Eye tracking observers during color image evaluation tasks

This thesis investigated eye movement behavior of subjects during image-quality evaluation and chromatic adaptation tasks. Specifically, the objectives focused on learning where people center their attention during color preference judgments, examining the differences between paired comparison, rank order, and graphical rating tasks, and determining what strategies are adopted when selecting or adjusting achromatic regions on a soft-copy display. In judging the most preferred image, measures of fixation duration showed that observers spend about 4 seconds per image in the rank order task, 1.8 seconds per image in the paired comparison task, and 3.5 seconds per image in the graphical rating task. Spatial distributions of fixations across the three tasks were highly correlated in four of the five images. Peak areas of attention gravitated toward faces and semantic features. Introspective report was not always consistent with where people foveated, implying broader regions of importance than eye movement plots. Psychophysical results across these tasks generated similar, but not identical, scale values for three of the five images. The differences in scales are likely related to statistical treatment and image confusability, rather than eye movement behavior. In adjusting patches to appear achromatic, about 95% of the total adjustment time was spent fixating only on the patch. This result shows that even when participants are free to move their eyes in this kind of task, central adjustment patches can discourage normal image viewing behavior. When subjects did look around (less than 5% of the time), they did so early during the trial. Foveations were consistently directed toward semantic features, not shadows or achromatic surfaces. This result shows that viewers do not seek out near-neutral objects to ensure that their patch adjustments appear achromatic in the context of the scene. They also do not scan the image in order to adapt to a gray world average. As demonstrated in other studies, the mean chromaticity of the image influenced observers\u27 patch adjustments. Adaptation to the D93 white point was about 65% complete from D65. This result agrees reasonably with the time course of adaptation occurring over a 20 to 30 second exposure to the adapting illuminant. In selecting the most achromatic regions in the image, viewers spent 60% of the time scanning the scene. Unlike the achromatic patch adjustment task, foveations were consistently directed toward achromatic regions and near-neutral objects as would be expected. Eye movement records show behavior similar to what is expected from a visual search task

A Tone reproduction study of a digital image processing system

Photographic tone reproduction analysis was applied to a digital image processing system (DIPS) . The problem was to calculate computer mapping functions for the DIPS that would cause input scenes to be reproduced having Clark\u27s tone reproduction characteristics. Using the graphical method of a Jones Diagram, unique computer mapping functions were constructed for four images processed by the DIPS. After processing the imagery in the computer, the pixels were reconstructed into photographic transparencies for projection in a specially designed projection area. The results of this work concluded that tone reproduction analysis is useful in studying the macro effect of luminance transfer through a DIPS , and that tone reproduction characteristics may be modified digitally using pre-determined computer mapping functions

Colour Characterisation of LCD Display Systems

The main purpose of this research is to study the colour characterisation of digital display systems. Three distinct models for characterisation (GOG, PLCC and PLVC) are evaluated and compared and for two of these models (GOG and PLCC) two different sets of linearisation samples (either colour-ramps or grey-ramp samples) are used to perform the linearisation. To evaluate these models’ colorimetric measurements are made for 20 different display devices and colour characterization performance is reported as the main measure. Characterisation performance is calculated using several sets of samples including the widely used Macbeth ColorChecker chart and two new charts called Chart4 and Matlab60 (one of which was based on a method previously published by Cheung and Westland and another was based on a new method). A key aspect of this work is that all 256 levels of intensity were measured for the colour-ramps and for the grey-ramp linearisation samples for each of the 20 displays to allow subsampling of these data to explore the effect of the number of linearisation samples on characterisation performance. When the number of linearisation samples used was small (less than 10) the GOG model sometimes resulted in the smallest characterisation colour differences. However, for the PLCC and PLVC models performance tended to increase with the number of linearization samples and both of these models outperformed GOG with more 10 linearisation samples. For the PLCC model, better performance was usually obtained using the grey-ramp linearisation samples rather than using the colour-ramps linearization samples. It was possible, for each of the 20 displays, to reach average ab values that are less than 1.5 (ab <1.5, 90%) or ab < 1.0 (75%); however, the model that yields the best performance is difficult to ascertain in advance (a good strategy would be to evaluate all five models and select the one that performs best for the characterisation of any particular display). However, in the majority of cases, lowest colour differences (ab) were obtained using the PLCC model and all 256 of the grey-ramp samples for linearisation. This work has compared the performance of five different models using a large number of displays and has allowed a number of recommendations to be made about display characterisation. Although the majority of the work in this thesis was based on stationary displays the effect of motion on characterization performance was also explored. This is important since moving images are now commonplace in many applications. The results showed that a moving background has a small, but statistically significant, effect on the colour of patches

Functional requirements for the man-vehicle systems research facility

The NASA Ames Research Center proposed a man-vehicle systems research facility to support flight simulation studies which are needed for identifying and correcting the sources of human error associated with current and future air carrier operations. The organization of research facility is reviewed and functional requirements and related priorities for the facility are recommended based on a review of potentially critical operational scenarios. Requirements are included for the experimenter's simulation control and data acquisition functions, as well as for the visual field, motion, sound, computation, crew station, and intercommunications subsystems. The related issues of functional fidelity and level of simulation are addressed, and specific criteria for quantitative assessment of various aspects of fidelity are offered. Recommendations for facility integration, checkout, and staffing are included

MSFC Skylab ground-based astronomy program

The Skylab Ground-Based Astronomy Program (SGAP) was conducted to enhance the data base of solar physics obtained during the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) mission flown in conjunction with the Skylab orbital station. Leading solar physicists from various observatories obtained data from the ground at the same time that orbital data were being acquired by ATM. The acquisition of corollary solar data from the ground simultaneously with the ATM orbital observations helped to provide a broader basis for understanding solar physics by increasing spectral coverage and by the use of additional sophisticated instruments of various types. This report briefly describes the individual tasks and the associated instrumentation selected for this ground-based program and contains as appendices, the final reports from the Principal Investigators

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 139

The biological, physiological, psychological, and environmental effects to which man is subjected during and following simulated or actual flight in the earth's atmosphere or in interplanetary space are referenced. Similar effects on biological organisms of lower order are also included. Related topics such as sanitary problems, pharmacology, toxicology, safety and survival, life support systems, exobiology, and personnel factors are discussed. Applied research is emphasized, but references to fundamental studies and theoretical principles related to experimental development are also included. A total of 242 reports, articles, and other documents are listed

Aerospace Medicine and Biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 244 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981. Aerospace medicine and aerobiology topics are included. Listings for physiological factors, astronaut performance, control theory, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics are included

Virtual Reality

At present, the virtual reality has impact on information organization and management and even changes design principle of information systems, which will make it adapt to application requirements. The book aims to provide a broader perspective of virtual reality on development and application. First part of the book is named as "virtual reality visualization and vision" and includes new developments in virtual reality visualization of 3D scenarios, virtual reality and vision, high fidelity immersive virtual reality included tracking, rendering and display subsystems. The second part named as "virtual reality in robot technology" brings forth applications of virtual reality in remote rehabilitation robot-based rehabilitation evaluation method and multi-legged robot adaptive walking in unstructured terrains. The third part, named as "industrial and construction applications" is about the product design, space industry, building information modeling, construction and maintenance by virtual reality, and so on. And the last part, which is named as "culture and life of human" describes applications of culture life and multimedia-technology

Plasma diagnostics package. Volume 1: OSS-1 section

This volume (1) of the Plasma Diagnostics Package (PDP) final science report contains a summary of all of the data reduction and scientific analyses which were performed using PDP data obtained on STS-3 as a part of the Office of Space Science first payload (OSS-1). This work was performed during the period of launch, March 22, l982, through June 30, l983. During this period the primary data reduction effort consisted of processing summary plots of the data received by the 14 instruments located on the PDP and submitting these data to the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC). The scientific analyses during the performance period consisted of general studies which incorporated the results of several of the PDP's instruments, detailed studies which concentrated on data from only one or two of the instruments, and joint studies of beam-plasma interactions with the OSS-1 Fast Pulse Electron Generator (FPEG) of the Vehicle Charging and Potential Investigation (VCAP). Internal reports, published papers and oral presentations which involve PDP/OSS-1 data are listed in Sections 3 and 4. A PDP/OSS-1 scientific results meeting was held at the University of Iowa on April 19-20, 1983. This meeting was attended by most of the PDP and VCAP investigators and provided a forum for discussing and comparing the various results, particularly with regard to the shuttle orbiter environment. One of the most important functional objectives of the PDP on OSS-1 was to characterize the orbiter environment