Soft computing is a consortium of computing methodologies that provide a foundation for the conception, design, and deployment of intelligent systems and aims to formalize the human ability to make rational decisions in an environment of uncertainty and imprecision. This book is based on a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in 1996 on soft computing and its applications. The distinguished contributors consider the principal constituents of soft computing, namely fuzzy logic, neurocomputing, genetic computing, and probabilistic reasoning, the relations between them, and their fusion in industrial applications. Two areas emphasized in the book are how to achieve a synergistic combination of the main constituents of soft computing and how the combination can be used to achieve a high Machine Intelligence Quotient.

Informationssysteme sind die Grundlage von Building Information Modelling, BIM. Vernetzte Informationen und durchgangig vernetzte Modelldaten sind die Grundlage partnerschaftlichen Bauens. Sie erlauben transparentes Controlling und zuverlassiges Risikomanagement. Multimodelle sind vernetzte Informationen. Die Grundlagen und Methoden von BIM und Multimodellen werden erlautert und es wird aufgezeigt, wie ein prozessorientiertes Management mit Multimodellen neue Qualitat in die Planung und Steuerung von Bauprozessen bringt. Die durchgehende BIM Arbeitsweise mit vernetzten Informationen erlaubt Bauablaufsimulationen in kurzester Zeit durchzufuhren. Neben dem virtuellen Bauwerk wird auch eine virtuelle Baustelle virtuelle Realitat und gibt wichtige neue Eindrucke fur das Baumanagement. Baumanagementinformationen werden auf einmal transparent, erfassbar, begreifbar. Band 1 konzentriert sich auf die Grundlagen der Modelle und ihre Erweiterung durch Linkmodelle, auf die Methoden fur BIM und Multimodelldaten wie das Filtern, das Visualisieren und auf die Prozesse, ihre schnelle Konfiguration und das prozessbasierte Planen und Managen sowie die Informationslogistik, die gerade durch Multimodelle neue Ansatze und Qualitaten erhalt, wahrend Band 2 anschauliche Anwendungen in Baustellenplanung, Bauablaufsimulation, Bauprojekt- und Risikomanagement aufzeigt.

The variational approach, including the direct methods and finite elements, is one of the main tools of engineering analysis. However, it is difficult to appreciate not only for seniors but for graduate students too. It is possible to make this subject easier to understand with the help of symbolic manipulation codes (SMC). The easiness with which these codes provide analytical results allow for a student or researcher to focus on the ideas rather than on calculational difficulties. The very process of programming with SMC encourages appreciation of the qualitative aspects of investigations. Saving time and effort, they enable undergraduates to deal with the subjects generally regarded as graduate courses. There is a habitual aspect too. These days it is more convenient for a student (researcher) to work with a keyboard than with a pencil. Moreover, semantic features of the codes may allow for generalizations of the standard techniques, which would be impossible to achieve without the computer's help.

Computer graphics as a whole is an area making very fast progress and it is not easy for anyone, including experts, to keep abreast of the frontiers of its various basic and application fields. By issuing over 100 thousand calls for papers through various journals and magazines as weil as by inviting reputed specialists, and by selecting high quality papers which present the state of the art in computer graphics out of many papers thus received, this book "Frontiers in Computer Graphics" has been compiled to present the substance of progress in this field. This volume serves also as the final version of the Proceedings of Computer Graphics Tokyo '84, Tokyo, Japan, April 24-27, 1984 which, as a whole, attracted 16 thousand participants from all over the world; about two thousand to the conference and the remaining 14 thousand to the exhibition. This book covers the following eight major frontiers of computer graphics in 29 papers: 1. geometry modelling, 2. graphie languages, 3. visualization techniques, 4. human factors, 5. interactive graphics design, 6. CAD/CAM, 7. graphie displays and peripherals, and 8. graphics standardization. Geometry modelling is most essential in displaying any objects in computer graphics. It determines the basic capabilities of computer graphics systems such as whether the surface and the inside of the object can be displayed and also how efficiently graphical processing can be done in terms of processing time and memory space.

VHDL and FPLDs in Digital Systems Design, Prototyping and Customization treats three aspects of digital systems: design, prototyping and customization, in an integrated manner using two technologies. The two technologies are VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) and Field-Programmable Logic Devices (FPLDs). VHDL is used for modeling and specification; FPLDs are used for implementation. VHDL and FPLDs in Digital Systems Design, Prototyping and Customization is divided into three parts. Part I provides an introduction to the basic features of VHDL with emphasis on modeling and design. All types of VHDL models including behavioral, structural and dataflow models are presented. Part 2 is a bridge to designing and prototyping using FPLDs as the prototyping and implementation technology. Part 3 contains a number of examples and case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of using VHDL and FPLDs in the design of real systems. VHDL and FPLDs in Digital Systems Design, Prototyping and Customization is an invaluable comprehensive reference for the digital designer. This work includes examples and software tied to real-world FPLDs.The reader can see how the material presented applies to real-world devices and can experiment with the software. Also included are large-scale designs like the FLIX microcomputer that demonstrates the power of VHDL.

In 2002, the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD) celebrates its 20th anniversary. This book commemorates contributions made by ICCAD to the broad field of design automation during that time. The foundation of ICCAD in 1982 coincided with the growth of Large Scale Integration. The sharply increased functionality of board-level circuits led to a major demand for more powerful Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. At the same time, LSI grew quickly and advanced circuit integration became widely avail able. This, in turn, required new tools, using sophisticated modeling, analysis and optimization algorithms in order to manage the evermore complex design processes. Not surprisingly, during the same period, a number of start-up com panies began to commercialize EDA solutions, complementing various existing in-house efforts. The overall increased interest in Design Automation (DA) re quired a new forum for the emerging community of EDA professionals; one which would be focused on the publication of high-quality research results and provide a structure for the exchange of ideas on a broad scale. Many of the original ICCAD volunteers were also members of CANDE (Computer-Aided Network Design), a workshop of the IEEE Circuits and Sys tem Society. In fact, it was at a CANDE workshop that Bill McCalla suggested the creation of a conference for the EDA professional. (Bill later developed the name).

High-Level Power Analysis and Optimization presents a comprehensive description of power analysis and optimization techniques at the higher (architecture and behavior) levels of the design hierarchy, which are often the levels that yield the most power savings. This book describes power estimation and optimization techniques for use during high-level (behavioral synthesis), as well as for designs expressed at the register-transfer or architecture level. High-Level Power Analysis and Optimization surveys the state-of-the-art research on the following topics: power estimation/macromodeling techniques for architecture-level designs, high-level power management techniques, and high-level synthesis optimizations for low power. High-Level Power Analysis and Optimization will be very useful reading for students, researchers, designers, design methodology developers, and EDA tool developers who are interested in low-power VLSI design or high-level design methodologies.

Recent developments in computer graphics have largely involved the following: Integration of computer graphics and image analysis through computer data structure; integration of CAD/CAM as computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) through the design and simulation of manufacturing processes using computer graphics; progress in basic research on the modeling of complex and mathematical graphic objects, such as computational geometry, graphic data bases, hierarchical windows, and texture; use of computer graphics as an improved human interface to present information visually and multidimensionally; and advancement of industrial technology and computer art based on developments in the areas listed above. These trends are strongly reflected in the contents of the present volume either as papers dealing with one particular aspect of research or as multifaceted studies involving several different areas. The proceedings comprise thirty selected, previously unpublished original papers presented in nine chapters.

The second half of this century will remain as the era of proliferation of electronic computers. They did exist before, but they were mechanical. During next century they may perform other mutations to become optical or molecular or even biological. Actually, all these aspects are only fancy dresses put on mathematical machines. This was always recognized to be true in the domain of software, where "machine" or "high level" languages are more or less rigourous, but immaterial, variations of the universaly accepted mathematical language aimed at specifying elementary operations, functions, algorithms and processes. But even a mathematical machine needs a physical support, and this is what hardware is all about. The invention of hardware description languages (HDL's) in the early 60's, was an attempt to stay longer at an abstract level in the design process and to push the stage of physical implementation up to the moment when no more technology independant decisions can be taken. It was also an answer to the continuous, exponential growth of complexity of systems to be designed. This problem is common to hardware and software and may explain why the syntax of hardware description languages has followed, with a reasonable delay of ten years, the evolution of the programming languages: at the end of the 60's they were" Algol like" , a decade later "Pascal like" and now they are "C or ADA-like". They have also integrated the new concepts of advanced software specification languages.

Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD have become a subject of renewed interest in the design automation community due to the emergence of new and efficient methods for the computation of discrete function spectra. In the past, spectral computations for digital logic were too complex for practical implementation. The use of decision diagrams for spectral computations has greatly reduced this obstacle allowing for the development of new and useful spectral techniques for VLSI synthesis and verification. Several new algorithms for the computation of the Walsh, Reed-Muller, arithmetic and Haar spectra are described. The relation of these computational methods to traditional ones is also provided. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD provides a unified formalism of the representation of bit-level and word-level discrete functions in the spectral domain and as decision diagrams. An alternative and unifying interpretation of decision diagram representations is presented since it is shown that many of the different commonly used varieties of decision diagrams are merely graphical representations of various discrete function spectra. Viewing various decision diagrams as being described by specific sets of transformation functions not only illustrates the relationship between graphical and spectral representations of discrete functions, but also gives insight into how various decision diagram types are related. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD describes several new applications of spectral techniques in discrete function manipulation including decision diagram minimization, logic function synthesis, technology mapping and equivalence checking. The use of linear transformations in decision diagram size reduction is described and the relationship to the operation known as spectral translation is described. Several methods for synthesizing digital logic circuits based on a subset of spectral coefficients are described. An equivalence checking approach for functional verification is described based upon the use of matching pairs of Haar spectral coefficients.

Digital Architecture Beyond Computers explores the deep history of digital architecture, tracing design concepts as far back as the Renaissance and connecting them with the latest software used by designers today. It develops a critical account of how the tools and techniques of digital design have emerged, and allows designers to deepen their understanding of the digital tools they use every day. What aesthetic, spatial, and philosophical concepts converge within the digital tools architects employ? What is their history? And what kinds of techniques and designs have they given rise to? This book explores the answers to these questions, showing how digital architecture brings together complex ideas and trajectories which span across several domains and have evolved over many centuries. It sets out to unpack these ideas, trace their origin and permeation into architecture, and re-examine their use in contemporary software. Chapters are arranged around the histories of nine 'fragments' - each a fundamental concept embedded in popular CAD applications: database, layers and fields, parametrics, pixel, programme, randomness, scanning, topology, and voxel/maxel - with each theme examined through a series of historical and contemporary case studies. The book thus connects the digital design process with architectural history and theory, allowing designers and theorists alike to develop more analytical and critical tools with which to conceptualise digital design and its software.

This book is based on lectures presented at an international workshop on geometric modeling held at Hewlett Packard GmbH in Boblingen, FRG, in June 1990. International experts from academia and industry were selected to speak on the most interesting topics in geometric modeling. The resulting papers, published in this volume, give a state-of-the-art survey of the relevant problems and issues. The following topics are discussed: - Methods for constructing surfaces on surfaces: four different solutions to the multidimen sional problem of constructing an interpolant from surface data are provided. - Surfaces in solid modeling: current results on the implementation of free-fonn solids in three well established solid models are reviewed. - Box splines and applications: an introduction to box spline methods for the representation of surfaces is given. Basic properties of box splines are derived, and refinement and evaluation methods for box splines are presented in detail. Shape preserving properties, the construction of non-rectangular box spline surfaces, applications to surface modeling, and imbedding problems, are discussed. - Advanced computer graphics techniques for volume visualization: the steps to be executed in the visualization process of volume data are described and tools are discussed that assist in handling this data. - Rational B-splines: an introduction to the representation of curves and surfaces using rational B-splines is given, together with a critical evaluation of their potential for industrial application."

This volume contains papers representing a comprehensive record of the contributions to the fifth workshop at EG '90 in Lausanne. The Eurographics hardware workshops have now become an established forum for the exchange of information about the latest developments in this field of growing importance. The first workshop took place during EG '86 in Lisbon. All participants considered this to be a very rewarding event to be repeated at future EG conferences. This view was reinforced at the EG '87 Hardware Workshop in Amsterdam and firmly established the need for such a colloquium in this specialist area within the annual EG conference. The third EG Hardware Workshop took place in Nice in 1988 and the fourth in Hamburg at EG '89. The first part of the book is devoted to rendering machines. The papers in this part address techniques for accelerating the rendering of images and efficient ways of improv ing their quality. The second part on ray tracing describes algorithms and architectures for producing photorealistic images, with emphasis on ways of reducing the time for this computationally intensive task. The third part on visualization systems covers a num ber of topics, including voxel-based systems, radiosity, animation and special rendering techniques. The contributions show that there is flourishing activity in the development of new algorithmic and architectural ideas and, in particular, in absorbing the impact of VLSI technology. The increasing diversity of applications encourage new solutions, and graphics hardware has become a research area of high activity and importance.

1 Aims and Features of This Book The contents of t. his book were originally planned t. o be included in a book en titled Geometric lIIodeling and CAD/CAM to be written by M. Hosaka and F. Kimura, but since the draft. of my part of the book was finished much earlier than Kimura's, we decided to publish this part separately at first. In it, geometrically oriented basic methods and tools used for analysis and synthesis of curves and surfaces used in CAD/CAM, various expressions and manipulations of free-form surface patches and their connection, interference as well as their qualit. y eval uation are treated. They are important elements and procedures of geometric models. And construction and utilization of geometric models which include free-form surfaces are explained in the application examples, in which the meth ods and the techniques described in this book were used. In the succeeding book which Kimura is to write, advanced topics such as data structures of geometric models, non-manifold models, geometric inference as well as tolerance problems and product models, process planning and so on are to be included. Conse quently, the title of this book is changed to Modeling of Curves and Surfaces in CAD/CAM. Features of this book are the following. Though there are excellent text books in the same field such as G. Farin's Curves and Surfaces for CAD /CAM l] and C. M."

The "Fifth International Conference on Simulation of Semiconductor Devices and Processes" (SISDEP 93) continues a series of conferences which was initiated in 1984 by K. Board and D. R. J. Owen at the University College of Wales, Swansea, where it took place a second time in 1986. Its organization was succeeded by G. Baccarani and M. Rudan at the University of Bologna in 1988, and W. Fichtner and D. Aemmer at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1991. This year the conference is held at the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, September 7 - 9, 1993. This conference shall provide an international forum for the presentation of out standing research and development results in the area of numerical process and de vice simulation. The miniaturization of today's semiconductor devices, the usage of new materials and advanced process steps in the development of new semiconduc tor technologies suggests the design of new computer programs. This trend towards more complex structures and increasingly sophisticated processes demands advanced simulators, such as fully three-dimensional tools for almost arbitrarily complicated geometries. With the increasing need for better models and improved understand ing of physical effects, the Conference on Simulation of Semiconductor Devices and Processes brings together the simulation community and the process- and device en gineers who need reliable numerical simulation tools for characterization, prediction, and development."

Dr. Jay Liebowitz Orkand Endowed Chair in Management and Technology University of Maryland University College Graduate School of Management & Technology 3501 University Boulevard East Adelphi, Maryland 20783-8030 USA jliebowitz@umuc. edu When I first heard the general topic of this book, Marketing Intelligent Systems or what I'll refer to as Marketing Intelligence, it sounded quite intriguing. Certainly, the marketing field is laden with numeric and symbolic data, ripe for various types of mining-data, text, multimedia, and web mining. It's an open laboratory for applying numerous forms of intelligentsia-neural networks, data mining, expert systems, intelligent agents, genetic algorithms, support vector machines, hidden Markov models, fuzzy logic, hybrid intelligent systems, and other techniques. I always felt that the marketing and finance domains are wonderful application areas for intelligent systems, and this book demonstrates the synergy between marketing and intelligent systems, especially soft computing. Interactive advertising is a complementary field to marketing where intelligent systems can play a role. I had the pleasure of working on a summer faculty f- lowship with R/GA in New York City-they have been ranked as the top inter- tive advertising agency worldwide. I quickly learned that interactive advertising also takes advantage of data visualization and intelligent systems technologies to help inform the Chief Marketing Officer of various companies. Having improved ways to present information for strategic decision making through use of these technologies is a great benefit.

For the near future, the recent predictions and roadmaps of silicon semiconductor technology all agree that the number of transistors on a chip will keep growing exponentially according to Moore's Law, pushing technology towards the system-on-a-chip (SOC) era. However, we are increasingly experiencing a productivity gap where the chip complexity that can be handled by current design teams falls short of the possibilities offered by technological advances. Together with growing time-to-market pressures, this drives the need for innovative measures to increase design productivity by orders of magnitude. It is commonly agreed that the solutions for achieving such a leap in design productivity lie in a shift of the focus of the design process to higher levels of abstraction on the one hand and in the massive reuse of predesigned, complex system components (intellectual property, IP) on the other hand. In order to be successful, both concepts eventually require the adoption of new languages and methodologies for system design, backed-up by the availability of a corresponding set of system-level design automation tools. This book presents the SpecC system-level design language (SLDL) and the corresponding SpecC design methodology. The SpecC language is intended for specification and design of SOCs or embedded systems including software and hardware, whether using fixed platforms, integrating systems from different IPs, or synthesizing the system blocks from programming or hardware description languages. SpecC Specification Language and Methodology describes the SpecC methodology that leads designers from an executable specification to an RTL implementation through a well-defined sequence of steps. Each model is described and guidelines are given for generating these models from executable specifications. Finally, the SpecC methodology is demonstrated on an industrial-size example. The design community is now entering the system level of abstraction era and SpecC is the enabling element to achieve a paradigm shift in design culture needed for system/product design and manufacturing. SpecC Specification Language and Methodology will be of interest to researchers, designers, and managers dealing with system-level design, design flows and methodologies as well as students learning system specification, modeling and design.

Intelligent robotics has become the focus of extensive research activity. This effort has been motivated by the wide variety of applications that can benefit from the developments. These applications often involve mobile robots, multiple robots working and interacting in the same work area, and operations in hazardous environments like nuclear power plants. Applications in the consumer and service sectors are also attracting interest. These applications have highlighted the importance of performance, safety, reliability, and fault tolerance. This volume is a selection of papers from a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in July 1989 with a focus on active perception and robot vision. The papers deal with such issues as motion understanding, 3-D data analysis, error minimization, object and environment modeling, object detection and recognition, parallel and real-time vision, and data fusion. The paradigm underlying the papers is that robotic systems require repeated and hierarchical application of the perception-planning-action cycle. The primary focus of the papers is the perception part of the cycle. Issues related to complete implementations are also discussed.

Computer Graphics Tokyo, now in its fourth year, has established a world-wide reputation as an international technical conference, presenting work of high quality in the field of computer graphics. Each conference has been attended by a couple of thousand partiCipants from all over the world and tens of thousands have visited the exhibition. After strict peer review, 34 papers were accepted this year, of which about 40% were from the USA, 30% from Japan, 20% from Europe, and 10% from Canada. A good balance of papers on advanced research results, industrial/marketing surveys, and computer art technology has made Computer Graphics Tokyo an indispensable forum for researchers, engineers, and administrators working in this field. Computer graphics is a rapidly developing and expanding area and it is not easy to keep abreast of all the progress that has been made. This volume contains the proceedings of Computer Graphics Tokyo '86 and provides the reader with a comprehensive survey of the state of the art in computer graphics. Computational geometry (Chapter 1) is one of the fastest growing areas in computer graphics. This is well recognized as the basis of shape modeling. After shapes are modeled, they are displayed for visual observation. Chapter 2 on rendering presents various novel methods and technological innovations for visualizing shapes. To make display systems more acces sible to users, rich visual interfaces and languages are being designed, as shown in Chapter 3. Visual data bases for sharing graphics-and image-data are handled in Chapter 4."

This book contains a selection of revised versions of papers presented at the Third Eurographics Workshop on Intelligent CAD Systems, which was held at Hotel Opduin on the island of Texel in The Netherlands, April 3-7, 1989. The workshop theme was Practical Experience and Evaluation. It included five paper presentation sessions, each followed by a discussion. The workshop closed with a general discussion. The book is therefore divided into five parts: design process, system architecture, languages, geometric reasoning, and user interface. A report on the discussion session, written by the session's moderator, concludes each part. These reports are not intended to be exact records of the discussion, but rather the moderators' summary of their contents. The aim of the workshop was to share the experience the participants gained by developing intelligent CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems, and to evaluate the developed systems to determine which features were still lacking. The workshop was organized as the last one in a series of three workshops under the same title. The first workshop focused on theoretical and methodological aspects, resulting in a sound theoretical basis for intelligent CAD systems. Implementational issues were discussed at the second workshop, paying attention to systems developed with reference to this basis. The experience and evaluation showed a dual outcome. Firstly, it resulted in the development of a new generation of intelligent CAD systems. Secondly, it led us to the development of new theories for intelligent CAD.

This book contains papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Real-time Object and Environment Measurement and Classification" held in Maratea, Italy, August 31 - September 3, 1987. This workshop was organized within the activities of the NATO Special Programme on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control. Four major themes were discussed at this workshop: Real-time Requirements, Feature Measurement, Object Representation and Recognition, and Architecture for Measurement and Classification. A total of twenty-five technical presentations, contained in this book, cover a wide spectrum of topics including hardware implementation of specific vision algorithms, a complete vision system for object tracking and inspection, using three cameras (trinocular stereo) for feature measurement, neural network for object recognition, integration of CAD (Computer Aided Design) and vision systems, and the use of pyramid architectures for solving various computer vision problems. These papers are written by some of the very well-known researchers in the computer vision and pattern recognition community, and represent both industrial and academic viewpoints. The authors come from thirteen different countries from Europe and North America. Therefore, readers will get a first hand and current information about the status of computer vision research in various western countries. Further, this book will also be useful in understanding the current research issues in computer vision and the difficulties in designing real-time vision systems.

These proceedings contain lectures presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Concurrent Engineering Tools and Technologies for Mechanical System Design held in Iowa City, Iowa, 25 May -5 June, 1992. Lectures were presented by leaders from Europe and North America in disciplines contributing to the emerging international focus on Concurrent Engineering of mechanical systems. Participants in the Institute were specialists from throughout NATO in disciplines constituting Concurrent Engineering, many of whom presented contributed papers during the Institute and all of whom participated actively in discussions on technical aspects of the subject. The proceedings are organized into the following five parts: Part 1 Basic Concepts and Methods Part 2 Application Sectors Part 3 Manufacturing Part 4 Design Sensitivity Analysis and Optimization Part 5 Virtual Prototyping and Human Factors Each of the parts is comprised of papers that present state-of-the-art concepts and methods in fields contributing to Concurrent Engineering of mechanical systems. The lead-off papers in each part are based on invited lectures, followed by papers based on contributed presentations made by participants in the Institute.

This book is a collection of the best papers originally presented as state-of-the-art reports or tutorials at the EUROGRAPHICS'91 conference in Vienna. A choice has been made giving priority to information of lasting value. Another goal was to cover all aspects of computer graphics -except hardware -as completely as possible from modelling to advanced visualization and communication. The editors consider that the ten contributions by internationally renowned experts fulfil this goal perfectly. Some important problem areas are treated from different viewpoints thus enhancing and deepening the reader's perspective. Sabine Coquillart Wolfgang Strafier Peter Stucki Table of Contents l. Through the Cracks of the Solid Modeling Milestone 1 J arek R. Rossignac 2. Kinematics and Dynamics for Computer Animation 76 H. Ruder, T. Ertl, K. Gruber, M. Gunther, F. Hospach, M. Ruder, J. Subke, K. Widmayer 3. Dynamic Animation of Deformable Bodies 118 Marie-Paul Gascuel, Claude Puech 4. Stochastic Methods and Non-Fractal Applications 140 Huw Jones 5. State of the Art in Volume Visualization 166 Arie Kaufman 6. On the Theorey and Application of Stereolithographics in Scientific Visualization 178 Eric Hibbard, Michael Bauer, Margaret Bradshaw, Glenn Deardorff, Ken Hu, David Whitney 7. User Interface Management Systems: Present and Future 197 Michel Beaudouin-Lafon 8. Trends in Edge Detection Techniques 224 Eduard Antoniu 9.

"Image Synthesis: Theory and Practice" is the first book completely dedicated to the numerous techniques of image synthesis. Both theoretical and practical aspects are treated in detail. Numerous impressive computer-generated images are used to explain the most advanced techniques in image synthesis. The book contains a detailed description of the most fundamental algorithms; other less important algorithms are summarized or simply listed. This volume is also a unique handbook of mathematical formulae for image synthesis. The four first chapters of the book survey the basic techniques of computer graphics which play an important role in the design of an image: geometric models, image and viewing transformations, curves and surfaces and solid modeling techniques. In the next chapters, each major topic in image synthesis is presented. The first important problem is the detection and processing of visible surfaces, then two chapters are dedicated to the central problem of light and illumination. As aliasing is a major problem in image rendering, the fundamental antialiasing and motion blur techniques are explained. The most common shadow algorithms are then presented as well as techniques for producing soft shadows and penumbrae. In the last few years, image rendering has been strongly influenced by ray tracing techniques. For this reason, two chapters are dedicated to this important approach. Then a chapter is completely dedicated to fractals from the formal Mandelbrot theory to the recursive subdivision approaches. Natural phenomena present a particularly difficult challenge in image synthesis. For this reason, a large portion of the book is devoted to latest methods to simulate these phenomena: particle systems, scalar fields, volume density scattering models. Various techniques are also described for representing terrains, mountains, water, waves, sky, clouds, fog, fire, trees, and grass. Several techniques for combining images are also explained: adaptive rendering, montage and composite methods. The last chapter presents in detail the MIRALab image synthesis software.

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic change in the role played by design automation for electronic systems. Ten years ago, integrated circuit (IC) designers were content to use the computer for circuit, logic, and limited amounts of high-level simulation, as well as for capturing the digitized mask layouts used for IC manufacture. The tools were only aids to design-the designer could always find a way to implement the chip or board manually if the tools failed or if they did not give acceptable results. Today, however, design technology plays an indispensable role in the design ofelectronic systems and is critical to achieving time-to-market, cost, and performance targets. In less than ten years, designers have come to rely on automatic or semi automatic CAD systems for the physical design ofcomplex ICs containing over a million transistors. In the past three years, practical logic synthesis systems that take into account both cost and performance have become a commercial reality and many designers have already relinquished control ofthe logic netlist level of design to automatic computer aids. To date, only in certain well-defined areas, especially digital signal process ing and telecommunications. have higher-level design methods and tools found significant success. However, the forces of time-to-market and growing system complexity will demand the broad-based adoption of high-level, automated methods and tools over the next few years.