The Penn State ORSER system for processing and analyzing ERTS and other MSS data

The author has identified the following significant results. The office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) of the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University has developed an extensive operational system for processing and analyzing ERTS-1 and similar multispectral data. The ORSER system was developed for use by a wide variety of researchers working in remote sensing. Both photointerpretive techniques and automatic computer processing methods have been developed and used, separately and in a combined approach. A remote Job Entry system permits use of an IBM 370/168 computer from any compatible remote terminal, including equipment tied in by long distance telephone connections. An elementary cost analysis has been prepared for the processing of ERTS data

The Presentation of Images: Effects on the Viewer’s Reaction

Background: Perceiving an image evokes a variety of reactions in the viewer. However, not only what is recognized in an image influences the perceiver, but also how an image is presented impacts the reaction to the image. To contribute to the understanding of the relationship between an image’s presentation and how this affects the reaction to it, is the aim of this doctoral thesis. To do so, over the course of three studies presented in the form of three manuscripts, we investigated the effect of a basic image feature (color saturation), the context in which an image is perceived, as well as the effect of image type (whether the image is presented as a photograph or a graphic representation) on the responses to an image. Methods: In each manuscript, we followed a similar path of investigation: We manipulated a particular aspect of how an image is presented and examined the effects of that specific factor on the viewer’s response to the image. In each of the manuscripts presented here, we collected data on different responses to images: from directly measurable dimensions such as naming duration and correct naming, to liking, to more complex aesthetic responses, and to emotions perceived in an image. The design of each study was individualized to properly answer the research question. Results: The results presented in the three manuscripts show that the color saturation—a basic image feature—and the context in which an image is presented influence responses to an image. More specifically, manipulated color saturation affects the liking as well as specific aesthetic reactions to digitally reproduced paintings, but to a different extent for art experts and lay people. We also showed that the affective interpretation of art photographs seen in the context of other photographs is influenced by the valence of these other photographs. But not only neighboring images lead to a change in judgment; The evaluation dimension also affects the emotion perceived in an image. However, whether an image is presented as photograph or graphic representation does not influence naming performance, especially when both types of images include favorable image properties such as color, texture, and shading. Conclusion: The results presented in this thesis underline the importance of image presentation, as it influences reactions to images. This is also reflected in the practice of image making, where the focus is not only on the creation of the image itself, but likewise on its presentation. Moreover, our results show that not all the factors investigated and manipulated in our studies influence viewer responses in the way we expected. Similarly, in image practice, the designer often assumes—based on his or her expertise—that the viewer’s response can be implicitly predicted. However, the results of our studies show that this is not always the case. Therefore, there is a need to empirically investigate reactions to how an image is presented. Especially in visual communication, where an unambiguous message of the image is intended, the combination of practical image making and empirical investigations could be of added value

Awards, Archives, and Affects: Tropes in the World Press Photo Contest 2009 - 2011

__Abstract__ Photography contests have assumed an increasingly significant public role in the context of the global surge of mass-mediated war reporting. This study focuses on the recurrence of visual tropes in press photographs awarded in the annual contest World Press Photo (WPP) in the years 2009–11. By tropes, we mean conventions (e.g. a mourning woman, a civilian facing soldiers, a distressed witness to an atrocity) that remain unchanged despite their travels across the visual sphere, gaining professional and public recognition and having a strong affective impact. We contend that photography contests such as the WPP influence and organize a process of generic understanding of war, disaster and atrocity that is based on a number of persistent tropes, such as the mourner, the protester or the survivor amidst chaos and ruins. We further show that these tropes are gendered along traditional conceptions of femininity and masculinity, appealing strongly to both judges and wider audiences. The evidence for our claim comes from an analysis of the photographs that won awards, observation of the judging sessions, semi-structured interviews with three jury chairmen, and public commentary on the juries’ choices (blogs, newspapers and websites)

Estimation of illuminants from color signals of illuminated objects

Color constancy is the ability of the human visual systems to discount the effect of the illumination and to assign approximate constant color descriptions to objects. This ability has long been studied and widely applied to many areas such as color reproduction and machine vision, especially with the development of digital color processing. This thesis work makes some improvements in illuminant estimation and computational color constancy based on the study and testing of existing algorithms. During recent years, it has been noticed that illuminant estimation based on gamut comparison is efficient and simple to implement. Although numerous investigations have been done in this field, there are still some deficiencies. A large part of this thesis has been work in the area of illuminant estimation through gamut comparison. Noting the importance of color lightness in gamut comparison, and also in order to simplify three-dimensional gamut calculation, a new illuminant estimation method is proposed through gamut comparison at separated lightness levels. Maximum color separation is a color constancy method which is based on the assumption that colors in a scene will obtain the largest gamut area under white illumination. The method was further derived and improved in this thesis to make it applicable and efficient. In addition, some intrinsic questions in gamut comparison methods, for example the relationship between the color space and the application of gamut or probability distribution, were investigated. Color constancy methods through spectral recovery have the limitation that there is no effective way to confine the range of object spectral reflectance. In this thesis, a new constraint on spectral reflectance based on the relative ratios of the parameters from principal component analysis (PCA) decomposition is proposed. The proposed constraint was applied to illuminant detection methods as a metric on the recovered spectral reflectance. Because of the importance of the sensor sensitivities and their wide variation, the influence from the sensor sensitivities on different kinds of illuminant estimation methods was also studied. Estimation method stability to wrong sensor information was tested, suggesting the possible solution to illuminant estimation on images with unknown sources. In addition, with the development of multi-channel imaging, some research on illuminant estimation for multi-channel images both on the correlated color temperature (CCT) estimation and the illuminant spectral recovery was performed in this thesis. All the improvement and new proposed methods in this thesis are tested and compared with those existing methods with best performance, both on synthetic data and real images. The comparison verified the high efficiency and implementation simplicity of the proposed methods

Digitisation and 3D reconstruction of 30 year old microscopic sections of human embryo, foetus and orbit

A collection of 2200 microscopic sections was recently recovered at the Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute and the Department of Anatomy and Embryology of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. The sections were created thirty years ago and constitute the largest and most detailed study of human orbital anatomy to date. In order to preserve the collection, it was digitised. This paper documents a practical approach to the automatic reconstruction of a 3- D representation of the original objects from the digitised sections. To illustrate the results of our approach, we show a multi-planar reconstruction and a 3-D direct volume rendering of a reconstructed foetal head

The application of remote sensing in open moorland soil erosion studies: a case study of Glaisdale moor, northern England

The potential of remote sensing in upland soil erosion studies has been examined on Glaisdale Moor, North Yorkshire Moors. The study considers four different remote sensing sources, viz. sequential air photographs, ground radiometry, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and SPOT simulation. Sequential air photographs have been interpreted in order to elucidate the land use/land cover changes and the drainage development and associated erosion problems in the region. A series of statistical analyses were employed in an effort to establish the relationships between the different spectral variables and the soil/ground variables. Attempts have also been made to evaluate the spectral separability performance of the Ground radiometer, the Landsat TM and the SPOT simulation wave bands. The Landsat TM and the SPOT simulation imagery have been further analysed in order to gather information about the best band and band combinations that would be required to optimize the discrimination of moorland surface types including eroded areas. Digital image processing of the Landsat TM and the SPOT simulation subscene for Glaisdale Moor was performed using the DIAD image processing system. The land use/land cover classification information derived from the air photographs, the Landsat TM and the SPOT simulation, has been used as an input into a soil loss prediction model (USLE) to predict the soil erosion rate of the study area. Of the various remote sensing systems used, air photographs and TM data proved the most useful in this area

Asymmetric visual representation of sex from human body shape

We efficiently infer others' states and traits from their appearance, and these inferences powerfully shape our social behaviour. One key trait is sex, which is strongly cued by the appearance of the body. What are the visual representations that link body shape to sex? Previous studies of visual sex judgment tasks find observers have a bias to report "male", particularly for ambiguous stimuli. This finding implies a representational asymmetry - that for the processes that generate a sex percept, the default output is "male", and "female" is determined by the presence of additional perceptual evidence. That is, female body shapes are positively coded by reference to a male default shape. This perspective makes a novel prediction in line with Treisman's studies of visual search asymmetries: female body targets should be more readily detected amongst male distractors than vice versa. Across 10 experiments (N = 32 each) we confirmed this prediction and ruled out alternative low-level explanations. The asymmetry was found with profile and frontal body silhouettes, frontal photographs, and schematised icons. Low-level confounds were controlled by balancing silhouette images for size and homogeneity, and by matching physical properties of photographs. The female advantage was nulled for inverted icons, but intact for inverted photographs, suggesting reliance on distinct cues to sex for different body depictions. Together, these findings demonstrate a principle of the perceptual coding that links bodily appearance with a significant social trait: the female body shape is coded as an extension of a male default. We conclude by offering a visual experience account of how these asymmetric representations arise in the first place

Wigs, Corsets, Cosmetics, and Instagram: The Prosthetics of Crossplay

Cosplay refers to the fan practice of costuming and (often) playacting characters from media. Cosplays can be derived from a spectrum of fan-oriented media franchises including comics, live-action television, cartoons, and more. Matthew Hale (2014, 6) argues that cosplay is less represented in fan studies because cosplay’s embodied and performative nature did not seem to lend itself to the postmodern, intertextual readings that characterized early fan studies. However, as outlined by Paul Mountfort, Anne Peirson-Smith, and Adam Geczy (2018, 24), “Cosplay’s particular form of détournement is a ‘recontextualization’ of sources which aligns it with other mixing and mashing practices, such as fanfiction . Still, a strictly textual analysis of cosplay can neglect cosplay\u27s performative and embodied realization. Responding to this, previous research has read cosplay through the lenses of queer theory. While each of these analyses recognizes the embodiment inherent to the practice, they do not effectively address our current condition of technosociality as key to cosplay\u27s political potency