With rapid progress in Internet and digital imaging technology, there are more and more ways to easily create, publish, and distribute images. Considered the first book to focus on the relationship between digital imaging and privacy protection, Visual Cryptography and Secret Image Sharing is a complete introduction to novel security methods and sharing-control mechanisms used to protect against unauthorized data access and secure dissemination of sensitive information. Image data protection and image-based authentication techniques offer efficient solutions for controlling how private data and images are made available only to select people. Essential to the design of systems used to manage images that contain sensitive data-such as medical records, financial transactions, and electronic voting systems-the methods presented in this book are useful to counter traditional encryption techniques, which do not scale well and are less efficient when applied directly to image files. An exploration of the most prominent topics in digital imaging security, this book discusses: Potential for sharing multiple secrets Visual cryptography schemes-based either on the probabilistic reconstruction of the secret image, or on different logical operations for combining shared images Inclusion of pictures in the distributed shares Contrast enhancement techniques Color-image visual cryptography Cheating prevention Alignment problems for image shares Steganography and authentication In the continually evolving world of secure image sharing, a growing number of people are becoming involved as new applications and business models are being developed all the time. This contributed volume gives academicians, researchers, and professionals the insight of well-known experts on key concepts, issues, trends, and technologies in this emerging field.

Visual perception is a complex process requiring interaction between the receptors in the eye that sense the stimulus and the neural system and the brain that are responsible for communicating and interpreting the sensed visual information. This process involves several physical, neural, and cognitive phenomena whose understanding is essential to design effective and computationally efficient imaging solutions. Building on advances in computer vision, image and video processing, neuroscience, and information engineering, perceptual digital imaging greatly enhances the capabilities of traditional imaging methods. Filling a gap in the literature, Perceptual Digital Imaging: Methods and Applications comprehensively covers the system design, implementation, and application aspects of this emerging specialized area. It gives readers a strong, fundamental understanding of theory and methods, providing a foundation on which solutions for many of the most interesting and challenging imaging problems can be built. The book features contributions by renowned experts who present the state of the art and recent trends in image acquisition, processing, storage, display, and visual quality evaluation. They detail advances in the field and explore human visual system-driven approaches across a broad spectrum of applications, including: Image quality and aesthetics assessment Digital camera imaging White balancing and color enhancement Thumbnail generation Image restoration Super-resolution imaging Digital halftoning and dithering Color feature extraction Semantic multimedia analysis and processing Video shot characterization Image and video encryption Display quality enhancement This is a valuable resource for readers who want to design and implement more effective solutions for cutting-edge digital imaging, computer vision, and multimedia applications. Suitable as a graduate-level textbook or stand-alone reference for researchers and practitioners, it provides a unique overview of an important and rapidly developing research field.

This book reviews the state of the art in algorithmic approaches addressing the practical challenges that arise with hyperspectral image analysis tasks, with a focus on emerging trends in machine learning and image processing/understanding. It presents advances in deep learning, multiple instance learning, sparse representation based learning, low-dimensional manifold models, anomalous change detection, target recognition, sensor fusion and super-resolution for robust multispectral and hyperspectral image understanding. It presents research from leading international experts who have made foundational contributions in these areas. The book covers a diverse array of applications of multispectral/hyperspectral imagery in the context of these algorithms, including remote sensing, face recognition and biomedicine. This book would be particularly beneficial to graduate students and researchers who are taking advanced courses in (or are working in) the areas of image analysis, machine learning and remote sensing with multi-channel optical imagery. Researchers and professionals in academia and industry working in areas such as electrical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, geosciences and biomedical image processing, who work with multi-channel optical data will find this book useful.

Image Restoration: Fundamentals and Advances responds to the need to update most existing references on the subject, many of which were published decades ago. Providing a broad overview of image restoration, this book explores breakthroughs in related algorithm development and their role in supporting real-world applications associated with various scientific and engineering fields. These include astronomical imaging, photo editing, and medical imaging, to name just a few. The book examines how such advances can also lead to novel insights into the fundamental properties of image sources. Addressing the many advances in imaging, computing, and communications technologies, this reference strikes just the right balance of coverage between core fundamental principles and the latest developments in this area. Its content was designed based on the idea that the reproducibility of published works on algorithms makes it easier for researchers to build on each other's work, which often benefits the vitality of the technical community as a whole. For that reason, this book is as experimentally reproducible as possible. Topics covered include: Image denoising and deblurring Different image restoration methods and recent advances such as nonlocality and sparsity Blind restoration under space-varying blur Super-resolution restoration Learning-based methods Multi-spectral and color image restoration New possibilities using hybrid imaging systems Many existing references are scattered throughout the literature, and there is a significant gap between the cutting edge in image restoration and what we can learn from standard image processing textbooks. To fill that need but avoid a rehash of the many fine existing books on this subject, this reference focuses on algorithms rather than theories or applications. Giving readers access to a large amount of downloadable source code, the book illustrates fundamental techniques, key ideas developed over the years, and the state of the art in image restoration. It is a valuable resource for readers at all levels of understanding.

This book takes you through all the basic steps of character design for games and animation, from brainstorming and references through to the development phase and final render. It covers a range of styles such as cartoon, stylized and semi-realistic, and explains how to differentiate between them and use them effectively. Using a step-by-step approach for each stage of the process, this book guides you through the process of creating a new character from scratch. It contains a wealth of design tips and tricks as well as checklists and worksheets for you to use in your own projects. The book covers how to work with briefs, as well as providing advice and practical strategies for working with clients and creating art as a product that can be tailored and sold. This book will be a valuable resource for all junior artists, hobby artists, and art students looking to develop and improve their character development skills for games and animation.

This book covers the process of creating digital characters for videogames as well as for 3D print and collectibles. It looks at character asset creation for high-end AAA console games as well as asset creation for legacy devices and the ever-growing mobile gaming industry. Lastly, it covers creation of figurines for 3D printing and collectables. The book provides a step-by-step walk through of creating these assets at an industry level standard. It includes the necessary theory that you need to understand how to be an effective character artist, but primarily focuses on the practical skills needed for creating character assets in the modern games and collectibles industries. This book will be of great interest to all beginner and junior character artists currently working in the gaming or collectable industry or looking to enter these industries. There is also relevant content in the highly detailed examples for people currently working in the industry and looking to pick up a few new tips, tricks and knowledge.

"John Russ is the master of explaining how image processing gets applied to real-world situations. With Brent Neal, he's done it again in Measuring Shape, this time explaining an expanded toolbox of techniques that includes useful, state-of-the-art methods that can be applied to the broad problem of understanding, characterizing, and measuring shape. He has a gift for finding the kernel of a particular algorithm, explaining it in simple terms, then giving concrete examples that are easily understood. His perspective comes from solving real-world problems and separating out what works in practice from what is just an abstract curiosity." -Tom Malzbender, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, California, USA Useful for those working in fields including industrial quality control, research, and security applications, Measuring Shape is a handbook for the practical application of shape measurement. Covering a wide range of shape measurements likely to be encountered in the literature and in software packages, this book presents an intentionally diverse set of examples that illustrate and enable readers to compare methods used for measurement and quantitative description of 2D and 3D shapes. It stands apart through its focus on examples and applications, which help readers quickly grasp the usefulness of presented techniques without having to approach them through the underlying mathematics. An elusive concept, shape is a principal governing factor in determining the behavior of objects and structures. Essential to recognizing and classifying objects, it is the central link in manmade and natural processes. Shape dictates everything from the stiffness of a construction beam, to the ability of a leaf to catch water, to the marketing and packaging of consumer products. This book emphasizes techniques that are quantitative and produce a meaningful yet compact set of numerical values that can be used for statistical analysis, comparison, correlation, classification, and identification. Written by two renowned authors from both industry and academia, this resource explains why users should select a particular method, rather than simply discussing how to use it. Showcasing each process in a clear, accessible, and well-organized way, they explore why a particular one might be appropriate in a given situation, yet a poor choice in another. Providing extensive examples, plus full mathematical descriptions of the various measurements involved, they detail the advantages and limitations of each method and explain the ways they can be implemented to discover important correlations between shape and object history or behavior. This uncommon assembly of information also includes sets of data on real-world objects that are used to compare the performance and utility of the various presented approaches.

It has long been a dream to realize machines with flexible visual perception capability. Research on digital image processing by computers was initiated about 30 years ago, and since then a wide variety of image processing algorithms have been devised. Using such image processing algorithms and advanced hardware technologies, many practical ma chines with visual recognition capability have been implemented and are used in various fields: optical character readers and design chart readers in offices, position-sensing and inspection systems in factories, computer tomography and medical X-ray and microscope examination systems in hospitals, and so on. Although these machines are useful for specific tasks, their capabilities are limited. That is, they can analyze only simple images which are recorded under very carefully adjusted photographic conditions: objects to be recognized are isolated against a uniform background and under well-controlled artificial lighting. In the late 1970s, many image understanding systems were de veloped to study the automatic interpretation of complex natural scenes. They introduced artificial intelligence techniques to represent the knowl edge about scenes and to realize flexible control structures. The first author developed an automatic aerial photograph interpretation system based on the blackboard model (Naga1980). Although these systems could analyze fairly complex scenes, their capabilities were still limited; the types of recognizable objects were limited and various recognition vii viii Preface errors occurred due to noise and the imperfection of segmentation algorithms."

This fully revised and updated third edition offers students and artists valuable insights into traditional color theory and its practical application using today's cutting-edge technology. The text is lavishly illustrated, stressing issues of contemporary color use and examining how today's artists and designers are using color in a multitude of mediums in their work. It is the only book that has parity between the male and female artists and designers represented, while containing more multicultural and global examples of art and design than any other text. This book begins with how we see color and its biological basis, progressing to the various theories about color and delving into the psychological meaning of color and its use. There are individual chapters on color use in art and design, as well as global and multicultural color use. One chapter investigates cross cultural life events such as marriages and funerals, while examining the six major religions' conceptual and psychological underpinnings of color use. The final chapter explores the future of color. Contemporary Color is the ideal text for color theory courses, but also for beginning art and design students, no matter what their future major discipline or emphasis may be. It provides the foundation on which to build their career and develop their own personal artistic voice and vision.

Design Computing will help you understand the rapidly evolving relationship between computing, designers, and the many different environments they create or work in. The book introduces the topic of design computing, and covers the basics of hardware and software, so you don't need to be an expert. Topics include the fundamentals of digital representation, programming and interfaces for design; the shifting landscape of opportunity and expectation in practice and pedagogy; placing sensors in buildings to measure performance; and the challenge of applying information effectively in design. The book also includes additional reading for those who wish to dig deeper into the subject. Design Computing will provide you with a greater awareness of the issues that permeate the field, opportunities for you to investigate, and perhaps motivation to push the boundaries.

The first edition of this text book focussed on providing practical hands-on experience in digital imaging techniques for graduate students and practitioners keeping to a minimum any detailed discussion on the underlying theory. In this new extended edition, the author builds on the strength of the original edition by expanding the coverage to include formulation of the major theoretical results that underlie the exercises as well as introducing numerous modern concepts and new techniques. Whether you are studying or already using digital imaging techniques, developing proficiency in the subject is not possible without mastering practical skills. Including more than 100 MATLAB (R) exercises, this book delivers a complete applied course in digital imaging theory and practice.

This textbook covers the theoretical backgrounds and practical aspects of image, video and audio feature expression, e.g., color, texture, edge, shape, salient point and area, motion, 3D structure, audio/sound in time, frequency and cepstral domains, structure and melody. Up-to-date algorithms for estimation, search, classification and compact expression of feature data are described in detail. Concepts of signal decomposition (such as segmentation, source tracking and separation), as well as composition, mixing, effects, and rendering, are discussed. Numerous figures and examples help to illustrate the aspects covered. The book was developed on the basis of a graduate-level university course, and most chapters are supplemented by problem-solving exercises. The book is also a self-contained introduction both for researchers and developers of multimedia content analysis systems in industry.

If Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs represented the Animation industry's infancy, Ed Hooks thinks that the current production line of big-budget features is its artistically awkward adolescence. While a well-funded marketing machine can conceal structural flaws, uneven performances and superfluous characters, the importance of crafted storytelling will only grow in importance as animation becomes a broader, more accessible art form. Craft Notes for Animators analyses specific films - including Frozen and Despicable Me - to explain the secrets of creating truthful stories and believable characters. It is an essential primer for the for tomorrow's industry leaders and animation artists.

The Definitive Vulkan (TM) Developer's Guide and Reference: Master the Next-Generation Specification for Cross-Platform Graphics The next generation of the OpenGL specification, Vulkan, has been redesigned from the ground up, giving applications direct control over GPU acceleration for unprecedented performance and predictability. Vulkan (TM) Programming Guide is the essential, authoritative reference to this new standard for experienced graphics programmers in all Vulkan environments. Vulkan API lead Graham Sellers (with contributions from language lead John Kessenich) presents example-rich introductions to the portable Vulkan API and the new SPIR-V shading language. The author introduces Vulkan, its goals, and the key concepts framing its API, and presents a complex rendering system that demonstrates both Vulkan's uniqueness and its exceptional power. You'll find authoritative coverage of topics ranging from drawing to memory, and threading to compute shaders. The author especially shows how to handle tasks such as synchronization, scheduling, and memory management that are now the developer's responsibility. Vulkan (TM) Programming Guide introduces powerful 3D development techniques for fields ranging from video games to medical imaging, and state-of-the-art approaches to solving challenging scientific compute problems. Whether you're upgrading from OpenGL or moving to open-standard graphics APIs for the first time, this guide will help you get the results and performance you're looking for. Coverage includes Extensively tested code examples to demonstrate Vulkan's capabilities and show how it differs from OpenGL Expert guidance on getting started and working with Vulkan's new memory system Thorough discussion of queues, commands, moving data, and presentation Full explanations of the SPIR-V binary shading language and compute/graphics pipelines Detailed discussions of drawing commands, geometry and fragment processing, synchronization primitives, and reading Vulkan data into applications A complete case study application: deferred rendering using complex multi-pass architecture and multiple processing queues Appendixes presenting Vulkan functions and SPIR-V opcodes, as well as a complete Vulkan glossary

This book provides a deep understanding of state-of-art methods for simulation of heterogeneous crowds in computer graphics. It will cover different aspects that are necessary to achieve plausible crowd behaviors. The book will be a review of the most recent literature in this field that can help professionals and graduate students interested in this field to get up to date with the latest contributions, and open problems for their possible future research. The chapter contributors are well known researchers and practitioners in the field and they include their latest contributions in the different topics required to achieve believable heterogeneous crowd simulation. Provides crowd simulation methodology to populate virtual environments, for video games or any kind of applications that requires believable multi-agent behavior Presents the latest contributions on crowd simulation, animation, planning, rendering and evaluation with detailed algorithms for implementation purposes Includes perspectives of both academic researchers and industrial practitioners with reference to open source solutions and commercial applications, where appropriate

This book constitutes selected, revised and extended papers from the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, CSEDU 2021, held as a virtual event in April 2021. The 27 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 143 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: artificial intelligence in education; information technologies supporting learning; learning/teaching methodologies and assessment; social context and learning environments; ubiquitous learning; current topics.

Digital editing gives editors far greater freedom than ever before to move scenes of information around and place them anywhere in a film's sequence. Apple's Final Cut Pro is the most widely used Mac-based digital editor, and is especially popular with independent filmmakers and graphic artists. Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials enables readers to master the craft of digital editing on Apple's Final Cut Pro. This full-color editing workshop features eight tutorials that provide firsthand experience with the art and technique of editing. Covering the essentials - capturing material, organizing it, editing, adding transitions, basic titling and sound techniques, and outputting from the application - the tutorials are explained in jargon-free language by a seasoned teacher and digital editor. This book includes downloadable resources filled with graphic files for the tutorial projects to help users hone their editing craft. Companion files are available at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/cw/wolsky-9781578202867/.

The new edition of 3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop features the most up-to-date techniques that allow you to create your own unique textures, shaders, and materials. Revised to take new technology into account, it is an ideal hands-on resource for creating online worlds, simulations, web-based applications, and architectural visualization projects. Continuing the practical, no-nonsense approach of its predecessors, the fourth edition shows you how to advance your digital art skills with textures and shaders by exploring their interactions in single objects or entire scenes. It contains expanded coverage of shader nodes, and the companion website-www.lukeahearn.com/textures-has been updated to include video tutorials as well as updated sample textures, shaders, materials, actions, brushes, and all of the art from the book.

This volume aims to stimulate discussions on research involving the use of data and digital images as an understanding approach for analysis and visualization of phenomena and experiments. The emphasis is put not only on graphically representing data as a way of increasing its visual analysis, but also on the imaging systems which contribute greatly to the comprehension of real cases.

Scientific Visualization and Imaging Systems encompass multidisciplinary areas, with applications in many knowledge fields such as Engineering, Medicine, Material Science, Physics, Geology, Geographic Information Systems, among others.

This book is a selection of 13 revised and extended research papers presented in the International Conference on Advanced Computational Engineering and Experimenting -ACE-X conferences 2010 (Paris), 2011 (Algarve), 2012 (Istanbul) and 2013 (Madrid). The examples were particularly chosen from materials research, medical applications, general concepts applied in simulations and image analysis and other interesting related problems.

The main subject of the monograph is the fractional calculus in the discrete version. The volume is divided into three main parts. Part one contains a theoretical introduction to the classical and fractional-order discrete calculus where the fundamental role is played by the backward difference and sum. In the second part, selected applications of the discrete fractional calculus in the discrete system control theory are presented. In the discrete system identification, analysis and synthesis, one can consider integer or fractional models based on the fractional-order difference equations. The third part of the book is devoted to digital image processing.

In the current age of information technology, the issues of distributing and utilizing images efficiently and effectively are of substantial concern. Solutions to many of the problems arising from these issues are provided by techniques of image processing, among which segmentation and compression are topics of this book. Image segmentation is a process for dividing an image into its constituent parts. For block-based segmentation using statistical classification, an image is divided into blocks and a feature vector is formed for each block by grouping statistics of its pixel intensities. Conventional block-based segmentation algorithms classify each block separately, assuming independence of feature vectors. Image Segmentation and Compression Using Hidden Markov Models presents a new algorithm that models the statistical dependence among image blocks by two dimensional hidden Markov models (HMMs). Formulas for estimating the model according to the maximum likelihood criterion are derived from the EM algorithm. To segment an image, optimal classes are searched jointly for all the blocks by the maximum a posteriori (MAP) rule. The 2-D HMM is extended to multiresolution so that more context information is exploited in classification and fast progressive segmentation schemes can be formed naturally. The second issue addressed in the book is the design of joint compression and classification systems using the 2-D HMM and vector quantization. A classifier designed with the side goal of good compression often outperforms one aimed solely at classification because overfitting to training data is suppressed by vector quantization. Image Segmentation and Compression Using Hidden Markov Models is an essential reference source for researchers and engineers working in statistical signal processing or image processing, especially those who are interested in hidden Markov models. It is also of value to those working on statistical modeling.

While formal training and communication are a foundational approach to developing employees in the workplace, alternate reality games (ARGs) provide a framework for increased and sustained engagement within business organizations. ARGs are transmedia experiences designed to generate engagement and immersive learning beyond what is achieved in formal and conventional training and communication approaches. Alternate Reality Games: Gamification for Performance leads you through the fundamentals of ARGs. It includes a discussion of what is and is not an ARG, citing examples and identifying business challenges that can be addressed through ARGs. It presents case studies that illustrate the variety of forms that ARGs take and the issues to which they can be applied, such as improving performance and critical communication situations. It also gives guidelines for creating your own ARGs, reviewing the process and technological tools and considerations relevant to their creation. Presenting a thorough examination of the beneficial roles ARGs can play in the business environment as well as methods for creating effective ARGs, Alternate Reality Games: Gamification for Performance is an ideal reference for those approaching or considering ARGs for the first time as well as the training professional or professional game designer. It presents a comprehensive overview of the advantages of applying ARGs to the workplace as well as methods for designing and using them.

A comprehensive survey of techniques and applications in image and video processing and analysis

A widely varied selection of experts provides extensive coverage of nonlinear model-based techniques in image and video processing and analysis. This volume not only details new techniques in still image and digital video but also discusses applications in computer vision, multimedia, and visual information retrieval systems. All nonlinear, model-based techniques are detailed, and a complete and up-to-date accounting of the most important and effective algorithms is included for every application and technique discussed.

The applications described also include such real-world uses as multimedia information retrieval, automatic surveillance, lip tracking, and much more. Analytical techniques such as Boolean and stack filters, rational functions, mathematical morphology techniques, and adaptive order statistic filtering receive detailed treatment as they apply to specific uses such as image compression, segmentation, old motion picture restoration, image/video interpolation, and noise smoothing.

Chapters include:

• Optimal Design of Boolean and Stack Filters and Their Application in Image Processing
• Image Processing Using Rational Functions
• Mathematical Morphology and Motion Picture Restoration
• Adaptive Order Statistic Filtering of Still Images and Image Sequences
• Video Segmentation Based on Multiple Features for Interactive and Automatic Multimedia Applications
• Invariant Features in Pattern Recognition–Fundamentals and Applications
• Image Models for Facial Feature Tracking

Students, engineers, and scientists will appreciate both the wide range of expert opinion in this comprehensive volume and the detailed coverage of the algorithms and mathematical models used in state-of-the-art image and video processing.

This work is dedicated to CMOS based imaging with the emphasis on the noise modeling, characterization and optimization in order to contribute to the design of high performance imagers in general and range imagers in particular. CMOS is known to be superior to CCD due to its flexibility in terms of integration capabilities, but typically has to be enhanced to compete at parameters as for instance noise, dynamic range or spectral response. Temporal noise is an important topic, since it is one of the most crucial parameters that ultimately limits the performance and cannot be corrected. This work gathers the widespread theory on noise and extends the theory by a non-rigorous but potentially computing efficient algorithm to estimate noise in time sampled systems. This work contributed to two generations of LDPD based ToF range image sensors and proposed a new approach to implement the MSI PM ToF principle. This was verified to yield a significantly faster charge transfer, better linearity, dark current and matching performance. A non-linear and time-variant model is provided that takes into account undesired phenomena such as finite charge transfer speed and a parasitic sensitivity to light when the shutters should remain OFF, to allow for investigations of largesignal characteristics, sensitivity and precision. It was demonstrated that the model converges to a standard photodetector model and properly resembles the measurements. Finally the impact of these undesired phenomena on the range measurement performance is demonstrated.

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to seven commonly used image understanding techniques in modern information technology. Readers of various levels can find suitable techniques to solve their practical problems and discover the latest development in these specific domains. The techniques covered include camera model and calibration, stereo vision, generalized matching, scene analysis and semantic interpretation, multi-sensor image information fusion, content-based visual information retrieval, and understanding spatial-temporal behavior. The book provides aspects from the essential concepts overview and basic principles to detailed introduction, explanation of the current methods and their practical techniques. It also presents discussions on the research trends and latest results in conjunction with new development of technical methods. This is an excellent read for those who do not have a subject background in image technology but need to use these techniques to complete specific tasks. These essential information will also be useful for their further study in the relevant fields.