Vision Sensors and Edge Detection

Vision Sensors and Edge Detection book reflects a selection of recent developments within the area of vision sensors and edge detection. There are two sections in this book. The first section presents vision sensors with applications to panoramic vision sensors, wireless vision sensors, and automated vision sensor inspection, and the second one shows image processing techniques, such as, image measurements, image transformations, filtering, and parallel computing

Remote Visual Observation of Real Places Through Virtual Reality Headsets

Virtual Reality has always represented a fascinating yet powerful opportunity that has attracted studies and technology developments, especially since the latest release on the market of powerful high-resolution and wide field-of-view VR headsets. While the great potential of such VR systems is common and accepted knowledge, issues remain related to how to design systems and setups capable of fully exploiting the latest hardware advances. The aim of the proposed research is to study and understand how to increase the perceived level of realism and sense of presence when remotely observing real places through VR headset displays. Hence, to produce a set of guidelines that give directions to system designers about how to optimize the display-camera setup to enhance performance, focusing on remote visual observation of real places. The outcome of this investigation represents unique knowledge that is believed to be very beneficial for better VR headset designs towards improved remote observation systems. To achieve the proposed goal, this thesis presents a thorough investigation of existing literature and previous researches, which is carried out systematically to identify the most important factors ruling realism, depth perception, comfort, and sense of presence in VR headset observation. Once identified, these factors are further discussed and assessed through a series of experiments and usability studies, based on a predefined set of research questions. More specifically, the role of familiarity with the observed place, the role of the environment characteristics shown to the viewer, and the role of the display used for the remote observation of the virtual environment are further investigated. To gain more insights, two usability studies are proposed with the aim of defining guidelines and best practices. The main outcomes from the two studies demonstrate that test users can experience an enhanced realistic observation when natural features, higher resolution displays, natural illumination, and high image contrast are used in Mobile VR. In terms of comfort, simple scene layouts and relaxing environments are considered ideal to reduce visual fatigue and eye strain. Furthermore, sense of presence increases when observed environments induce strong emotions, and depth perception improves in VR when several monocular cues such as lights and shadows are combined with binocular depth cues. Based on these results, this investigation then presents a focused evaluation on the outcomes and introduces an innovative eye-adapted High Dynamic Range (HDR) approach, which the author believes to be of great improvement in the context of remote observation when combined with eye-tracked VR headsets. Within this purpose, a third user study is proposed to compare static HDR and eye-adapted HDR observation in VR, to assess that the latter can improve realism, depth perception, sense of presence, and in certain cases even comfort. Results from this last study confirmed the author expectations, proving that eye-adapted HDR and eye tracking should be used to achieve best visual performances for remote observation in modern VR systems

Review of substitutive assistive tools and technologies for people with visual impairments: recent advancements and prospects

YesThe development of many tools and technologies for people with visual impairment has become a major priority in the field of assistive technology research. However, many of these technology advancements have limitations in terms of the human aspects of the user experience (e.g., usability, learnability, and time to user adaptation) as well as difficulties in translating research prototypes into production. Also, there was no clear distinction between the assistive aids of adults and children, as well as between “partial impairment” and “total blindness”. As a result of these limitations, the produced aids have not gained much popularity and the intended users are still hesitant to utilise them. This paper presents a comprehensive review of substitutive interventions that aid in adapting to vision loss, centred on laboratory research studies to assess user-system interaction and system validation. Depending on the primary cueing feedback signal offered to the user, these technology aids are categorized as visual, haptics, or auditory-based aids. The context of use, cueing feedback signals, and participation of visually impaired people in the evaluation are all considered while discussing these aids. Based on the findings, a set of recommendations is suggested to assist the scientific community in addressing persisting challenges and restrictions faced by both the totally blind and partially sighted people

IceCube-Gen2 - The Next Generation Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole: Contributions to ICRC 2015

85 pages, 52 figures, Papers submitted to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, The Hague 2015, v2 has a corrected author list85 pages, 52 figures, Papers submitted to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, The Hague 2015, v2 has a corrected author listPapers submitted to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2015, The Hague) by the IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration

Spatio-temporal solar forecasting

Current and future photovoltaic (PV) deployment levels require accurate forecasting to ensure grid stability. Spatio-temporal solar forecasting is a recent solar forecasting approach that explores spatially distributed solar data sets, either irradiance or photovoltaic power output, modeling cloud advection patterns to improve forecasting accuracy. This thesis contributes to further understanding of the potential and limitations of this approach, for different spatial and temporal scales, using different data sources; and its sensitivity to prevailing local weather patterns. Three irradiance data sets with different spatial coverages (from meters to hundreds of kilometers) and time resolutions (from seconds to days) were investigated using linear autoregressive models with external inputs (ARX). Adding neighboring data led to accuracy gains up to 20-40 % for all datasets. Spatial patterns matching the local prevailing winds could be identified in the model coefficients and the achieved forecast skill whenever the forecast horizon was of the order of scale of the distance between sensors divided by cloud speed. For one of the sets, it was shown that the ARX model underperformed for non-prevailing winds. Thus, a regime-based approach driven by wind information is proposed, where specialized models are trained for different ranges of wind speed and wind direction. Although forecast skill improves by up to 55.2 % for individual regimes, the overall improvement is only of 4.3 %, as those winds have a low representation in the data. By converting the highest resolution irradiance data set to PV power, it was also shown that forecast accuracy is sensitive to module tilt and orientation. Results are shown to be correlated with the difference in tilt and orientation between systems, indicating that clear-sky normalization is not totally effective in removing the geometry dependence of solar irradiance. Thus, non-linear approaches, such as machine learning algorithms, should be tested for modelling the non-linearity introduced by the mounting diversity from neighboring systems in spatio-temporal forecasting

Contributions to the cornerstones of interaction in visualization: strengthening the interaction of visualization

Visualization has become an accepted means for data exploration and analysis. Although interaction is an important component of visualization approaches, current visualization research pays less attention to interaction than to aspects of the graphical representation. Therefore, the goal of this work is to strengthen the interaction side of visualization. To this end, we establish a unified view on interaction in visualization. This unified view covers four cornerstones: the data, the tasks, the technology, and the human.Visualisierung hat sich zu einem unverzichtbaren Werkzeug für die Exploration und Analyse von Daten entwickelt. Obwohl Interaktion ein wichtiger Bestandteil solcher Werkzeuge ist, wird der Interaktion in der aktuellen Visualisierungsforschung weniger Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet als Aspekten der graphischen Repräsentation. Daher ist es das Ziel dieser Arbeit, die Interaktion im Bereich der Visualisierung zu stärken. Hierzu wird eine einheitliche Sicht auf Interaktion in der Visualisierung entwickelt

Compact Lens Technologies: Curved Image Sensor and Volumetric Imaging Efficiency

Compact image systems bring up people\u27s attention in the field of target recognition, surveillance, situation awareness or even photography. Conventional metrics assess image system based on image quality without considering systems\u27 volume. More comprehensive metrics, such as General Image-Quality Equation and the Targeting Task Performance metric, incorporates all image system components from object, lenses to detector and even imaging processing algorithm. All these key factors prohibit these metrics from being applied to image system in a convenient manner. Here, we propose a simple metric, volumetric imaging efficiency, considering both image quality and volume. Only concentrate on optical lenses enables the metric being implemented onto conventional bulk optics and flat optics efficiently. Curved image sensor with monocentric lenses shows an exceptional performance based on our metric but potentially challenging in fabrication due to conventional flat substrate process. Normally, this can be done with inorganic photodetector array and perform bending as the last step or organic photodetector being directly deposited on a curved plastic substrate. Inorganic method utilizes state-of-the-art CMOS technology but the interconnects suffer great strain and stress after bending and ultimately runs the risk of device failure while organic device ensures minimum strain, but the fabrication is not compatible with CMOS technology, thus a pattern transfer method is involved for contacts deposition. Here, we introduce both techniques and addressing their challenges. For inorganic device, several interconnect deposition methods are developed and both 1D and 2D bending test are performed to test their stretchability. For organic device, without CMOS circuity, we developed a new type of photodetector, frustrated organic photodetector (F-OPD), which enables single pixel selection by biasing device in different directions. A total of 45 devices are fabricated and perform as an input of 30X30 detectors array. A variety of noise sources are discussed and applied to each pixel. The image is then restored by color leveling and 2-points or 3-points non-uniformity correction (NUC). The results are compared with original figure as a proof of concept showing the capability of the device being extended to an array