Fuzzy Free Path Detection based on Dense Disparity Maps obtained from Stereo Cameras

In this paper we propose a fuzzy method to detect free paths in real-time using digital stereo images. It is based on looking for linear variations of depth in disparity maps, which are obtained by processing a pair of rectified images from two stereo cameras. By applying least-squares fitting over groups of disparity maps columns to a linear model, free paths are detected by giving a certainty using a fuzzy rule. Experimental results on real outdoor images are also presented.Nuria Ortigosa acknowledges the support of Universidad Polit'ecnica de Valencia under grant FPI-UPV 2008. Samuel Morillas acknowledges the support of Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grant MTM 2009-12872-C02-01.Ortigosa Araque, N.; Morillas Gómez, S.; Peris Fajarnes, G.; Dunai Dunai, L. (2012). Fuzzy Free Path Detection based on Dense Disparity Maps obtained from Stereo Cameras. 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Detección de caminos libres de obstáculos mediante mapas de profundidad

[ES] El procesado del espacio libre presente en la escena es básico para el correcto funcionamiento de muchas aplicaciones en el ámbito de la robótica y de la navegación. En este trabajo se presenta un método para realizar, en tiempo real, la detección de vías libres de obstáculos mediante el procesado de mapas de profundidad, obtenidos como producto de la disparidad entre las imágenes obtenidas de un sistema de estereovisión. El algoritmo desarrollado se basa en aproximar los valores de grupos de columnas de la cuarta parte inferior de dichos mapas a una recta, utilizando el ajuste por mínimos cuadrados. La decisión final sobre si la zona analizada es un pasillo libre o no dependerá de los valores del índice de determinación y de la pendiente de la recta ajustada en cada caso[EN] The computation of free space available in an environment is an essential task for many intelligent automotive and robotic applications. This document describes a method to detect obstacle-free areas in realtime using depth maps. Depth maps are obtained processing disparity between left and right images from a stereo-vision system. The proposed algorithm finds the best-fitting first degree polynomial to the columns of the fourth bottom of the depth map, using least squares fitting. The final detection in each case depends on the correlation index and the gradient of the fitted polynomialOrtigosa Araque, N. (2008). Detección de caminos libres de obstáculos mediante mapas de profundidad. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/13537Archivo delegad

Viatopias: Exploring the experience of urban travel space

The title of this research is constructed from: `via' - route and töp(os) -a place. Viatopias are urban spaces of continual travel or flux that incorporate multiple forms of perception and inscriptions of meaning. My aim has been to define and describe the increasingly important fluid perceptual spaces that have developed between static nineteenth century destinations. Viatopias such as passageways, underground tunnels, train tracks, and the North Circular escape a sense of destination, operating as ever-changing experiences or events. The practice has sought to produce digital representations of these urban travel spaces that exist in constant flux, to communicate the experience of Viatopias. The research explores themes such as: The North Circular as a Deleuzian Route exploring driving as performance; Plica, Replica, Explica an unfolding of experience through digital media; The Making of Baroque Videos, using Baroque architectures of viewing; Mobilizing Perception treating human vision as an artifact; Mirrors For Un-Recognition disassembling nineteenth century controlled vision; Sound as an Urban Compass considering urban audio experience; Narrative Practice in New Media Space analysing contemporary approaches in digital media; and Convergent Languages, Digital Poiesis investigating the dislocation of representation in different digital languages. These conceptual frameworks developed in symbiosis with the practice. The visual practice presents a collection of digital videos that extend and complicate these concepts through experimental visual and audio techniques such as layering, repetition, anamorphic distortion, and mirroring to produce visual immersion and the fracturing of space. The concluding digital works incorporate video with audio and text resulting in integrated visual statements that attempt to stretch the viewer's perception, in the process offering a glimpse of a new experience within urban space

PRESSING CHARGES: The Impact of the Sam Sheppard Trials on Courtroom Coverage and Criminal Law

Tali Yahalom, College \u2709, History Roman Holidays: The Role of Publicity in Criminal Trials The media sensationalized the 1954 trial of Sam Sheppard (accused of murdering his wife), his acquittal, and post-prison years. The intense coverage set journalistic and legal precedents, motivating various judges to address, in legal terms, the media’s role during pretrial investigations and courtroom proceedings. This thesis uses newspapers, magazines and court opinions to explore the extent of the media blitz, and addresses the question of whether the press compromised justice. This thesis also examines the case\u27s continuing relevance: Why was this particular case so popular? Why did the public react with a collective desire to convict Sheppard? As an indelible presence in American public memory, how did the case change the legality and culture of trial coverage in the US? The recurring presence of the trial in publicity-related cases today highlights the irreconcilable tension between a public\u27s right to a free press and a defendant\u27s right to a fair and speedy trial

An Examination of the Place of Fresco in Contemporary Art Practice

This dissertation is the outcome of a practice-based research inquiry into innovations in processes and materials leading to a contemporary fresco. The research is in three parts: 1) the textual establishment of a historical framework for fresco; 2) an exhibition, Channelling Time, at the Lethaby Gallery, from 22 April to 3 May 2003; and 3) a critical analysis and conclusion that defines the research. The thesis is intended to explore issues in experimental fresco works and to provide a critical account of techniques, uses, and positions of fresco in twentieth-century art. It also aims to propose new aesthetic values in contemporary art. Chapters I-IV reappraise modern fresco by weighing historical precedent and influence from other artistic mediums. Throughout these chapters it is argued that fresco can establish itself as a current in contemporary art by understanding how its contexts and media differ from traditional painterly approaches to contemporary fresco and an organic relationship to architectural space. The research also discusses how contemporary fresco extends its boundaries with three different types of works: 1) site-specific projects; 2) portable frescoes and fresco installations; and 3) fresco sculptures and frescoes in mixed media. Interviews with major fresco artists examine how their work contributes to the creation of contemporary fresco and its new aesthetics. This research was used as a basis for discussing fresco in practice. It is developed in Chapter V, 'An Ongoing Inquiry through Creative Practice' and was presented at the exhibition in the Lethaby Gallery, the catalogue of which is included. The crux of the exhibition and the culmination of my research is an analysis of fresco's autonomy, diversity, and development from a traditional to a contemporary medium. The exhibition Channelling Time set out to establish fresco as a protean genre that expresses a variety of discourses of fresco

The Ithacan 2011-03-10

https://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/ithacan_2010-11/1021/thumbnail.jp

A Cuban Aleph :reflections of contemporary Cuban identity in the work of Porno Para Ricardo

PhD ThesisThis dissertation focuses primarily on controversial punk band ‘Porno Para Ricardo’, using them as a case study to illuminate some of the complex networks that comprise contemporary Cuban cultural identity. The introduction and conclusion frame each chapter’s close-analysis of songs from the band’s oeuvre with an ethnographic contextualisation of aspects of ‘the everyday’ in contemporary Havana, and gives a brief history of the ways in which the band has been forced by state hegemony to a position ‘outside the Revolution’. Despite this treatment, and despite the band’s often vehement criticisms of Cuban nationalism and socialist dogma, they still share much of the same ‘obsession’ with defining a sense of national identity that pervades Cuban art and culture. This work also proposes viewing Porno Para Ricardo as an ‘Aleph’ of Cuban identity, after the short story of Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. In Borges’ work, the Aleph is a small point in which all of space is condensed and can be seen simultaneously. I tentatively (and aware of the real-world limitations) suggest using a band so ostensibly ‘outside’ of the space of Cuban cultural identity as a point through which to examine the whole. Each chapter then provides a glimpse through this proposed Aleph to examine moments of dialogue between the band and aspects of contemporary Cuban identity construction: uses of remembrance, attachment to place, affiliation to subculture, cover versions, laughter and noise.The Arts and Humanities Research Council

Tangible user interfaces for augmented reality

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

An investigation into the capture and public display of the Acton Town otter

This PhD explores sonic narrative writing as contemporary art practice. It is situated within my immediate work environment: as a Station Supervisor positioned in London Underground stations during the ‘Engineering Hours’ night shift. A strange and little-known part of London Transport history is used as a starting point: the capture and public display of wildlife killed at the time of electrification of the underground railway during its expansion into suburbia at the start of the 20th Century. The PhD consists of 7 sound based narrative compositions, hosted on a dedicated website, and includes a DIY garden on a disused platform at Acton Town underground station. Embracing the materials and territory of my work environment opens up expansive and political possibilities for embedded narrative. Through the performance of a fiction, the research addresses the political realities of a working environment where the loss of jobs and the replacement of the workforce with automation is seen as progress. I employ a DIY punk approach to sound collage, strengthening connections between art-based narrative and experimental music. Adopting a feminist theoretical framework the narrative satirises masculine sensibilities, telling a mix of fantastical, animalistic and homo-social stories, often with a comic and satirical slant, that cross the boundaries of propriety and prescribed outcomes. The particular setting of the research – a nocturnal blue-collar work environment, one closely focussed on surveillance – becomes the experiential basis from which to pervert the conventional role of the uniformed male observer on display in city spaces