This book explores environments where art, imagination, and creative practice meet urban spaces at the point where they connect to the digital world. It investigates relationships between urban visualizations, aesthetics, and politics in the context of new technologies, and social and urban challenges toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Responding to questions stemming from critical theory, the book focuses on an interdisciplinary actualization of technological developments and social challenges. It demonstrates how art, architecture, and design can transform culture, society, and nature through artistic and cultural achievements, integration, and new developments. The book begins with the theoretical framework of social aesthetics theories before discussing global contemporary visual culture and technological evolution. Across the 12 chapters, it looks at how architecture and design play significant roles in causing and solving complex environmental transformations in the digital turn. By fostering transdisciplinary encounters between architecture, design, visual arts, and cinematography, this book presents different theoretical approaches to how the arts' interplay with the environment responds to the logic of the constructions of reality. This book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and upper-level students in aesthetics, philosophy, visual cultural studies, communication studies, and media studies with a particular interest in sociopolitical and environmental discussions.

Videogames and Agency explores the trend in videogames and their marketing to offer a player higher volumes, or even more distinct kinds, of player freedom. The book offers a new conceptual framework that helps us understand how this freedom to act is discussed by designers, and how that in turn reflects in their design principles. What can we learn from existing theories around agency? How do paratextual materials reflect design intention with regards to what the player can and cannot do in a videogame? How does game design shape the possibility space for player action? Through these questions and selected case studies that include AAA and independent games alike, the book presents a unique approach to studying agency that combines game design, game studies, and game developer discourse. By doing so, the book examines what discourses around player action, as well as a game's design can reveal about the nature of agency and videogame aesthetics. This book will appeal to readers specifically interested in videogames, such as game studies scholars or game designers, but also to media studies students and media and screen studies scholars less familiar with digital games.

The slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a large cell visible by the unaided eye. It behaves as an intelligent nonlinear spatially extended active medium encapsulated in an elastic membrane. The cell optimises its growth patterns in configurations of attractants and repellents. This behaviour is interpreted as computation. Numerous prototypes of slime mould computers were designed to solve problems of computational geometry, graphs and transport networks and to implement universal computing circuits.In this unique set of scientific photographs and micrographs, the leading experts in computer science, biology, chemistry and material science illustrate in superb detail the nature of the slime mould computers and hybrid devices. Every photograph or micrograph in this book is of real scientific, theoretical or technological interest. Each entry includes a self-contained description of how the visualised phenomenon is used in the relevant slime mould computer. This atlas is unique in providing the depth and breadth of knowledge in harnessing behaviour of the slime mould to perform computation. It will help readers to understand how exploitation of biological processes has sparked new ideas and spurred progress in many fields of science and engineering.

* Covers the entire process of creating animated films in an accessible and approachable way. * Includes colour-coded exercises to help readers practice the theories explained within. * Heavily illustrated with full colour images.

Gambling is both a multi-billion dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovative and mixed methodologies that are flexible, responsive and 'agile'. This book seeks to demonstrate that researchers should look beyond the existing disciplinary territory and the dominant paradigm of 'problem gambling' in order to follow those changes across territorial, political, technical, regulatory and conceptual boundaries. The book draws on cutting-edge qualitative work in disciplines including anthropology, history and media studies to explore the production and consumption of risk, risky places, risk technology, the gambling industry, and connections between gambling and other kinds of speculation such as financial derivatives. In doing so it addresses some of the most important issues in contemporary social science, including the challenges of studying deterritorialised social phenomena; globalizing technologies and local markets; regulation as it operates across local, regional and international scales; globalization, and the rise of games, virtual worlds, and social media.

This book covers the distinguishing characteristics and tropes of visual novels (VNs) as choice-based games and analyzes VNs like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors; Hatoful Boyfriend; and Monster Prom, some of the best examples of the genre as illustrations. The author covers structuring branching narrative and plot, designing impactful and compelling choices, writing entertaining relationships and character interactions, understanding the importance of a VN's prose, and planning a VN's overall narrative design and story delivery. The book contains exercises at the end of chapters to practice the techniques discussed. By the end of the book, if the reader finishes all the exercises, they may have several portfolio pieces or a significant portion of their own VN project designed. Features: Discusses different aspects and genres of VNs, what makes them enjoyable, and successful techniques developers can incorporate into their own games Analyzes various VNs and choice-based games that use these successful techniques Shares tips from developers on portfolio pieces, hiring a team to work on VNs, and plotting and outlining VNs Branching Story, Unlocked Dialogue: Designing and Writing Visual Novels is a valuable resource for developers and narrative designers interested in working on VNs. The book will show them how they can design their own VN projects, design branching narratives, develop entertaining plots and relationships, design impactful and compelling choices, and write prose that's a pleasure to read.

Key features include: Introduction to Projective Geometry, Image Based Lighting (IBL), Global Illumination solved by the Monte Carlo Method (Pathtracing), an explanation of a set of Optimization Methods, and the techniques used for Calibrating One, Two, and Many cameras, including how to use the RANSAC algorithm in order to make the process robust, and providing code to be implemented using the Gnu Scientific Library. C/C++ code using the OpenCV library, to be used in the process of tracking points on a movie (an important step for the matchmove process), and in the construction of Modeling Tools for Visual Effects. A simple model of the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) of surfaces and the Differential Rendering Method, allowing the reader to generate consistent shadows, supported by a code that can be used in combination with a software like Luminance HDR.

While the earliest character representations in video games were rudimentary in terms of their presentation and performance, the virtual characters that appear in games today can be extremely complex and lifelike. These are characters that have the potential to make a powerful and emotional connection with gamers. As virtual characters become more intricate and varied, there is a growing need to examine the theory and practice of virtual character design. This book seeks to develop a series of critical frameworks to support the analysis and design of virtual characters. Virtual Character Design for Games and Interactive Media covers a breadth of topics to establish a relationship between pertinent artistic and scientific theories and good character design practice. Targeted at students, researchers, and professionals, the book aims to show how both character presentation and character performance can be enhanced through careful consideration of underlying theory. The book begins with a focus on virtual character presentation, underpinned by a discussion of biological, artistic, and sociological principles. Next it looks at the performance of virtual characters, encompassing the psychology of emotion and personality, narrative and game design theories, animation, and acting. The book concludes with a series of applied virtual character design examples. These examples examine the aesthetics of player characters, the design and performance of the wider cast of game characters, and the performance of characters within complex, hyperreal worlds.

Building Science Graphics: An illustrated guide to communicating science through diagrams and visualizations is a practical guide for anyone-regardless of previous design experience and preferred drawing tools-interested in creating science-centric illustrated explanatory diagrams. Starting with a clear introduction to the concept of information graphics and their role in contemporary science communication, it then outlines a process for creating graphics using evidence-based design strategies. The heart of the book is composed of two step-by-step graphical worksheets, designed to help jump-start any new project. This is both a textbook and a practical reference for anyone that needs to convey scientific information in an illustrated form for articles, poster presentations, slide shows, press releases, blog posts, social media posts and beyond.

Game AI Pro2: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals presents cutting-edge tips, tricks, and techniques for artificial intelligence (AI) in games, drawn from developers of shipped commercial games as well as some of the best-known academics in the field. It contains knowledge, advice, hard-earned wisdom, and insights gathered from across the community of developers and researchers who have devoted themselves to game AI. In this book, 47 expert developers and researchers have come together to bring you their newest advances in game AI, along with twists on proven techniques that have shipped in some of the most successful commercial games of the last few years. The book provides a toolbox of proven techniques that can be applied to many common and not-so-common situations. It is written to be accessible to a broad range of readers. Beginners will find good general coverage of game AI techniques and a number of comprehensive overviews, while intermediate to expert professional game developers will find focused, deeply technical chapters on specific topics of interest to them. Covers a wide range of AI in games, with topics applicable to almost any game Touches on most, if not all, of the topics necessary to get started in game AI Provides real-life case studies of game AI in published commercial games Gives in-depth, technical solutions from some of the industry's best-known games Includes downloadable demos and/or source code, available at http://www.gameaipro.com

Companies are spending billions on machine learning projects, but it's money wasted if the models can't be deployed effectively. In this practical guide, Hannes Hapke and Catherine Nelson walk you through the steps of automating a machine learning pipeline using the TensorFlow ecosystem. You'll learn the techniques and tools that will cut deployment time from days to minutes, so that you can focus on developing new models rather than maintaining legacy systems. Data scientists, machine learning engineers, and DevOps engineers will discover how to go beyond model development to successfully productize their data science projects, while managers will better understand the role they play in helping to accelerate these projects. Understand the steps to build a machine learning pipeline Build your pipeline using components from TensorFlow Extended Orchestrate your machine learning pipeline with Apache Beam, Apache Airflow, and Kubeflow Pipelines Work with data using TensorFlow Data Validation and TensorFlow Transform Analyze a model in detail using TensorFlow Model Analysis Examine fairness and bias in your model performance Deploy models with TensorFlow Serving or TensorFlow Lite for mobile devices Learn privacy-preserving machine learning techniques

* Provides a comprehensive approach to Motion Design as Design Practice with specific areas of focus for a range of audiences. * Integrates professional examples, case studies, and interviews to validate its themes. * Written from ongoing and pragmatic experience in both education and professional practice.

- the book can be used by beginners in the field, tracking from basic principles to how to bend the rules, in reader-friendly language throughout - the book is based on a popular blog which dovetails as a fantastic companion website: https://questionsindataviz.com/ - the author is a very experienced and well-respected practitioner in the field, with a good-size following on social media: https://twitter.com/theneilrichards

This interdisciplinary study participates in the ongoing critical conversation about postwar American poetry and visual culture, while advancing that field into the arena of the museum. Turning to contemporary poems about the visual arts that foreground and interrogate a museum setting, the book demonstrates the particular importance of the museum as a cultural site that is both inspiration and provocation for poets. The study uniquely bridges the "dual canon" in contemporary poetry (and calls the lyric/avant-garde distinction into question) by analyzing museum-sponsored anthologies as well as poems by John Ashbery, Richard Howard, Kenneth Koch, Kathleen Fraser, Cole Swensen, Anne Carson, and others. Through these case studies of poets with diverse affiliations, the author shows that the boom in ekphrasis in the past 20 years is not only an aesthetic but a critical phenomenon, a way that poets have come to terms with the critical dilemmas of our moment. Highlighting the importance of poets' "peripheral vision"-awareness of the institutional conditions that frame encounters with art-the author contend that a museum visit becomes a forum for questioning oppositions that have preoccupied literary criticism for the past 50 years: homage and innovation, modernism and postmodernism, subjectivity and collectivity. The study shows that ekphrasis becomes a strategy for negotiating these impasses-a mode of political inquiry, a meditation on canonization, a venue for comic appraisal of institutionalization, and a means of "site-specific" feminist revision-in a vital synthesis of critique, perspicacity, and pleasure.

DVCAM: A Practical Guide to the Professional System, is a nuts and bolts guide for anyone who wants to learn more about Sony DVCAM, to determine what equipment to use, how various models compare, and how to use each of them.
A user-friendly overview of the DVCAM format and its equipment, the text covers camcorders, cameras, tape, VTRs, editors, and accessories. The focus is on quick guides (Jump Start chapters) that show how to use the various Sony DVCAM camcorders: DSR-PD100A, DSR-PD150, DSR-250, DSR-300A, and DSR-500WS. Professionals, film students, independent feature filmmakers, schools, government agencies and military services, and news crews will benefit from its hands-on approach.

This comprehensive, hands-on book is an overview of the DVCAM format and its equipment. DVCAM is the professional video standard developed by Sony, based on the consumer DV video format. In the five years since DVCAM was introduced, over 200,000 cameras and VTRs have been sold, making it the best-selling professional format of all time.
A nuts and bolts guide to the DVCAM format and equipmentJump Start chapters provide overviews of various Sony DVCAM camcordersUser-friendly and thoroughly illustrated

Expand your imagination by letting go of the limitations of traditional animation mediums, software packages, or workflows and integrating 2D and 3D assets. With the updated and expanded second edition of Hybrid Animation you'll learn how to choose the techniques that best express the artistic and narrative direction of your project and get the technical support you need to bring your ideas to life. Learn how different pipelines of hybrid animation can be broken down and rethought in different packages. Does the 3D character lead a 2D character? Or, does the 2D character have 3D parts? Perhaps a 3D prop is interacting with a 2D character? All of these hybrid patterns are explored from high end to open source software. By the end of the book you'll be able to see how to apply these techniques to the software you have now. Insight and inspiration are at your fingertips with exercises, step-by-step tutorials and featured interviews with Todd Render of Floyd County Productions and Marty Altman, former CGI Technical Director at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Features: Now with updated software methodologies, new tricks, and expanded sections on Toon Boom Animate Pro, Toon Boom Harmony and more. Produce high-quality 2D and 3D narratives in a variety of software workflows, including Photoshop, Corel, Flash, After Effects and Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Smoke, and Toon Boom workflows. Think critically about visual styles, the effects of 2D/3D overlaying and the entire pipeline from start to finish. Explore additional chapters and over 6 gigs of sample files available in the companion data found at www.hybridanimation.com Tina O'Hailey is Dean of Digital Media at the Savannah College of Art and Design with locations in: Atlanta, Savannah and Hong Kong. Having worked for Electronic Arts, Walt Disney Feature Animation, she has extensive experience in feature animation and game development. O'Hailey has served as an Artist Development Trainer for Brother Bear (2003), Lilo and Stitch (2003), Mulan (1998) and Prince of Egypt (1998).

Image and video signals require large transmission bandwidth and storage, leading to high costs. The data must be compressed without a loss or with a small loss of quality. Thus, efficient image and video compression algorithms play a significant role in the storage and transmission of data. Image and Video Compression: Fundamentals, Techniques, and Applications explains the major techniques for image and video compression and demonstrates their practical implementation using MATLAB (R) programs. Designed for students, researchers, and practicing engineers, the book presents both basic principles and real practical applications. In an accessible way, the book covers basic schemes for image and video compression, including lossless techniques and wavelet- and vector quantization-based image compression and digital video compression. The MATLAB programs enable readers to gain hands-on experience with the techniques. The authors provide quality metrics used to evaluate the performance of the compression algorithms. They also introduce the modern technique of compressed sensing, which retains the most important part of the signal while it is being sensed.

Obtain the Best Estimate of a Strongly Scattering Object from Limited Scattered Field Data Introduction to Imaging from Scattered Fields presents an overview of the challenging problem of determining information about an object from measurements of the field scattered from that object. It covers widely used approaches to recover information about the objects and examines the assumptions made a priori about the object and the consequences of recovering object information from limited numbers of noisy measurements of the scattered fields. The book explores the strengths and weaknesses of using inverse methods for weak scattering. These methods, including Fourier-based signal and image processing techniques, allow more straightforward inverse algorithms to be exploited based on a simple mapping of scattered field data. The authors also discuss their recent approach based on a nonlinear filtering step in the inverse algorithm. They illustrate how to use this algorithm through numerous two-dimensional electromagnetic scattering examples. MATLAB (R) code is provided to help readers quickly apply the approach to a wide variety of inverse scattering problems. In later chapters of the book, the authors focus on important and often forgotten overarching constraints associated with exploiting inverse scattering algorithms. They explain how the number of degrees of freedom associated with any given scattering experiment can be found and how this allows one to specify a minimum number of data that should be measured. They also describe how the prior discrete Fourier transform (PDFT) algorithm helps in estimating the properties of an object from scattered field measurements. The PDFT restores stability and improves estimates of the object even with severely limited data (provided it is sufficient to meet a criterion based on the number of degrees of freedom). Suitable for graduate students and researchers working on medical, geophysical, defense, and industrial inspection inverse problems, this self-contained book provides the necessary details for readers to design improved experiments and process measured data more effectively. It shows how to obtain the best estimate of a strongly scattering object from limited scattered field data.

This book presents a selection of chapters, written by leading international researchers, related to the automatic analysis of gestures from still images and multi-modal RGB-Depth image sequences. It offers a comprehensive review of vision-based approaches for supervised gesture recognition methods that have been validated by various challenges. Several aspects of gesture recognition are reviewed, including data acquisition from different sources, feature extraction, learning, and recognition of gestures.

The Key to Fully Understanding the Basics of a 3D World Prominently used in games, movies, and on television, 3D graphics are tools of creation used to enhance how material and light come together to manipulate objects in 3D space. A game-changer written for the non-technical mind, Essential Skills for 3D Modeling, Rendering, and Animation examines the complexities of 3D computer-generated art, and outlines the basics of how things work and are used in 3D. This text describes the three cornerstones of 3D-modeling, rendering, and animation; focuses on common elements; and provides a full understanding of the foundational concepts involved. Detailing the skills and knowledge needed to become an accomplished 3D artist, it includes step-by-step instruction with ample examples, and allows absolute beginners to move at their own pace. Master Anything You Are Tasked to Model The author incorporates historical information-presenting a contextual understanding of the various techniques and methodologies in their historical place. Each chapter builds on the fundamentals of 3D computer graphics and augments skills based on the concepts, enabling the student to learn both theory and application simultaneously. The book highlights two basic geometry types, polygons and NURBS surfaces, showing the student basic modeling techniques with both. While more techniques are available, an artist can cover any model by grasping these basic techniques. Supplies examples that are specifically taken from Autodesk Maya Contains exercises that are meant to be used in conjunction with the training videos on the website Includes a documented history of computer graphics Essential Skills for 3D Modeling, Rendering, and Animation offers a fundamental understanding of the mechanics of 3D graphics to modelers, animators, texture artists, render artists, game developers, and production artists, as well as educators teaching an undergrad or tech course in 3D animation.

About this book * Gives the reader hands on example-base experience for simulating dynamical models in MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R) and animating them in VRML * More than 150 images describe each step in the model realizations helping readers to understand them visually * Diverse examples and profound problem treatment enable the reader to animate complex dynamical problems m-files, Simulink models, VRML files and jpegs available for download provide full solutions for the end-of-chapter problems Virtual Reality and Animation for MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) Users demonstrates the simulation and animation of physical systems using the MATLAB (R) Virtual Reality Toolbox (virtual models are created in V-Realm Builder). The book is divided into two parts; the first addresses MATLAB (R) and the second Simulink (R). The presentation is problem-based with each chapter teaching the reader a group of essential principles in the context of a step-by-step solution to a particular issue. Examples of the systems covered include mass-spring-dampers, a crank-slider mechanism and a moving vehicle. The examples are given in ascending level of difficulty and contain MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R) codes deliberately simplified so that readers can focus on: * understanding how to link a 3-d virtual scene to MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R); and * manipulating the 3-d virtual scene in MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R). When studied in sequence, the chapters of this text form a coherent whole enabling the reader to gain a thorough expertise in virtual simulation and animation of dynamical models using MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R). Individual chapters stand on their own, however, so that readers interested in a particular system can concentrate on it easily. Problems are provided in each chapter to give practice in the techniques demonstrated and to extend the range of the systems studied, for example, into the control sphere. Solution code for these problems can be downloaded from insert URL. Whether modeling the dynamics of a simple pendulum, a robot arm or a moving car, animation of a dynamical model can enliven and encourage understanding of mechanical systems and thus contribute to control design. Virtual Reality and Animation for MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) Users will be instructive and interesting to anyone, researcher or student, working with the dynamics of physical systems. Readers are assumed to have some familiarity with MATLAB (R).

Just coming off of Flash and looking for a guide? This book helps. A traditional pen-to-paper artists? This will smooth out that transition from paper to screen. Just starting out in the industry? Create quality studio work and get noticed quicker. Animate to Harmony takes the reader through Toon Boom's Animate software, teaching those new to the program how to create high-quality, 2D animation of all complexities. From scene set up to rendering, readers learn how to navigate Animate's interface and how to create 'toons that can be viewed on a multitude of formats. And while the main text focuses on Animate, Advanced Technique boxes throughout the book take the reader through the Pro and Harmony versions of the software, appealing to readers of all levels and with any of the three main Toon Boom products.

Broad in scope, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing provides a complete reference of techniques, algorithms, and solutions for the design and the implementation of contemporary multimedia systems. Offering a balanced, global look at the latest advances in semantic indexing, retrieval, analysis, and processing of multimedia, the book features the contributions of renowned researchers from around the world. Its contents are based on four fundamental thematic pillars: 1) information and content retrieval, 2) semantic knowledge exploitation paradigms, 3) multimedia personalization, and 4) human-computer affective multimedia interaction. Its 15 chapters cover key topics such as content creation, annotation and modeling for the semantic web, multimedia content understanding, and efficiency and scalability. Fostering a deeper understanding of a popular area of research, the text: Describes state-of-the-art schemes and applications Supplies authoritative guidance on research and deployment issues Presents novel methods and applications in an informative and reproducible way Contains numerous examples, illustrations, and tables summarizing results from quantitative studies Considers ongoing trends and designates future challenges and research perspectives Includes bibliographic links for further exploration Uses both SI and US units Ideal for engineers and scientists specializing in the design of multimedia systems, software applications, and image/video analysis and processing technologies, Semantic Multimedia Analysis and Processing aids researchers, practitioners, and developers in finding innovative solutions to existing problems, opening up new avenues of research in uncharted waters.

The problem of dealing with missing or incomplete data in machine learning and computer vision arises in many applications. Recent strategies make use of generative models to impute missing or corrupted data. Advances in computer vision using deep generative models have found applications in image/video processing, such as denoising, restoration, super-resolution, or inpainting. Inpainting and Denoising Challenges comprises recent efforts dealing with image and video inpainting tasks. This includes winning solutions to the ChaLearn Looking at People inpainting and denoising challenges: human pose recovery, video de-captioning and fingerprint restoration. This volume starts with a wide review on image denoising, retracing and comparing various methods from the pioneer signal processing methods, to machine learning approaches with sparse and low-rank models, and recent deep learning architectures with autoencoders and variants. The following chapters present results from the Challenge, including three competition tasks at WCCI and ECML 2018. The top best approaches submitted by participants are described, showing interesting contributions and innovating methods. The last two chapters propose novel contributions and highlight new applications that benefit from image/video inpainting.

Synthetic aperture radar provides broad-area imaging at high resolutions, which is used in applications such as environmental monitoring, earth-resource mapping, and military systems.
This book presents the tools required for the digital processing of synthetic aperture radar images. They are of three types: (a) the elements of physics, (b) mathematical models and (c) image processing methods adapted to particular applications.