Scribble-based gradient mesh recoloring

Previous gradient mesh recoloring methods usually have dependencies on an additional reference image and the rasterized gradient mesh. To circumvent such dependencies, we propose a user scribble-based recoloring method, in which users are allowed to annotate gradient meshes with a few color scribbles. Our approach builds an auxiliary mesh from gradient meshes, namely control net, by taking both colors and local color gradients at mesh points into account. We then develop an extended chrominance blending method to propagate the user specified colors over the control net. The recolored gradient mesh is finally reconstructed from the recolored control net. Experiments validate the effectiveness of our approach on multiple gradient meshes. Compared with various alternative solutions, our method has no color bleedings nor sampling artifacts, and can achieve fast performance

Example-based image colorization using locality consistent sparse representation

—Image colorization aims to produce a natural looking color image from a given grayscale image, which remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel examplebased image colorization method exploiting a new locality consistent sparse representation. Given a single reference color image, our method automatically colorizes the target grayscale image by sparse pursuit. For efficiency and robustness, our method operates at the superpixel level. We extract low-level intensity features, mid-level texture features and high-level semantic features for each superpixel, which are then concatenated to form its descriptor. The collection of feature vectors for all the superpixels from the reference image composes the dictionary. We formulate colorization of target superpixels as a dictionary-based sparse reconstruction problem. Inspired by the observation that superpixels with similar spatial location and/or feature representation are likely to match spatially close regions from the reference image, we further introduce a locality promoting regularization term into the energy formulation which substantially improves the matching consistency and subsequent colorization results. Target superpixels are colorized based on the chrominance information from the dominant reference superpixels. Finally, to further improve coherence while preserving sharpness, we develop a new edge-preserving filter for chrominance channels with the guidance from the target grayscale image. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on sparse pursuit image colorization from single reference images. Experimental results demonstrate that our colorization method outperforms state-ofthe-art methods, both visually and quantitatively using a user stud

Directive local color transfer based on dynamic look-up table

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Camera Spatial Frequency Response Derived from Pictorial Natural Scenes

Camera system performance is a prominent part of many aspects of imaging science and computer vision. There are many aspects to camera performance that determines how accurately the image represents the scene, including measurements of colour accuracy, tone reproduction, geometric distortions, and image noise evaluation. The research conducted in this thesis focuses on the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), a widely used camera performance measurement employed to describe resolution and sharpness. Traditionally measured under controlled conditions with characterised test charts, the MTF is a measurement restricted to laboratory settings. The MTF is based on linear system theory, meaning the input to output must follow a straightforward correlation. Established methods for measuring the camera system MTF include the ISO12233:2017 for measuring the edge-based Spatial Frequency Response (e-SFR), a sister measure of the MTF designed for measuring discrete systems. Many modern camera systems incorporate non-linear, highly adaptive image signal processing (ISP) to improve image quality. As a result, system performance becomes scene and processing dependant, adapting to the scene contents captured by the camera. Established test chart based MTF/SFR methods do not describe this adaptive nature; they only provide the response of the camera to a test chart signal. Further, with the increased use of Deep Neural Networks (DNN) for image recognition tasks and autonomous vision systems, there is an increased need for monitoring system performance outside laboratory conditions in real-time, i.e. live-MTF. Such measurements would assist in monitoring the camera systems to ensure they are fully operational for decision critical tasks. This thesis presents research conducted to develop a novel automated methodology that estimates the standard e-SFR directly from pictorial natural scenes. This methodology has the potential to produce scene dependant and real-time camera system performance measurements, opening new possibilities in imaging science and allowing live monitoring/calibration of systems for autonomous computer vision applications. The proposed methodology incorporates many well-established image processes, as well as others developed for specific purposes. It is presented in two parts. Firstly, the Natural Scene derived SFR (NS-SFR) are obtained from isolated captured scene step-edges, after verifying that these edges have the correct profile for implementing into the slanted-edge algorithm. The resulting NS-SFRs are shown to be a function of both camera system performance and scene contents. The second part of the methodology uses a series of derived NS-SFRs to estimate the system e-SFR, as per the ISO12233 standard. This is achieved by applying a sequence of thresholds to segment the most likely data corresponding to the system performance. These thresholds a) group the expected optical performance variation across the imaging circle within radial distance segments, b) obtain the highest performance NS-SFRs per segment and c) select the NS-SFRs with input edge and region of interest (ROI) parameter ranges shown to introduce minimal e-SFR variation. The selected NS-SFRs are averaged per radial segment to estimate system e-SFRs across the field of view. A weighted average of these estimates provides an overall system performance estimation. This methodology is implemented for e-SFR estimation of three characterised camera systems, two near-linear and one highly non-linear. Investigations are conducted using large, diverse image datasets as well as restricting scene content and the number of images used for the estimation. The resulting estimates are comparable to ISO12233 e-SFRs derived from test chart inputs for the near-linear systems. Overall estimate stays within one standard deviation of the equivalent test chart measurement. Results from the highly non-linear system indicate scene and processing dependency, potentially leading to a more representative SFR measure than the current chart-based approaches for such systems. These results suggest that the proposed method is a viable alternative to the ISO technique

In Response to Heidegger’s Plea: Alētheia and the Open Space for Thinking and Freedom Through Art

This dissertation is a response to Martin Heidegger’s call to action asserted at the conclusion of his oft-cited essay, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in which he offers the realm of art as the mainspring for our emancipation from the grip of technological enframing. The following chapters investigate artists Martha Rosler, Christian Boltanski, Krzysztof Wodiczko and finally, collaborators Noor Mirza and Brad Butler, whose artworks offer a counterbalance to the erosion of the human capacity for thought as a particular feature of our Being, or Dasein, as proposed by Heidegger. Their shared characteristic lies in truth’s manifestation within artworks as happenings or events rather than a quest for fixed certainty or correspondence. Through their work, the artists catalyze a reckoning, compelling the viewer to question and reflect on his intersubjective ethical responsibility for the other. The common thread connecting them is a powerful shifting of thought — in a distinctly revelatory acting upon the viewer’s awareness. I will argue that, as technological aesthetic narratives are increasingly sophisticated and nuanced, politically conscious artists such as these become better able to harness their potential voices in deeply critical ways allowing the inter-subjective ethos of care to manifest and thrive in dialogic expressions of truth. Furthermore, they begin to formulate a way of considering and using technology that not only resists enframing by interrogating the very essence of our relationship with it, but also functions as a way of engaging with the question of Being itself (which encompasses Heidegger’s fundamental project). In the end, this dissertation will demonstrate that Being comes to itself in the site of exchange as his/her awareness of responsibility grows and thought is returned to its poetical dwelling. In these times of narrowed perspectives and technological addiction qua enframing, Heidegger’s call to action and the works responding to it must be brought to the fore and celebratedhttps://digitalmaine.com/academic/1020/thumbnail.jp

Voices of USU: An Anthology of Student Writing, Vol. 13

This collection of student writing represents the voices of over 2,000 students who enroll each academic year in Utah State University’s second-year composition course, Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode. Voices of USU celebrates excellence in writing by providing undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines the opportunity to have their work published.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/voicesofusu/1011/thumbnail.jp

Determining the dynamic co-diffusion of four e-services using country-level panel data

Motivated by the slow diffusion of e-services in many countries in the world, and Rogers’ call for researching related innovation as a cluster, this study investigates the co-diffusion among e-services. To our knowledge this study is the first to examine the co-diffusion effects among e-services. It extends prior studies from the e-services diffusion literature, and the technology co-diffusion literature by examining co-diffusion among four e-services; e-banking, e-shopping, e-government, and e-learning. It also examined the co-diffusion mediation effects, moderation effects, and country-level factors’ effects. Using panel data of 28 European countries, and applying dynamic GMM econometric technique, this study’s findings were supporting the suggested hypotheses. The findings are discussed, and the conclusions, significant theoretical and practical implications of the findings, limitations, and recommendations for future research are presented

Los De Abajo Reconstruimos : Zapatismo & Indigenous Gender Transformation

Indigenous women\u27s voices have long been silenced in society, including the academic realm. The brutality of colonization toward Indigenous women\u27s gender and racial identities has kept them isolated and suppressed up to the present time. For the last twenty-seven years, the Ejército Zapatista Liberación Nacional (EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico, has campaigned against the Eurocentric ideologies that permeated post-colonization and influenced the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples significantly the discrimination of Indigenous women and other non-binary genders outside these Eurocentric definitions. This research aims to determine the effects of colonial gender existence and, through its deconstruction, also examines the destruction of environments. This project examines an interpretive approach and uses primary sources such as the EZLN Enlace archive to voice Indigenous resistance. This research demonstrates the solidarity to decolonize and bridge anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchy movements with principles of Zapatismo and build spaces and futures where many environments and humans thrive or, as they say, A World Where Many Worlds Fit

Revamped: Theda Bara, Cultural Memory, and the Repurposing of Star Image

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Communication and Culture, 2015Between 1915 and 1925, Theda Bara, the actress typecast in both cinema and memory as "The Vamp," starred in forty feature films; at present, three are known to survive. Despite this, her star image continues to circulate in popular culture and attract new fans. In examining the reasons for this unusual occurrence, this dissertation presents a cultural history and reception study of Bara's image as it has been adapted, or repurposed, to convey disparate meanings in diverse contexts across a century. Combining archival research and ethnographic interviews, I use Bara as a case study in analyzing the role popular culture plays in people's lives, and how audiences' responses to the media become part of cultural memory. Working with film history, reception, memory, and gender studies methodologies, I argue that repurposings of Bara's image, by the media and by media consumers alike, comprise a historical record, incorporating voices and perspectives often overlooked or unrecorded elsewhere, and revealing a century-long archive of changing values and attitudes about gender, sexuality, ethnic difference, cultural marginalization, and social transgression. By examining how these examples of media consumption function as remembrances, I further make the case that audiences have long served as amateur archivists, curators, and historians of cultural heritage through their interaction with the media and the resultant expressions of taste, knowledge, and affective attachments