Markerless deformation capture of hoverfly wings using multiple calibrated cameras

This thesis introduces an algorithm for the automated deformation capture of hoverfly wings from multiple camera image sequences. The algorithm is capable of extracting dense surface measurements, without the aid of fiducial markers, over an arbitrary number of wingbeats of hovering flight and requires limited manual initialisation. A novel motion prediction method, called the ‘normalised stroke model’, makes use of the similarity of adjacent wing strokes to predict wing keypoint locations, which are then iteratively refined in a stereo image registration procedure. Outlier removal, wing fitting and further refinement using independently reconstructed boundary points complete the algorithm. It was tested on two hovering data sets, as well as a challenging flight manoeuvre. By comparing the 3-d positions of keypoints extracted from these surfaces with those resulting from manual identification, the accuracy of the algorithm is shown to approach that of a fully manual approach. In particular, half of the algorithm-extracted keypoints were within 0.17mm of manually identified keypoints, approximately equal to the error of the manual identification process. This algorithm is unique among purely image based flapping flight studies in the level of automation it achieves, and its generality would make it applicable to wing tracking of other insects

Products of reflection: a practice that discloses the design potential of circumstantial phenomena

This research project elaborates my creative interest in circumstantial phenomenal form generated through the design and use of objects. These phenomena are extraneous or incidental qualities generated in an object or product's interaction with its circumstance; they don't appear to belong or align to the object. Such circumstantial phenomena are frequently extraordinary in their form and complexity, but their subtle and contingent character push them to the periphery of awareness and design consideration. If acknowledged, they are deemed inconsequential, either out of practical necessity or due to (pre)conceptions of what constitutes and distinguishes the designed object. The project sets aside assumptions of extraneity and treats circumstantial phenomena as objects of investigation and design. It addresses the question of how consideration of these phenomena might expand a design practice. It speculates that unrealized creative dimensions can be derived from attending to circumstantial effects: unacknowledged dimensions of the objects that populate the designed environment, and unrealized capacities of a design practice that is drawn to these phenomena. The research examines and elaborates form produced by refraction and reflection phenomena. These are explored in a process of making and generative experimentation, which increasingly pursues subsequent circumstantial results. The experiments comprise a series of installation works and design propositions that use reflection effects as a medium of design and construction. Together, they reveal the phenomenal form-making potential of mirror polished materials, objects, and products. An alternative way of interpreting and expanding my design practice develops. Circumstance emerges as an autopoietic resource. Circumstantial phenomena, rather than extraneous and inconsequential, are revealed as expressing immanent capacities of objects in their engagement with their surrounds and other objects. They thereby offer new perspectives on the products of experimentation and design intentions. Consideration of these phenomena extends an inclination in my design practice to activate new possibilities with materials at-hand, by including the circumstantial phenomena at-hand. Acknowledging and activating circumstantial phenomena provides a means to generate unanticipated and innovative outcomes

Automatic semantic and geometric enrichment of CityGML 3D building models of varying architectural styles with HOG-based template matching

While the number of 3D geo-spatial digital models of buildings with cultural heritage interest is burgeoning, most lack semantic annotation that could be used to inform users of mobile and desktop applications about the architectural features and origins of the buildings. Additionally, while automated reconstruction of 3D building models is an active research area, the labelling of architectural features (objects) is comparatively less well researched, while distinguishing between different architectural styles is less well researched still. Meanwhile, the successful automatic identification of architectural objects, typified by a comparatively less symmetrical or less regular distribution of objects on façades, particularly on older buildings, has so far eluded researchers. This research has addressed these issues by automating the semantic and geometric enrichment of existing 3D building models by using Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG)-based template matching. The methods are applied to the texture maps of 3D building models of 20th century styles, of Georgian-Regency (1715-1830) style and of the Norman (1066 to late 12th century) style, where the amalgam of styles present on buildings of the latter style necessitates detection of styles of the Gothic tradition (late 12th century to present day). The most successful results were obtained when applying a set of heuristics including the use of real world dimensions, while a Support Vector Machine (SVM)-based machine learning approach was found effective in obviating the need for thresholds on matchscores when making detection decisions

Memorial Issue Dedicated to Dr. Howard D. Flack: The Man behind the Flack Parameter

The book is dedicated to the work and achievements of Howard Flack. It combines articles which describe his own work and the advances he made in the field of crystallography, with original research articles which focus on aspects related to Howard Flack's interests

Portion of the surface never seen: the perceptual construction of unseen realities

Imaging technology has vastly extended human perception by enabling access to aspects of reality that may never be seen with the naked eye, such as a distant galaxy or the blinding light of an eclipse. This project proposes that technologically mediated images form a perceptual bridge between what we know and what we can imagine, playing a pivotal role in constructing our perception of the unseen. By drawing on the work of image historians, theorists, and artists dealing with visual perception, this research project explores the specific question of how imagination interacts with photographs in order to perceptually construct an image of what would otherwise remain unseen. Photographic imagery produced by space exploration is used throughout the project as an example of what may constitute an “unseen reality” but the notion of the unseen is also explored through the histories of art and of science, philosophy, geometry, the rhetoric of framing, theories of perception and of photography. Imagination is defined primarily through selected philosophical interpretations, and its possible intersection with visual analogy is examined via analysis of historic and contemporary examples from the arts and sciences. A key objective of this project was to produce artworks that form an interface between seeing and imagining in order to explore perception of “unseen realities”. To do this, a vocabulary of materiality was developed in recognition of the legacy of Modernist artists who explored the visual and conceptual concerns of perceptual experience: light, shadow, reflection, and geometry coming to form the basis of the project’s practical work. Creative practice provided a workshop for testing imaginative processes and the tautological idea of visualizing the unseen. A practice of generic, everyday photography provided a means of exploring photographic perception from the inside, ultimately highlighting the uneasy relationship between objective and subjective modes of seeing that the camera engages in. It is intended that this research will contribute to understanding the connections between technology, representation and knowledge. In combining creative practice with disparate concepts from science, art, history, and visual discourse, this project attempts to create what Roger Kemp describes as a “nodal point” where knowledge and imagination meet. This project proposes that imagination has the potential to construct a more holistic reality than the fractured one brought to us by images, albeit one that will never truly be seen

Re: Ornament

Re:Ornament calls for a rethinking of ornament within the history and practice of design, urging a broad reconsideration of ornament’s value and a complete reimagining of ornament’s future potential. Charting the arc of ornament in the Western tradition, this thesis reexamines the impact of modernism’s rejection of ornament—and, with it, its embedded culture, history, knowledge and craft. Studying ornament’s structure as a language, I make the case for ornament’s inherent beauty and excess and speculate on how ornament could apply to thinking and making beyond design. Through graphic form, material exploration and pattern thinking, I negotiate these complexities with work that is intrinsically structural, deeply ornamental and often a hybrid of the material and the digital, the hand and the machine. As such, my work is not only a response to—or rebuttal of—modernism, but also a call to action and an invitation to remember, recalibrate and remake our perception and use of ornament today