully and Rameau—Clavecin and Harpsichord
Composers

We left French Opera in 1600 when Henry IV married Marie de’

Medici. Ballets which resembled the English masques had been
performed when Baif and his friends had produced Le Ballet
Comique de la Reine, but no real opera had yet been written in
France. In 1645, Cardinal Mazarin, the powerful Italian prime
minister of France, invited a company of Italian singers to give a
performance of Peri’s Euridice in Paris. The French did not like the
opera, as they said it sounded too much like plain song and airs from
the cloister, and yet it led to Abbé Perrin’s writing a work in 1658
which he called the Pastoral, and for which a composer named
Cambert wrote the music. The Pastoral was a very great success, and
was repeated by order of Louis XIV, King of France. Ten years later,
Louis gave Perrin and Cambert permission “to establish throughout
the kingdom academies of opera, or representations with music in
the French language after the manner of those in Italy.” Their next
work, Pomone, was the first opera performed publicly in an opera
house, built purposely in Paris for them. The opera was so
enthusiastically received, that it ran nightly for eight months, and the
crowds were so great, that the police had to be called out. This
combination of poet and composer came to an end with Pomone, and
a new man acquired the right to give opera in the new opera house.
This man was Jean Baptiste Lully or in Italian, Giovanni Battista
Lulli (1632–1687).
 Lully the King’s Favorite

You may hear that the first famous opera writer of France had
been a pastry cook or kitchen boy, but no matter how humble his
start in life, he rose to the highest social position ever reached up to
that time by a composer in France. He became a great favorite of
Louis XIV, he was covered with titles and honors, he was on friendly
terms with all the nobility of the court, he was musical dictator of the
opera and in fact of all the musical happenings of the court. The
greatest literary geniuses of the period, such as Molière, Racine, La
Fontaine, Quinault, Corneille and Boileau, worked with him when he
wanted new librettos for his operas. He paid dearly for all his
privileges, because his fellow composers were jealous of his genius
and his opportunities, and they lost no chance to blacken his
character.
Lully was born in Florence, Italy, in 1632, but we can tell you little
or nothing of his parentage or of his childhood. A monk taught him a
little about music and how to play the guitar. When he was about
twelve years old, he was picked up by the Duke de Guise who saw
him with a group of traveling comedians, and was so attracted by his
vivacity, his singing and talent for mimicry, that he took him back to
Paris, where he placed him in the household of his cousin, Mlle. de
Montpensier. In her memoirs, Mademoiselle said that she had been
studying Italian and had asked her cousin to bring back from
Tuscany where he lived, a little Italian garçon de la Chambre, a sort
of personal errand boy. However, his guitar playing and musical gifts
soon lifted him out of a servant’s position and he became one of the
musicians of the great lady’s household playing at concerts, balls and
in the ballets. He learned to play the violin, and soon began to
compose popular dances. He remained a member of Mademoiselle’s
household until he was nineteen when he asked permission to leave
her service, as she had moved to the country, and he liked the gay life
of Paris better.
He had no difficulty in attaching himself to the King’s court, first
as actor and dancer in the ballets, and soon as “composer of
instrumental music.” Louis XIV was only fourteen years old, and was
evidently highly entertained by the capers of the young Italian who
was willing to play any rôle, dance any kind of a dance, or play the
violin “divinely” for his young monarch’s amusement. The King
remained Lully’s faithful friend always. Louis loved music, and
played the lute, the guitar, the harpsichord, and sang very well.
Feeling that he needed to know more, Lully studied counterpoint,
composition and learned to play the harpsichord, and whatever he
attempted musically, he acquired without difficulty.
In 1656, Lully composed music for a scene in a ballet, Psyche, and
from that time on, his compositions became the most popular of any
at court. Although he was born an Italian, his music was French, and
he even shared the French dislike of the Italian opera. In spite of his
love of acting in the ballets, of dancing, and of courting social favor
with the King and nobles, Lully was a thorough musician. When he
went into music he found that few of the singers could read notes,
but they learned their parts by ear. He soon changed this, and by the
time he died, all singers and players of orchestral instruments could
read well. In this reform, he did a great service to the growth of
music.
His first stage works were called comedy-ballets. One of his early
works was ballet music written for a performance of Cavalli’s opera,
Xerxes, which was performed upon Mazarin’s invitation at Versailles
(1660). He next was given the position of “Superintendent of Music,”
became a naturalized French citizen, and was married. Lully wrote 19
ballets, 12 comedy-ballets, and 18 operas, besides about 23 motets
for special occasions. His ballets included recitatives, airs, dialogues
and symphonies, which was the name given to music written for
orchestra. From 1672 until the time of his death in 1687, he wrote an
opera a year, and sometimes two!
The splendor and extravagance of the costuming and stage settings
of these ballets and operas of Lully are almost unbelievable! At times,
even the orchestra wore costumes of the period represented on the
stage. Lully conducted the orchestra for one opera in a magnificent
Egyptian dress. Louis XIV loved these elaborate performances, and
took part in some of them.
After the downfall of Perrin and Cambert, which many said was
caused by Lully, he became absolute ruler in all musical matters. He
used his power to close a rival opera house, and no opera could be