Ground truth image sets

Ground truth image sets, including calibration images, are useful for validation of software - testing the overall ability of the software to provide realistic results with real images, under real-life conditions. Ground truth images can also be modified and used to create quasi-synthetic images for testing susceptibility of algorithms to things like motion blur, image defocus, misregistration and noise.

The synthetic generation of samples make possible experiments with thousand of subjects (same benchmark data for all researchers) without any legal concern (avoiding also the time consuming acquisition procedures). You can find biometric synthetic generation for several traits: fingerprint, face, handwritting signature, iris, palm


The Sculptures 6k Dataset consists of 6340 images images collected from Flickr by searching for sculptures by Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin. The dataset is split equally into a train and test set, each containing 3170 images. For each set 10 different Henry Moore sculptures are chosen as query objects, and for each of these objects 7 images and query regions are defined, thus providing 70 queries for performance evaluation purposes.


The scripted (and unscripted) activities include: walk, browse, slump, left object, meet, fight, window shop, shop enter, shop exit. 


Annotated biological image sets for testing and validation

Sculpture as the Sum of Its Profiles:François Willème and Photosculpture in France, 1859-1868

Between 1859 and 1868, the French sculptor François Willème perfected two distinct methods for producing sculptural portraits by photographic and mechanical means. Both were founded on the principle that the reassembly of the various "profiles" of a subject would yield a recognizable and complete likeness. The use of mechanical tools, derived in part from those of Collas and Sauvage, would provide for a realistic objectivity, while the finishing of the model by hand would guarantee the final product as a work of art. The apex of photosculpture's popularity and the critical discussions about it - by Théophile Gautier and others - coincided with the early work of Auguste Rodin in which he shared with Willème a fundamental system of "profiles comparées."

 Robert A. Sobieszek The Art Bulletin Vol. 62, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 617-630

our reconstruction of Willème's apparatus

		Photosculpture de la comtesse Walewska

The Collas Machine / appareil réducteur

 The Collas Machine


Invented in 1836 by  French engineer Achille Collas, this machine uses a pantograph system to make proportionately larger or smaller duplications of a sculpture. The concept can be traced to ancient Greek and Roman artists, who wanted to reproduce the perfect proportions of the human figure in their sculpture. Their method was called pointing, which meant that measurements of the desired figure were taken, then proportionally increased or decreased on a model. Collas machines often look like lathes. On one turntable sits the plaster model. On a second turntable, connected to the first, sits a clay or plaster "blank" that has been roughly shaped to resemble the model but on a larger or smaller scale.

The Collas machine keeps the model and the blank in the same orientation as the technician uses a tracing needle, linked to a sharp cutting instrument, or stylus, to transfer a succession of profiles from the model onto the blank. Gradually the blank is worked so that it becomes a larger or smaller duplicate of the model.

Rodin and his skilled associate Henri Lebossé collaborated closely on reductions and enlargements

Around 1836 Collas developed a new machine permitting the mathematically precise reduction or enlargement of sculptural objects in full relief. Three years later he demonstrated its abilities by producing a two-fifths size reproduction of the Venus de Milo. His device became the main vehicle for the mass replication of antique and modern sculptures catering for a growing demand for inexpensive luxury items to decorate bourgeois interiors. In 1838 he entered into partnership with the manufacturer Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-92) and the firm of Collas eventually employed around 300 workers and produced over a thousand bronzes each year. They reached an international audience with an acclaimed exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, which featured as its centre-piece a half-size reproduction of Ghiberti's principal door to the Baptistery in Florence. Even after Collas's death in 1859, his 'method' remained the mainstay of Barbedienne's enduring commercial success throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century.