Image Technology Design: A Perceptual Approach is an essential reference for both academic and professional researchers in the fields of image technology, image processing and coding, image display, and image quality. It bridges the gap between academic research on visual perception and image quality and applications of such research in the design of imaging systems.
This book has been written from the point of view of an electrical engineer interested in the display, processing and coding of images, and frequently involved in applying knowledge from visual psychophysics, experimental psychology, statistics, etc., to the design of imaging systems. It focuses on the exchange of ideas between technical disciplines in image technology design (such as image display or printer design and image processing) and visual psychophysics. This is accomplished by the consistent use of a single mathematical approach (based on linear vector spaces) throughout. Known facts from color vision, image sampling and quantization are given a new formulation and, in some instances, a new interpretation.

Any task that involves decision-making can benefit from soft computing techniques which allow premature decisions to be deferred. The processing and analysis of images is no exception to this rule. In the classical image analysis paradigm, the first step is nearly always some sort of segmentation process in which the image is divided into (hopefully, meaningful) parts. It was pointed out nearly 30 years ago by Prewitt (1] that the decisions involved in image segmentation could be postponed by regarding the image parts as fuzzy, rather than crisp, subsets of the image. It was also realized very early that many basic properties of and operations on image subsets could be extended to fuzzy subsets; for example, the classic paper on fuzzy sets by Zadeh [2] discussed the "set algebra" of fuzzy sets (using sup for union and inf for intersection), and extended the defmition of convexity to fuzzy sets. These and similar ideas allowed many of the methods of image analysis to be generalized to fuzzy image parts. For are cent review on geometric description of fuzzy sets see, e. g. , [3]. Fuzzy methods are also valuable in image processing and coding, where learning processes can be important in choosing the parameters of filters, quantizers, etc.

This book presents advances in biomedical imaging analysis and processing techniques using time dependent medical image datasets for computer aided diagnosis. The analysis of time-series images is one of the most widely appearing problems in science, engineering, and business. In recent years this problem has gained importance due to the increasing availability of more sensitive sensors in science and engineering and due to the wide-spread use of computers in corporations which have increased the amount of time-series data collected by many magnitudes. An important feature of this book is the exploration of different approaches to handle and identify time dependent biomedical images. Biomedical imaging analysis and processing techniques deal with the interaction between all forms of radiation and biological molecules, cells or tissues, to visualize small particles and opaque objects, and to achieve the recognition of biomedical patterns. These are topics of great importance to biomedical science, biology, and medicine. Biomedical imaging analysis techniques can be applied in many different areas to solve existing problems. The various requirements arising from the process of resolving practical problems motivate and expedite the development of biomedical imaging analysis. This is a major reason for the fast growth of the discipline.

The Twelfth International Workshop on Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods in Sciences and Engineering (MaxEnt 92) was held in Paris, France, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), July 19-24, 1992. It is important to note that, since its creation in 1980 by some of the researchers of the physics department at the Wyoming University in Laramie, this was the second time that it took place in Europe, the first time was in 1988 in Cambridge. The two specificities of MaxEnt workshops are their spontaneous and informal charac ters which give the participants the possibility to discuss easily and to make very fruitful scientific and friendship relations among each others. This year's organizers had fixed two main objectives: i) to have more participants from the European countries, and ii) to give special interest to maximum entropy and Bayesian methods in signal and image processing. We are happy to see that we achieved these objectives: i) we had about 100 participants with more than 50 per cent from the European coun tries, ii) we received many papers in the signal and image processing subjects and we could dedicate a full day of the workshop to the image modelling, restoration and recon struction problems."

A key element of any modern video codec is the efficient exploitation of temporal redundancy via motion-compensated prediction. In this book, a novel paradigm of representing and employing motion information in a video compression system is described that has several advantages over existing approaches. Traditionally, motion is estimated, modelled, and coded as a vector field at the target frame it predicts. While this "prediction-centric" approach is convenient, the fact that the motion is "attached" to a specific target frame implies that it cannot easily be re-purposed to predict or synthesize other frames, which severely hampers temporal scalability. In light of this, the present book explores the possibility of anchoring motion at reference frames instead. Key to the success of the proposed "reference-based" anchoring schemes is high quality motion inference, which is enabled by the use of a more "physical" motion representation than the traditionally employed "block" motion fields. The resulting compression system can support computationally efficient, high-quality temporal motion inference, which requires half as many coded motion fields as conventional codecs. Furthermore, "features" beyond compressibility - including high scalability, accessibility, and "intrinsic" framerate upsampling - can be seamlessly supported. These features are becoming ever more relevant as the way video is consumed continues shifting from the traditional broadcast scenario to interactive browsing of video content over heterogeneous networks. This book is of interest to researchers and professionals working in multimedia signal processing, in particular those who are interested in next-generation video compression. Two comprehensive background chapters on scalable video compression and temporal frame interpolation make the book accessible for students and newcomers to the field.

Nowadays, highly-detailed animations of live-actor performances are increasingly easier to acquire and 3D Video has reached considerable attentions in visual media production. In this book, we address the problem of extracting or acquiring and then reusing non-rigid parametrization for video-based animations. At first sight, a crucial challenge is to reproduce plausible boneless deformations while preserving global and local captured properties of dynamic surfaces with a limited number of controllable, flexible and reusable parameters. To solve this challenge, we directly rely on a skin-detached dimension reduction thanks to the well-known cage-based paradigm. First, we achieve Scalable Inverse Cage-based Modeling by transposing the inverse kinematics paradigm on surfaces. Thus, we introduce a cage inversion process with user-specified screen-space constraints. Secondly, we convert non-rigid animated surfaces into a sequence of optimal cage parameters via Cage-based Animation Conversion. Building upon this reskinning procedure, we also develop a well-formed Animation Cartoonization algorithm for multi-view data in term of cage-based surface exaggeration and video-based appearance stylization. Thirdly, motivated by the relaxation of prior knowledge on the data, we propose a promising unsupervised approach to perform Iterative Cage-based Geometric Registration. This novel registration scheme deals with reconstructed target point clouds obtained from multi-view video recording, in conjunction with a static and wrinkled template mesh. Above all, we demonstrate the strength of cage-based subspaces in order to reparametrize highly non-rigid dynamic surfaces, without the need of secondary deformations. To the best of our knowledge this book opens the field of Cage-based Performance Capture.

"Applications of Pulse-Coupled Neural Networks" explores the fields of image processing, including image filtering, image segmentation, image fusion, image coding, image retrieval, and biometric recognition, and the role of pulse-coupled neural networks in these fields. This book is intended for researchers and graduate students in artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, electronic engineering, and computer science. Prof. Yide Ma conducts research on intelligent information processing, biomedical image processing, and embedded system development at the School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University, China.

The fields of image analysis, computer vision, and artificial intelligence all make use of descriptions of shape in grey-level images. Most existing algorithms for the automatic recognition and classification of particular shapes have been devel oped for specific purposes, with the result that these methods are often restricted in their application. The use of advanced and theoretically well-founded math ematical methods should lead to the construction of robust shape descriptors having more general application. Shape description can be regarded as a meeting point of vision research, mathematics, computing science, and the application fields of image analy sis, computer vision, and artificial intelligence. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Shape in Picture" was organised with a twofold objective: first, it should provide all participants with an overview of relevant developments in these different disciplines; second, it should stimulate researchers to exchange original results and ideas across the boundaries of these disciplines. This book comprises a widely drawn selection of papers presented at the workshop, and many contributions have been revised to reflect further progress in the field. The focus of this collection is on mathematical approaches to the construction of shape descriptions from grey-level images. The book is divided into five parts, each devoted to a different discipline. Each part contains papers that have tutorial sections; these are intended to assist the reader in becoming acquainted with the variety of approaches to the problem."

This book provides a solid and uniform derivation of the various properties Bézier and B-spline representations have, and shows the beauty of the underlying rich mathematical structure. The book focuses on the core concepts of Computer Aided Geometric Design with the intension to give a clear and illustrative presentation of the basic principles, as well as a treatment of advanced material including multivariate splines, some subdivision techniques and constructions of free form surfaces with arbitrary smoothness.The text is beautifully illustrated with many excellent figures to emphasize the geometric constructive approach of this book.

Traditionally, scientific fields have defined boundaries, and scientists work on research problems within those boundaries. However, from time to time those boundaries get shifted or blurred to evolve new fields. For instance, the original goal of computer vision was to understand a single image of a scene, by identifying objects, their structure, and spatial arrangements. This has been referred to as image understanding. Recently, computer vision has gradually been making the transition away from understanding single images to analyz ing image sequences, or video understanding. Video understanding deals with understanding of video sequences, e. g., recognition of gestures, activities, fa cial expressions, etc. The main shift in the classic paradigm has been from the recognition of static objects in the scene to motion-based recognition of actions and events. Video understanding has overlapping research problems with other fields, therefore blurring the fixed boundaries. Computer graphics, image processing, and video databases have obvious overlap with computer vision. The main goal of computer graphics is to gener ate and animate realistic looking images, and videos. Researchers in computer graphics are increasingly employing techniques from computer vision to gener ate the synthetic imagery. A good example of this is image-based rendering and modeling techniques, in which geometry, appearance, and lighting is de rived from real images using computer vision techniques. Here the shift is from synthesis to analysis followed by synthesis."

The launch of Microsoft s Kinect, the first high-resolution depth-sensing camera for the consumer market, generated considerable excitement not only among computer gamers, but also within the global community of computer vision researchers.

The potential of consumer depth cameras extends well beyond entertainment and gaming, to real-world commercial applications such virtual fitting rooms, training for athletes, and assistance for the elderly. This authoritative text/reference reviews the scope and impact of this rapidly growing field, describing the most promising Kinect-based research activities, discussing significant current challenges, and showcasing exciting applications.

Topics and features: presents contributions from an international selection of preeminent authorities in their fields, from both academic and corporate research; addresses the classic problem of multi-view geometry of how to correlate images from different viewpoints to simultaneously estimate camera poses and world points; examines human pose estimation using video-rate depth images for gaming, motion capture, 3D human body scans, and hand pose recognition for sign language parsing; provides a review of approaches to various recognition problems, including category and instance learning of objects, and human activity recognition; with a Foreword by Dr. Jamie Shotton of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK.

This broad-ranging overview is a must-read for researchers and graduate students of computer vision and robotics wishing to learn more about the state of the art of this increasingly hot topic."

Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers by Photoshop hall-of-famer and acclaimed digital imaging professional Martin Evening has been revamped to include detailed instruction for all of the updates to Photoshop CC on Adobe's Creative Cloud, including significant new features, such as Select and Mask editing, Facial Liquify adjustments and Guided Upright corrections in Camera Raw. This guide covers all the tools and techniques photographers and professional image editors need to know when using Photoshop, from workflow guidance to core skills to advanced techniques for professional results. Using clear, succinct instruction and real world examples, this guide is the essential reference for Photoshop users. The accompanying website has been updated with new sample images, tutorial videos, bonus chapters, and a chapter on the changes in Photoshop 2017.

Packed with more than 350 techniques, this book delivers what you need to know-on the spot. Its concise presentation of professional techniques is suited to experienced artists whether you are: * Migrating from another visual effects application * Upgrading to Houdini 9 * Seeking a handy reference to raise your proficiency with Houdini Houdini On the Spot presents immediate solutions in an accessible format. It clearly illustrates the essential methods that pros use to get the job done efficiently and creatively. Screenshots and step-by-step instructions show you how to: * Navigate and manipulate the version 9 interface * Create procedural models that can be modified quickly and efficiently with Surface Operators (SOPs) * Use Particle Operators (POPs) to build complex simulations with speed and precision * Minimize the number of operators in your simulations with Dynamics Operators (DOPs) * Extend Houdini with customized tools to include data or scripts with Houdini Digital Assets (HDAs) * Master the version 9 rendering options including Physically Based Rendering (PBR), volume rendering and motion blur * Quickly modify timing, geometry, space and rotational values of your animations with Channel Operators (CHOPs) * Create and manipulate elements with Composite Operators (COPs); Houdini's full-blown compositor toolset * Make your own SOPs, COPs, POPs, CHOPs, and shaders with the Vector Expressions (VEX) shading language * Configure the Houdini interface with customized environments and hotkeys * Mine the treasures of the dozens of standalone applications that are bundled with Houdini

The field of Intelligent Systems has expanded enormously during the last two decades with many theoretical and practical results already available, which are the outcome of the synergetic merging of classical fields such as system theory, artificial intelligence, information theory, soft computing, operations research, linguistic theory and others. This book presents a collection of timely contributions that cover a wide, well-selected range of topics within the field. The book contains forty-seven contributions with an emphasis on computational and processing issues. The book is structured in four parts, as follows: Part I: Computer-aided intelligent systems and tools; Part II: Information extraction from texts, natural language interfaces and intelligent retrieval systems; Part III: Image processing and video-based systems; Part IV: Applications Particular topics treated include: planning; problem solving; information extraction from texts; natural language interfaces; audio retrieval systems; multi-agent systems; image compression, image and segmentation, and human face recognition. Applications include: peri-urban road network extraction; analysis of structures; climatic sensor signal analysis; aortic pressure assessment; hospital laboratory planning; fatigue analysis using electromyographic signals; forecasting in power systems. The book can serve as a reference pool of knowledge that may inspire and motivate researchers and practitioners for further developments and modern-day applications. The teacher and student in related postgraduate and research programs can thereby save considerable time in searching the scattered literature in the field.

Multimedia Cartography provides a contemporary overview of the issues related to multimedia cartography and the design and production elements that are unique to this area of mapping. The book has been written for professional cartographers interested in moving into multimedia mapping, for cartographers already involved in producing multimedia titles who wish to discover the approaches that other practitioners in multimedia cartography have taken and for students and academics in the mapping sciences and related geographical fields wishing to update their knowledge about current issues related to cartographic design and production. It provides a new approach to cartography one based on the exploitation of the many rich media components and avant-garde approach that multimedia offers."

Effective Polynomial Computation is an introduction to the algorithms of computer algebra. It discusses the basic algorithms for manipulating polynomials including factoring polynomials. These algorithms are discussed from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Those cases where theoretically optimal algorithms are inappropriate are discussed and the practical alternatives are explained. Effective Polynomial Computation provides much of the mathematical motivation of the algorithms discussed to help the reader appreciate the mathematical mechanisms underlying the algorithms, and so that the algorithms will not appear to be constructed out of whole cloth. Preparatory to the discussion of algorithms for polynomials, the first third of this book discusses related issues in elementary number theory. These results are either used in later algorithms (e.g. the discussion of lattices and Diophantine approximation), or analogs of the number theoretic algorithms are used for polynomial problems (e.g. Euclidean algorithm and p-adic numbers). Among the unique features of Effective Polynomial Computation is the detailed material on greatest common divisor and factoring algorithms for sparse multivariate polynomials. In addition, both deterministic and probabilistic algorithms for irreducibility testing of polynomials are discussed.

Content-based multimedia retrieval is a challenging research field with many unsolved problems. This monograph details concepts and algorithms for robust and efficient information retrieval of two different types of multimedia data: waveform-based music data and human motion data. It first examines several approaches in music information retrieval, in particular general strategies as well as efficient algorithms. The book then introduces a general and unified framework for motion analysis, retrieval, and classification, highlighting the design of suitable features, the notion of similarity used to compare data streams, and data organization.

A resource like no other—the first comprehensive guide to phase unwrapping

Phase unwrapping is a mathematical problem-solving technique increasingly used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry, optical interferometry, adaptive optics, and medical imaging. In Two-Dimensional Phase Unwrapping, two internationally recognized experts sort through the multitude of ideas and algorithms cluttering current research, explain clearly how to solve phase unwrapping problems, and provide practicable algorithms that can be applied to problems encountered in diverse disciplines. Complete with case studies and examples as well as hundreds of images and figures illustrating the concepts, this book features:

• A thorough introduction to the theory of phase unwrapping
• Eight algorithms that constitute the state of the art in phase unwrapping
• Detailed description and analysis of each algorithm and its performance in a number of phase unwrapping problems
• C language software that provides a complete implementation of each algorithm
• Comparative analysis of the algorithms and techniques for evaluating results
• A discussion of future trends in phase unwrapping research
• Foreword by former NASA scientist Dr. John C. Curlander

Two-Dimensional Phase Unwrapping skillfully integrates concepts, algorithms, software, and examples into a powerful benchmark against which new ideas and algorithms for phase unwrapping can be tested. This unique introduction to a dynamic, rapidly evolving field is essential for professionals and graduate students in SAR interferometry, optical interferometry, adaptive optics, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

A Sky-High Flight of Imagination When a photographer's imagination really soars, a book like this one is created. Imagine posing live models like museum statues, and transforming their photographs back into statues Then, place them in exotic digital backgrounds. The result is 240 genuinely stunning photographs in a coffee table book that will deliver many hours of enchanting viewing. Living Nude Statues began as a search for great poses for models. Naturally, the most admired poses are found in museums, so photos of nude female statues from museums around the world were used as posing guides. With this collection of statue poses to use with the models, wonderful images were created. Then, a question arose: what it would be like to turn these photographs of models in statue poses back into statues again, using photo manipulation techniques? By teaming up with a photographer who has exceptional Photoshop skills, wondering became wonderment at the results. The twelve professional models featured in this volume are from the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. Each model is featured on twenty pages in the book. Each set of photographs is shown on facing pages with the studio shot on the left and its transformation into a statue on the right.

A continuation of 1994's groundbreaking Cartoons, Giannalberto Bendazzi's Animation: A World History is the largest, deepest, most comprehensive text of its kind, based on the idea that animation is an art form that deserves its own place in scholarship. Bendazzi delves beyond just Disney, offering readers glimpses into the animation of Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other often-neglected areas and introducing over fifty previously undiscovered artists. Full of first-hand, never before investigated, and elsewhere unavailable information, Animation: A World History encompasses the history of animation production on every continent over the span of three centuries. Volume I traces the roots and predecessors of modern animation, the history behind Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie, and twenty years of silent animated films. Encompassing the formative years of the art form through its Golden Age, this book accounts for animation history through 1950 and covers everything from well-known classics like Steamboat Willie to animation in Egypt and Nazi Germany. With a wealth of new research, hundreds of photographs and film stills, and an easy-to-navigate organization, this book is essential reading for all serious students of animation history. Key Features Over 200 high quality head shots and film stills to add visual reference to your research Detailed information on hundreds of never-before researched animators and films Coverage of animation from more than 90 countries and every major region of the world Chronological and geographical organization for quick access to the information you're looking for

Go behind the scene of the behind the scenes to learn how the business of producing the dazzling visual effects we see in movies and on TV works. With decades of combined VFX production and supervisory experience in Hollywood, the authors share their experience with you, illuminating standard industry practices and tips on: * preproduction planning * scheduling * budgeting * evaluating vendors and the bidding process * effective data management * working on-set, off-set, or overseas * dealing with changes in post-production * legal issues (contracts, insurance, business ethics), and more Also included are interviews with established, successful Hollywood VFX Producers about their career paths and how they got to where they are now. From pre-production to final delivery, this is your complete guide to visual effects production, providing insight on VFX budgeting and scheduling (with actual forms for your own use) and common production techniques such as motion control, miniatures, and pre-visualization. Also included is a companion website (www.focalpress.com/cw/finance-9780240812632) with forms and documents for you to incorporate into your own VFX production workflows.

The book includes insights that reflect the advances in the field of Internet of Things from upcoming researchers and leading academicians across the globe. It contains the high-quality peer-reviewed papers of 'International Conference on Internet of Things for Technological Development (IoT4TD 2017)', held at Kadi Sarva Vishvavidyalaya, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India during April 1-2, 2017. The book covers variety of topics such as Internet of things, Intelligent Image Processing, Networks and Mobile Communications, Big Data and Cloud. The book is helpful for the perspective readers' from computer industry and academia to derive the advances of next generation communication and computational technology and shape them into real life applications.

This book presents various video processing methodologies that are useful for distance education. The motivation is to devise new multimedia technologies that are suitable for better representation of instructional videos by exploiting the temporal redundancies present in the original video. This solves many of the issues related to the memory and bandwidth limitation of lecture videos. The various methods described in the book focus on a key-frame based approach which is used to time shrink, repackage and retarget instructional videos. All the methods need a preprocessing step of shot detection and recognition, which is separately given as a chapter. We find those frames which are well-written and distinct as key-frames. A super-resolution based image enhancement scheme is suggested for refining the key-frames for better legibility. These key-frames, along with the audio and a meta-data for the mutual linkage among various media components form a repackaged lecture video, which on a programmed playback, render an estimate of the original video but at a substantially compressed form. The book also presents a legibility retentive retargeting of this instructional media on mobile devices with limited display size. All these technologies contribute to the enhancement of the outreach of distance education programs. Distance education is now a big business with an annual turnover of over 10-12 billion dollars. We expect this to increase rapidly. Use of the proposed technology will help deliver educational videos to those who are less endowed in terms of network bandwidth availability and to those everywhere who are even on a move by delivering it effectively to mobile handsets (including PDAs). Thus, technology developers, practitioners, and content providers will find the material very useful.

The book presents findings, views and ideas on what exact problems of image processing, pattern recognition and generation can be efficiently solved by cellular automata architectures. This volume provides a convenient collection in this area, in which publications are otherwise widely scattered throughout the literature. The topics covered include image compression and resizing; skeletonization, erosion and dilation; convex hull computation, edge detection and segmentation; forgery detection and content based retrieval; and pattern generation.

The book advances the theory of image processing, pattern recognition and generation as well as the design of efficient algorithms and hardware for parallel image processing and analysis. It is aimed at computer scientists, software programmers, electronic engineers, mathematicians and physicists, and at everyone who studies or develops cellular automaton algorithms and tools for image processing and analysis, or develops novel architectures and implementations of massive parallel computing devices.

The book will provide attractive reading for a general audience because it has do-it-yourself appeal: all the computer experiments presented within it can be implemented with minimal knowledge of programming. The simplicity yet substantial functionality of the cellular automaton approach, and the transparency of the algorithms proposed, makes the text ideal supplementary reading for courses on image processing, parallel computing, automata theory and applications."