Integrated process of images and acceleration measurements for damage detection

The use of mobile robots and UAV to catch unthinkable images together with on-site global automated acceleration measurements easy achievable by wireless sensors, able of remote data transfer, have strongly enhanced the capability of defect and damage evaluation in bridges. A sequential procedure is, here, proposed for damage monitoring and bridge condition assessment based on both: digital image processing for survey and defect evaluation and structural identification based on acceleration measurements. A steel bridge has been simultaneously inspected by UAV to acquire images using visible light, or infrared radiation, and monitored through a wireless sensor network (WSN) measuring structural vibrations. First, image processing has been used to construct a geometrical model and to quantify corrosion extension. Then, the consistent structural model has been updated based on the modal quantities identified using the acceleration measurements acquired by the deployed WSN. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

A review of data visualization: opportunities in manufacturing sequence management.

Data visualization now benefits from developments in technologies that offer innovative ways of presenting complex data. Potentially these have widespread application in communicating the complex information domains typical of manufacturing sequence management environments for global enterprises. In this paper the authors review the visualization functionalities, techniques and applications reported in literature, map these to manufacturing sequence information presentation requirements and identify the opportunities available and likely development paths. Current leading-edge practice in dynamic updating and communication with suppliers is not being exploited in manufacturing sequence management; it could provide significant benefits to manufacturing business. In the context of global manufacturing operations and broad-based user communities with differing needs served by common data sets, tool functionality is generally ahead of user application

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

An Introduction to 3D User Interface Design

3D user interface design is a critical component of any virtual environment (VE) application. In this paper, we present a broad overview of three-dimensional (3D) interaction and user interfaces. We discuss the effect of common VE hardware devices on user interaction, as well as interaction techniques for generic 3D tasks and the use of traditional two-dimensional interaction styles in 3D environments. We divide most user interaction tasks into three categories: navigation, selection/manipulation, and system control. Throughout the paper, our focus is on presenting not only the available techniques, but also practical guidelines for 3D interaction design and widely held myths. Finally, we briefly discuss two approaches to 3D interaction design, and some example applications with complex 3D interaction requirements. We also present an annotated online bibliography as a reference companion to this article

Constraint specification by example in a Meta-CASE tool

CASE tools are very helpful to software engineers in different ways and in different phases of software development. However, they are not easy to specialise to meet the needs of particular application domains or particular software modelling requirements. Meta-CASE tools offer a way of providing such specialisation by enabling a designer to specify a tool which is then generated automatically. Constraints are often used in such meta-CASE tools as a technique for governing the syntax and semantics of model elements and the values of their attributes. However, although constraint definition is a difficult process it has attracted relatively little research attention. The PhD research described here presents an approach for improving the process of CASE tool constraint specification based on the notion of programming by example (or demonstration). The feasibility of the approach will be demonstrated via experiments with a prototype using the meta-CASE tool Diagram Editor Constraints System (DECS) as context

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

The Effects of Task, Task Mapping, and Layout Space on User Performance in Information-Rich Virtual Environments

How should abstract information be displayed in Information-Rich Virtual Environments (IRVEs)? There are a variety of techniques available, and it is important to determine which techniques help foster a user’s understanding both within and between abstract and spatial information types. Our evaluation compared two such techniques: Object Space and Display Space. Users strongly prefer Display Space over Object Space, and those who use Display Space may perform better. Display Space was faster and more accurate than Object Space for tasks comparing abstract information. Object Space was more accurate for comparisons of spatial information. These results suggest that for abstract criteria, visibility is a more important requirement than perceptual coupling by depth and association cues. They also support the value of perceptual coupling for tasks with spatial criteria

Polar Fusion Technique Analysis for Evaluating the Performances of Image Fusion of Thermal and Visual Images for Human Face Recognition

This paper presents a comparative study of two different methods, which are based on fusion and polar transformation of visual and thermal images. Here, investigation is done to handle the challenges of face recognition, which include pose variations, changes in facial expression, partial occlusions, variations in illumination, rotation through different angles, change in scale etc. To overcome these obstacles we have implemented and thoroughly examined two different fusion techniques through rigorous experimentation. In the first method log-polar transformation is applied to the fused images obtained after fusion of visual and thermal images whereas in second method fusion is applied on log-polar transformed individual visual and thermal images. After this step, which is thus obtained in one form or another, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to reduce dimension of the fused images. Log-polar transformed images are capable of handling complicacies introduced by scaling and rotation. The main objective of employing fusion is to produce a fused image that provides more detailed and reliable information, which is capable to overcome the drawbacks present in the individual visual and thermal face images. Finally, those reduced fused images are classified using a multilayer perceptron neural network. The database used for the experiments conducted here is Object Tracking and Classification Beyond Visible Spectrum (OTCBVS) database benchmark thermal and visual face images. The second method has shown better performance, which is 95.71% (maximum) and on an average 93.81% as correct recognition rate.Comment: Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Computational Intelligence in Biometrics and Identity Management (IEEE CIBIM 2011), Paris, France, April 11 - 15, 201