25,000 research outputs found
Specular sets
We introduce the notion of specular sets which are subsets of groups called
here specular and which form a natural generalization of free groups. These
sets are an abstract generalization of the natural codings of linear
involutions. We prove several results concerning the subgroups generated by
return words and by maximal bifix codes in these sets.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1405.352
On Recognizing Transparent Objects in Domestic Environments Using Fusion of Multiple Sensor Modalities
Current object recognition methods fail on object sets that include both
diffuse, reflective and transparent materials, although they are very common in
domestic scenarios. We show that a combination of cues from multiple sensor
modalities, including specular reflectance and unavailable depth information,
allows us to capture a larger subset of household objects by extending a state
of the art object recognition method. This leads to a significant increase in
robustness of recognition over a larger set of commonly used objects.Comment: 12 page
Joint Material and Illumination Estimation from Photo Sets in the Wild
Faithful manipulation of shape, material, and illumination in 2D Internet
images would greatly benefit from a reliable factorization of appearance into
material (i.e., diffuse and specular) and illumination (i.e., environment
maps). On the one hand, current methods that produce very high fidelity
results, typically require controlled settings, expensive devices, or
significant manual effort. To the other hand, methods that are automatic and
work on 'in the wild' Internet images, often extract only low-frequency
lighting or diffuse materials. In this work, we propose to make use of a set of
photographs in order to jointly estimate the non-diffuse materials and sharp
lighting in an uncontrolled setting. Our key observation is that seeing
multiple instances of the same material under different illumination (i.e.,
environment), and different materials under the same illumination provide
valuable constraints that can be exploited to yield a high-quality solution
(i.e., specular materials and environment illumination) for all the observed
materials and environments. Similar constraints also arise when observing
multiple materials in a single environment, or a single material across
multiple environments. The core of this approach is an optimization procedure
that uses two neural networks that are trained on synthetic images to predict
good gradients in parametric space given observation of reflected light. We
evaluate our method on a range of synthetic and real examples to generate
high-quality estimates, qualitatively compare our results against
state-of-the-art alternatives via a user study, and demonstrate
photo-consistent image manipulation that is otherwise very challenging to
achieve
Photometric Variability in Earthshine Observations
The identification of an extrasolar planet as Earth-like will depend on the
detection of atmospheric signatures or surface non-uniformities. In this paper
we present spatially unresolved flux light curves of Earth for the purpose of
studying a prototype extrasolar terrestrial planet. Our monitoring of the
photometric variability of earthshine revealed changes of up to 23 % per hour
in the brightness of Earth's scattered light at around 600 nm, due to the
removal of specular reflection from the view of the Moon. This variability is
accompanied by reddening of the spectrum, and results from a change in surface
properties across the continental boundary between the Indian Ocean and
Africa's east coast. Our results based on earthshine monitoring indicate that
specular reflection should provide a useful tool in determining the presence of
liquid water on extrasolar planets via photometric observations.Comment: To appear in Astrobiology 9(3). 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
X-ray study of the liquid potassium surface: structure and capillary wave excitations
We present x-ray reflectivity and diffuse scattering measurements from the
liquid surface of pure potassium. They strongly suggest the existence of atomic
layering at the free surface of a pure liquid metal with low surface tension.
Prior to this study, layering was observed only for metals like Ga, In and Hg,
the surface tensions of which are 5-7 fold higher than that of potassium, and
hence closer to inducing an ideal "hard wall" boundary condition. The
experimental result requires quantitative analysis of the contribution to the
surface scattering from thermally excited capillary waves. Our measurements
confirm the predicted form for the differential cross section for diffuse
scattering, where , over a range of and that is larger than
any previous measurement. The partial measure of the surface structure factor
that we obtained agrees with computer simulations and theoretical predictions.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures; published in Phys. Rev.
Synthetic aperture radar images of ocean waves, theories of imaging physics and experimental tests
The physical mechanism for the synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging of ocean waves is investigated through the use of analytical models. The models are tested by comparison with data sets from the SEASAT mission and airborne SAR's. Dominant ocean wavelengths from SAR estimates are biased towards longer wavelengths. The quasispecular scattering mechanism agrees with experimental data. The Doppler shift for ship wakes is that of the mean sea surface
Lighting and display screens: Models for predicting luminance limits and disturbance
An investigation of the level of disturbance caused by reflections from a variety of display screens, including interactive whiteboards, has been carried out using three test methods: Luminance adjustment, category rating and reading. The results from the luminance adjustment test and the category rating test were consistent, both showing similar significant effects of lighting-display parameters on the disturbance caused by screen reflections. In contrast, the objective measure of task performance in the reading test was barely responsive to reflections on the screens. Two models have been developed, one to predict the luminaire luminance at which 95% of observers were not disturbed by the reflections and the other to predict the rating of disturbance caused by reflections from the screens. Both models are based on lighting-display parameters including the size and luminance of the reflected light source and the specular reflectance, the effect of haze reflection and the background luminance of the display screen. These models can be used generally, to guide lighting recommendations and, specifically, to identify suitable luminaires to be used with given set of display screens or suitable display screens to be used with a given lighting installation
Ternary and quadriphase sequence diffusers
A room acoustic diffuser breaks up reflected wavefronts, and this can be achieved by presenting a spatially varying surface impedance. In hybrid surfaces, varying impedance is achieved by patches of absorption and reflection, giving reflection coefficients nominally of 0 and 1. These surfaces are hybrids, absorbing some of the incident sound while diffusing any reflected energy. A problem with planar hybrid surfaces is that specular energy is only removed by absorption. By exploiting interference, by reflecting waves out-of-phase with the specular energy, it is possible to diminish the specular energy further. This can be achieved by using a diffuser based on a ternary sequence that nominally has reflection coefficients of 0, -1, and +1. Ternary sequences are therefore a way of forming hybrid absorber-diffusers that achieve better scattering performance without additional absorption. This paper discusses methods for making ternary sequence diffusers, including giving sequence generation methods. It presents prediction results based on Fourier and boundary element method models to examine the performance. While ternary diffusers have better performance than unipolar binary diffusers at most frequencies, there are frequencies at which the performances are the same. This can be overcome by forming diffusers from four-level, quadriphase sequences
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