Automated pebble mosaic stylization of images

Digital mosaics have usually used regular tiles, simulating the historical "tessellated" mosaics. In this paper, we present a method for synthesizing pebble mosaics, a historical mosaic style in which the tiles are rounded pebbles. We address both the tiling problem, where pebbles are distributed over the image plane so as to approximate the input image content, and the problem of geometry, creating a smooth rounded shape for each pebble. We adapt SLIC, simple linear iterative clustering, to obtain elongated tiles conforming to image content, and smooth the resulting irregular shapes into shapes resembling pebble cross-sections. Then, we create an interior and exterior contour for each pebble and solve a Laplace equation over the region between them to obtain height-field geometry. The resulting pebble set approximates the input image while presenting full geometry that can be rendered and textured for a highly detailed representation of a pebble mosaic

Classic Mosaics and Visual Correspondence via Graph-Cut based Energy Optimization

Computer graphics and computer vision were traditionally two distinct research fields focusing on opposite topics. Lately, they have been increasingly borrowing ideas and tools from each other. In this thesis, we investigate two problems in computer vision and graphics that rely on the same tool, namely energy optimization with graph cuts. In the area of computer graphics, we address the problem of generating artificial classic mosaics, still and animated. The main purpose of artificial mosaics is to help a user to create digital art. First we reformulate our previous static mosaic work in a more principled global optimization framework. Then, relying on our still mosaic algorithm, we develop a method for producing animated mosaics directly from real video sequences, which is the first such method, we believe. Our mosaic animation style is uniquely expressive. Our method estimates the motion of the pixels in the video, renders the frames with mosaic effect based on both the colour and motion information from the input video. This algorithm relies extensively on our novel motion segmentation approach, which is a computer vision problem. To improve the quality of our animated mosaics, we need to improve the motion segmentation algorithm. Since motion and stereo problems have a similar setup, we start with the problem of finding visual correspondence for stereo, which has the advantage of having datasets with ground truth, useful for evaluation. Most previous methods for stereo correspondence do not provide any measure of reliability in their estimates. We aim to find the regions for which correspondence can be determined reliably. Our main idea is to find corresponding regions that have a sufficiently strong texture cue on the boundary, since texture is a reliable cue for matching. Unlike the previous work, we allow the disparity range within each such region to vary smoothly, instead of being constant. This produces blob-like semi-dense visual features for which we have a high confidence in their estimated ranges of disparities

Applications of mosaic design for today's home

Architects are rediscovering the unique qualities that the ancient art of mosaic can contribute to modern architecture. They are including mosaics in the design of numerous public and private structures. However, the creation of mosaic is often a high-cost process and therefore, this art is usually limited to the more expensive buildings. This study was undertaken to explore the feasibility of creating mosaics suitable for use in multi-priced homes. Sources for mosaic supplies were located. Representative surface materials, bonding agents and backing materials were collected for experimentation in mosaic design. These materials were studied in relation to color, shape, compatibility with other materials, workability and design possibilities. Various construction methods and mosaic backings were examined. Different types of adhesives were applied and observed for setting time, holding power and coloration. The most expensive methods and materials were rejected. This investigative work effected the decision to limit this study to mosaics composed of hard tiles and stones. The decision was based on such factors as: accessibility, handling ease, moderate cost and personal preference of the author. Finally, four original designs were created, using methods and materials considered most effective in achieving the objectives of this study. Color photographs were taken and data pertaining to materials, techniques, cost and findings was recorded

Web Service Deployment for Selecting a Right Steganography Scheme for Optimizing Both the Capacity and the Detectable Distortion

The principal objective of this effort is to organize a network facility to hide the secret information in an image folder without disturbing its originality. In the literature lot of algorithms are there to hide the information in an image file but most of it consumes high resource for completing the task which is not suitable for light weight mobile devices. Few basic algorithms like 1LSB, 2LSB and 3LSB methods in the literature are suitable for mobile devices since the computational complexity is very low. But, these methods either lack in maintaining the originality of the source image or in increasing the number of bits to be fixed. Furthermore, every algorithm in the literature has its own merits and demerits and we cannot predict which algorithm is best or worst since, based on the parameters such as size of the safety duplicate and encryption algorithm used to generate the cipher text the steganography schemes may produce best or worst result with respect to computational complexity, capacity, and detectable distortion. In our proposed work, we have developed a web service that takes cover image and plain text as the input from the clients and returns the steganoimage to the clients. The steganoimage will be generated by our proposed work by analyzing the above said parameters and by applying the right steganography scheme. The proposed work helps in reducing the detectable distortion, computational complexity of the client device, and in increasing the capacity. The experimental result says that, the proposed system performs better than the legacy schemes with respect to capacity, computational complexity, and detectable distortion. This proposed work is more useful to the client devices with very low computational resource since all the computational tasks are deployed in the server side

Overview of the treatment of historical industrial heritage in engineering graphics

This article presents a comprehensive review of the stages of research when addressing the issue of historical industrial heritage from the point view of engineering graphics, looking at its influence on all stages of the value chain. It provides a contextual introduction, explaining the research, the aim pursued and the priority objectives of this type of work. It also presents the methodology and the materials used, specifying important details needed to obtain a realistic result, such as fieldwork, 3D virtual modeling, virtual reconstruction, and more usual techniques used such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Finally, the dissemination of the results and the advantages and disadvantages of the virtual reconstructions are presented

GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey I : A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2016 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), the low-frequency Square Kilometre Array (SKA1 LOW) precursor located in Western Australia, we have completed the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM) survey, and present the resulting extragalactic catalogue, utilising the first year of observations. The catalogue covers 24,831 square degrees, over declinations south of $+30^\circ$ and Galactic latitudes outside $10^\circ$ of the Galactic plane, excluding some areas such as the Magellanic Clouds. It contains 307,455 radio sources with 20 separate flux density measurements across 72--231MHz, selected from a time- and frequency- integrated image centred at 200MHz, with a resolution of $\approx 2$'. Over the catalogued region, we estimate that the catalogue is 90% complete at 170mJy, and 50% complete at 55mJy, and large areas are complete at even lower flux density levels. Its reliability is 99.97% above the detection threshold of $5\sigma$, which itself is typically 50mJy. These observations constitute the widest fractional bandwidth and largest sky area survey at radio frequencies to date, and calibrate the low frequency flux density scale of the southern sky to better than 10%. This paper presents details of the flagging, imaging, mosaicking, and source extraction/characterisation, as well as estimates of the completeness and reliability. All source measurements and images are available online (http://www.mwatelescope.org/science/gleam-survey). This is the first in a series of publications describing the GLEAM survey results.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Matters of materiality in Byzantium: the Archangel Gabriel in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

This article considers questions of materials and materiality in the context of the very large Byzantine mosaic of the Archangel Gabriel in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It looks at the ways in which the materials of mosaics affected and affect the appearance of the image, and discusses how this sits with Byzantine conceptions of angels as both embodied and disembodied beings

Supporting the Aesthetic Through Metaphorical Thinking

During my time at the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University, I have been fortunate to be the mentor to a number of art majors who have also been honors students. During this time I have found that defining the fine line between input and output needs to be finessed. These students normally deal with the visual image and how it relates directly to their own personal work. In many cases, especially with freshman and sophomore students, their understanding of creativity is that an artist’s inspiration comes out of thin air. As they progress through their academic years and through the honors process, they start to understand that this is not the case. Their scope of comprehension broadens, and their ability to use this new found capability helps them in other areas of their discipline and throughout their core courses as well; however, keeping the balance between influence and derivation is a difficult task. The possibilities of derivation and influence were defrayed by requiring these students to focus their honors tutorial and thesis projects on topics not directly related to their specific discipline in the visual arts. In this paper I will discuss how I have used the honors method to impose a strong research framework, based on metaphorical thinking, which has subsequently improved the artistic process of four art students