Handling photographic imperfections and aliasing in augmented reality

In video see-through augmented reality, virtual objects are overlaid over images delivered by a digital video camera. One particular problem of this image mixing process is the fact that the visual appearance of the computer-generated graphics differs strongly from the real background image. In typical augmented reality systems, standard real-time rendering techniques are used for displaying virtual objects. These fast, but relatively simplistic methods create an artificial, almost "plastic-like" look for the graphical elements. In this paper, methods for incorporating two particular camera image effects in virtual overlays are described. The first effect is camera image noise, which is contained in the data delivered by the CCD chip used for capturing the real scene. The second effect is motion blur, which is caused by the temporal integration of color intensities on the CCD chip during fast movements of the camera or observed objects, resulting in a blurred camera image. Graphical objects rendered with standard methods neither contain image noise nor motion blur. This is one of the factors which makes the virtual objects stand out from the camera image and contributes to the perceptual difference between real and virtual scene elements. Here, approaches for mimicking both camera image noise and motion blur in the graphical representation of virtual objects are proposed. An algorithm for generating a realistic imitation of image noise based on a camera calibration step is described. A rendering method which produces motion blur according to the current camera movement is presented. As a by-product of the described rendering pipeline, it becomes possible to perform a smooth blending between virtual objects and the camera image at their boundary. An implementation of the new rendering methods for virtual objects is described, which utilizes the programmability of modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and is capable of delivering real-time frame rates

Stylisation d'objets éclairés par des cartes d'environnement HDR

National audienceDans cet article, nous introduisons un pipeline de rendu permettant de styliser de manière interactive des objets éclairés par des cartes d'environnement à grande dynamique (High-Dynamic Range ou HDR). L'utilisation d'images HDR permet d'améliorer la qualité de certains traitements, comme les segmentations ou l'extraction des détails. De plus, cette architecture permet de combiner facilement des stylisations 2D (sur la carte d'environnement et sur les images) et 3D (sur les objets). Les nouveaux styles que nous présentons sont basés sur ce pipeline et illustrent la flexibilité de notre approche

Field sketching and the interpretation of landscape : exploring the benefits of fieldwork and drawing in contemporary landscape practice

This thesis explores potential roles for field sketching in, landscape observation and assessment, landscape planning and design, landscape representation, and in addressing the experiential dimension of the landscape.The research seeks to define and legitimise the old technique of field sketching, and the use and development of field sketches by students and practitioners of landscape architecture, and other landscape disciplines. The wider values of, fieldwork, hand -generated field notations, drawing as an interactive dialogue with others, and the sketch as a type of landscape representation, are also recognised.Whilst accurate representation and precise geometrical definition of the landscape can now be achieved quickly with photographs and by semi - automated digital means, interpretation requires careful observation. Sketching involves an observer stopping and looking and interpreting slowly and carefully. Field sketching and the uses of the field sketch are proposed as bringing an effectiveness to landscape work, valuable because of the interpretation it involves, and the time it does take: timeless because of its simplicity.A personal way of working is investigated, based on a Grounded Theory approach. Systematic analysis of case studies is made through reflection-on-practice. Practice observations (data) are collated and interpreted by practical sorting tasks, to propose a series of how to do and why important principles regarding field sketching. External support for the research findings is sought from literature, considering the broad themes of: fieldwork and the experience of landscapes, field sketching and drawing as craft and expression, and developing and using field sketches.Applications for field sketching to meet contemporary needs in landscape architecture are proposed: the sketch as a designer's tool, sketch-based visualisations as interpretive images, and field sketching as a participative technique that can be used to engage the inquirer, collaborators, and the public with landscape experience -grounded decisions

A sketch of Peirce’s Firstness and its significance to art

This essay treats the growth and development of Charles S. Peirce’s three categories, particularly studying the qualities of Peirce’s Firstness, a basic formula of “airy-nothingness” (CP: 6.455) serving as fragment to Secondness and Thirdness. The categories of feeling, willing, and knowing are not separate entities but work in interaction within the three interpretants. Interpretants are triadomaniac elements through the adopted, revised, or changed habits of belief. In works of art, the first glance of Firstness arouses the spontaneous responses of musement, expressing emotions without the struggle and resistance of factual Secondness, and not yet involving logical Thirdness. The essential qualities of a loose or vague word, color, or sound give the fugitive meanings in Firstness. The flavor, brush, timbre, color, point, line, tone or touch of the First qualities of an aesthetic object is too small a base to build the logic of aesthetic judgment. The genesis art is explained by Peirce’s undegeneracy growing into group and individual interpretants and building into the passages and whole forms of double and single forms of degeneracy. The survey of the flash of Firstness is exemplified in a variety of artworks in language, music, sculpture, painting, and film. This analysis is a preliminary aid to further studies of primary Firstness in the arts

Regulating CCTV? : We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them

Peer reviewedPostprin

Seeing and Believing: Examining The Role Of Visualization Technology In Decision-Making About The Future

abstract: Images are ubiquitous in communicating complex information about the future. From political messages to extreme weather warnings, they generate understanding, incite action, and inform expectations with real impact today. The future has come into sharp focus in recent years. Issues like climate change, gene editing, and smart cities are pushing policy makers, scientists, and designers to rethink how society plans and prepares for tomorrow. While academic and practice communities have increasingly turned their gaze toward the future, little attention is paid to how it is depicted and even less to the role visualization technologies play in depicting it. Visualization technologies are those that transform non-visual information into 2D or 3D imagery and generate depictions of certain phenomena, real or perceived. This research helps to fill this gap by examining the role visualization technologies play in how individuals know and make decisions about the future. This study draws from three phases of research set in the context of urban development, where images of the future are generated by architects and circulated by built environment professionals to affect client and public decision-making. I begin with a systematic review of professional design literature to identify norms related to visualization. I then conduct in-depth interviews with expert architects to draw out how visualization technologies are used to influence client decision-making. I dive into how different tools manage the future and generate different forms of certainty, uncertainty, persuasion, and risk. Complementing the review and interviews is a case study on ASU at Mesa City Center, a development project aimed at revitalizing downtown Mesa, Arizona. Analysis highlights how project-specific visual tools affect decision-making and the role that client imagination and inference play in understanding and preference. This research unpacks the social, technical, and emotional knowledge embedded in visualization technologies and reveals how they affect decision-making. Information about the future is uniquely mediated by each technology with decision-making bound up in larger sociopolitical processes aimed at reducing uncertainty, building trust, and managing expectations. This suggests that the visual tools we use to depict the future are much more dynamic and influential than they are given credit for.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Science and Technology Policy 201

Journeys through Architecture: the Body, Spaces, and Arts in Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage

The inter-arts potential of Dorothy Miller Richardson’s life’s work, Pilgrimage, has been gaining critical attention since the end of the twentieth century, with continuous scholarly efforts dedicated in revealing the cinematic, painterly, and musical depths of the novel sequence. Building on such established foundation, this study responds to this inter-arts call of Richardson scholarship by taking an architectural turn, and contends Pilgrimage as a piece of architectural construct—a literary work that demonstrates the coming together of the body, spaces, and arts. Interdisplinary in nature, this study draws on diverse fields of inquiry in its configuration of the architectural as manifested in Pilgrimage, with two interconnecting sections. Merleau-Ponty’s perceptual phenomenology and recent theorisations of body-space interaction in various disciplines, such as cultural geography and anthropology, underpin the first section of the discussion, which attempts to explicate the spatial significance implied in Miriam’s (the protagonist) sensuous interactions with the different kinds of space around or within her. While the first section underscores how the art of literature embodies Miriam’s sensuous-spatial dynamics, the second section illuminates how the spatial arts of painting and architecture come into contact with Pilgrimage. Collaborating biographical, painterly, literary, and phenomenological approaches, the thesis considers the sequence’s manoeuver over the issues of simultaneity, instaneity, moment, and subject matter as the manifestation of literary impressionism. After contemplating Pilgrimage as a piece of literary impressionism, the discussion concludes by considering the sequence as a piece of haptic architecture, with the notion of ‘fragile architecture’ formulated by Juhani Pallasmaa. By re-examining how Miriam’s body, spaces, and arts interact and integrate throughout Pilgrimage, the thesis aspires to bring to light its architectural disposition

Literary urbanism, visuality and modernity

Literary Urbanism and the Symbolist Aesthetic argues that the modern city influences urban writers to develop particular literary-visual practices that translate urban experience into poetry and prose. Chapter one considers how urban planning in Paris during the Second Empire inspired Charles Baudelaire‘s theories of modernity and aesthetic history. Chapter two discusses how A.C. Swinburne translates Baudelairean modernity into an English literary perspective through Sapphic poetry, and the importance Swinburne‘s association with painters has in this process. Swinburne‘s friendship with James McNeill Whistler, for example, results in the ekphrastic poem "Hermaphroditus", which uses sculpture to comment upon the modern city‘s potential to heighten perceptual consciousness. Chapter three studies the application of ekphrasis in urban writing, especially the way in which Arthur Symons‘ poetry uses symbols to render an immediate awareness of the city. Symons‘ reception of French Symbolist poetics opens chapter four, and introduces T.E. Hulme and Henri Bergson as theorists who develop a means of thinking the city through internal consciousness, not geographic space. This initiates chapter five‘s interest in how Pound and Eliot use metaphors of illumination to articulate how perceptions of the city arrive through transposition and refraction

An irreal realm: painting as a means of reflecting on oneirism

My interest in oneirism grew out of my search for a concept that would encapsulate my concerns in painting at the start of this project, namely the formal values I exploited, the quotidian subject matter I favoured, and the sense of contemplation I wished to convey. The correlations I perceived between my concerns and oneirism became more emphatic as my research progressed. The more I read about oneirism, the more I became aware of how the concept could be translated into painted form, a process which in turn inspired my practice. This document serves as a means to reflect on something of this complementary process. Within this framework, my discussion of theories related to oneirism is presented to amplify my painting practice. As a reflection on oneirism, the body of work submitted for my MFA comprised paintings in ink and oil. Many pieces were based on snapshots of views and objects in my surroundings. I often cropped the photographs to focus on a single object or a minor detail of a view. My approach was figurative, although it verged on abstraction depending on the source imagery I selected. I used a close-value palette that was dominated by chromatic greys. The structure of my paintings is quite simple in formal terms and my work is generally small in scale. I used these features and selected my subject matter to parallel theories about the oneiric zone that I discovered in my research. In terms of my aims in this project, and the media and approach I used in my practice, the figurative paintings of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) and contemporary Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (b. 1958) were most compelling. I responded to their muted palettes and, for me, their work shares a contemplative quality, despite differences in subject matter and approach. However, I was also intrigued by certain artists who used media other than paint to produce work that related to my concerns. I thus touch on the work of some of these artists, in addition to Tuymans and Morandi

Variations and Application Conditions Of the Data Type »Image« - The Foundation of Computational Visualistics

Few years ago, the department of computer science of the University Magdeburg invented a completely new diploma programme called 'computational visualistics', a curriculum dealing with all aspects of computational pictures. Only isolated aspects had been studied so far in computer science, particularly in the independent domains of computer graphics, image processing, information visualization, and computer vision. So is there indeed a coherent domain of research behind such a curriculum? The answer to that question depends crucially on a data structure that acts as a mediator between general visualistics and computer science: the data structure "image". The present text investigates that data structure, its components, and its application conditions, and thus elaborates the very foundations of computational visualistics as a unique and homogenous field of research. Before concentrating on that data structure, the theory of pictures in general and the definition of pictures as perceptoid signs in particular are closely examined. This includes an act-theoretic consideration about resemblance as the crucial link between image and object, the communicative function of context building as the central concept for comparing pictures and language, and several modes of reflection underlying the relation between image and image user. In the main chapter, the data structure "image" is extendedly analyzed under the perspectives of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. While syntactic aspects mostly concern image processing, semantic questions form the core of computer graphics and computer vision. Pragmatic considerations are particularly involved with interactive pictures but also extend to the field of information visualization and even to computer art. Four case studies provide practical applications of various aspects of the analysis