Mixture Trees for Modeling and Fast Conditional Sampling with Applications in Vision and Graphics

Frank Dellaert, Vivek Kwatra, Sang Min Oh

Abstract: We introduce mixture trees, a tree-based data-structure for modeling joint probability densities using a greedy hierarchical density estimation scheme. We show that the mixture tree models data efficiently at multiple resolutions, and present fast conditional sampling as one of many possible applications. In particular, the development of this data-structure was spurred by a multi-target tracking application, where memory-based motion modeling calls for fast conditional sampling from large empirical densities. However, it is also suited to applications such as texture synthesis, where conditional densities play a central role. Results are presented for both these applications.