Quasi-Projection: aperiodic concrete formwork for perceived surface complexity

By disclosing long range order from few dissimilar tiles, aperiodic tilings can potentially diversify and spatially enrich the repetitive aspects of modular systems still pertinent in the production of architecture today. Such effective tilings have been discovered in quasicrystals and can be generated by the projection of higher dimensional grids in two or three dimensions. A Penrose tiling, for example can be derived from the projection of five dimensional grids onto a two dimensional plane. The thesis initially investigates if a program allowing the grids to be rotated parametrically can provide for numerous alternative tillings using the projection method for any dimensions. Some found tilings are then analysed and their assembly rules tested against the adaptation of other types of geometries in order to determine if a high level of diversity can still sustain the test of repetition of few different modules and field a spatial configuration of probable forces. It is further demonstrated that these initial tilings can in fact perform as efficient organizational scaffolds by letting more complex geometries free flowing past the tiles' edges and pass the test of mass production with the aid of a minimum amount of formwork

3D Shape Reconstruction from Multiple Range Image Views

Shape reconstruction of different three dimensional objects using multiple range images has evolved recently within the recent past. In this research shape reconstruction of a three dimensional object using multiple range image views is investigated. Range images were captured using the Waikato Range Imager. This range images camera is novel in that it uses heterodyne imaging and is capable of acquiring range images with precision less than a millimeter simultaneously over a full field. Multiple views of small objects were taken and the FastRBF was explored as a mean of registration and surface rendering. For comparison to the real range data, simulated range data under noise free condition were also generated and reconstructed with the FastRBF tool box. The registration and reconstruction of simple object was performed using different views with the FastRBF toolbox. Analysis of the registration process showed that the translation error produced due to distortion during registration of different views hinders the process of reconstructing a complete surface. While analyzing the shape reconstruction using the FastRBF tool it is also determined that a small change in accuracy values can affect the interpolation drastically. Results of reconstruction of a real 3D object from multiple views are shown

Virtual Reality to Simulate Visual Tasks for Robotic Systems

Virtual reality (VR) can be used as a tool to analyze the interactions between the visual system of a robotic agent and the environment, with the aim of designing the algorithms to solve the visual tasks necessary to properly behave into the 3D world. The novelty of our approach lies in the use of the VR as a tool to simulate the behavior of vision systems. The visual system of a robot (e.g., an autonomous vehicle, an active vision system, or a driving assistance system) and its interplay with the environment can be modeled through the geometrical relationships between the virtual stereo cameras and the virtual 3D world. Differently from conventional applications, where VR is used for the perceptual rendering of the visual information to a human observer, in the proposed approach, a virtual world is rendered to simulate the actual projections on the cameras of a robotic system. In this way, machine vision algorithms can be quantitatively validated by using the ground truth data provided by the knowledge of both the structure of the environment and the vision system

(SI10-124) Inverse Reconstruction Methodologies: A Review

The three-dimensional reconstruction problem is a longstanding ill-posed problem, which has made enormous progress in the field of computer vision. This field has attracted increasing interest and demonstrated an impressive performance. Due to a long era of increasing evolution, this paper presents an extensive review of the developments made in this field. For the three dimensional visualization, researchers have focused on the developments of three dimensional information and acquisition methodologies from two dimensional scenes or objects. These acquisition methodologies require a complex calibration procedure which is not practical in general. Hence, the requirement of flexibility was much needed in all these methods. Due to this emerging factors, many techniques were presented. The methodologies are organized on the basis of different aspects of the three dimensional reconstruction like active method, passive method, different geometrical shapes, etc. A brief analysis and comparison of the performance of these methodologies are also presented

04251 -- Imaging Beyond the Pinhole Camera

From 13.06.04 to 18.06.04, the Dagstuhl Seminar 04251 ``Imaging Beyond the Pin-hole Camera. 12th Seminar on Theoretical Foundations of Computer Vision\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

A dataset of annotated omnidirectional videos for distancing applications

Omnidirectional (or 360◦ ) cameras are acquisition devices that, in the next few years, could have a big impact on video surveillance applications, research, and industry, as they can record a spherical view of a whole environment from every perspective. This paper presents two new contributions to the research community: the CVIP360 dataset, an annotated dataset of 360◦ videos for distancing applications, and a new method to estimate the distances of objects in a scene from a single 360◦ image. The CVIP360 dataset includes 16 videos acquired outdoors and indoors, annotated by adding information about the pedestrians in the scene (bounding boxes) and the distances to the camera of some points in the 3D world by using markers at fixed and known intervals. The proposed distance estimation algorithm is based on geometry facts regarding the acquisition process of the omnidirectional device, and is uncalibrated in practice: the only required parameter is the camera height. The proposed algorithm was tested on the CVIP360 dataset, and empirical results demonstrate that the estimation error is negligible for distancing applications