This book takes a hemispheric approach to contemporary urban intervention, examining urban ecologies, communication technologies, and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. It argues that governmental and social regimes of control and forms of political resistance converge in speculation on disaster and that this convergence has formed a vision of urban environments in the Americas in which forms of play and imaginations of catastrophe intersect in the vertical field. Schifani explores a diverse range of resistant urban interventions, imagining the city as on the verge of or enmeshed in catastrophe. She also presents a model of ecocriticism that addresses aesthetic practices and forms of play in the urban environment. Tracing the historical roots of such tactics as well as mapping their hopes for the future will help the reader to locate the impacts of climate change not only on the physical space of the city, but also on the epistemological and aesthetic strategies that cities can help to engender. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Urban Studies, Media Studies, American Studies, Global Studies, and the broad and interdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities.

Virtual reality (VR) refers to technologies that use headsets to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that replicate a real-world environment or create an imaginary setting. VR also simulates a user's physical presence in this environment. In virtual reality, six degrees of freedom allows users to not only look around, but also to move around the virtual world and look from above, below or behind objects. To have a true VR experience, the hardware must provide six degrees of freedom, using both orientation tracking (rotational) and positional tracking (translation). This book is addressed to video experts who want to understand the basics of 3D representations and multi-camera video processing to target new immersive media applications. Unlike single camera video coding, future VR technologies address new challenges that arise beyond compression-only, including the pre- and post-processing (depth acquisition and 3D rendering). This book is inspired by the MPEG-I (immersive media) and JPEG-PLENO (plenoptic media) standardization activities, and offers a glimpse of their underlying technologies.

This unique survey of the career of Michael Dudok de Wit discusses all of his works and offers a glimpse into his private life. The biography of this European master of 2D animation, born in the Netherlands and based in London, is the first complete overview of the well-defined and canonic opus of this humble genius. Visually and thematically, Dudok de Wit's poetic and singular style of animation differs from the rest of contemporary independent animation production. This book reveals what still challenges and thrills Dudok de Wit in the art of animation and why he persistently continues to believe in the beauty of hand-drawn animation. Key Features The complete animation production of Michael Dudok de Wit, never-before reviewed in one volume An all-embracing approach regarding this auteur, unavailable elsewhere in one place (his biography, his peculiar method of work, his extracurricular activities) An ad hoc glossary of animation written by Michael Dudok de Wit and a critical reception of his body of work with a wide contribution of his colleagues and collaborators Filmography and bibliography Author Andrijana Ruzic graduated in History and Criticism of Art at the Universita degli Studi in Milan, Italy, where she fell in love with the medium of animation. She specialised in the History of Animated Film under Giannalberto Bendazzi's mentorship. For the past six years, she has curated the section dedicated to animated films at the International Comics Festival in Belgrade, Serbia. She is a member of the Selection Board of Animafest Scanner, the symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies at the World Festival of Animated Film held annually in Zagreb, Croatia. She writes about animation and art for the Belgrade weekly magazine Vreme.

This book presents revised versions of the best papers selected from the symposium Mathematical Progress in Expressive Image Synthesis (MEIS2013) held in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2013. The topics cover various areas of computer graphics (CG), such as surface deformation/editing, character animation, visual simulation of fluids, texture and sound synthesis and photorealistic rendering. From a mathematical point of view, the book also presents papers addressing discrete differential geometry, Lie theory, computational fluid dynamics, function interpolation and learning theory. This book showcases the latest joint efforts between mathematicians, CG researchers and practitioners exploring important issues in graphics and visual perception.The book provides a valuable resource for all computer graphics researchers seeking open problem areas, especially those now entering the field who have not yet selected a research direction."

Describes the operating principles of analog MOS integrated circuits and how to design and use such circuits. The initial section explores general properties of analog MOS integrated circuits and the math and physics background required. The remainder of the book is devoted to the design of circuits. Includes such devices as switched-capacitor filters, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, amplifiers, modulators, oscillators, and others. Tables and numerical design examples clarify the step-by-step processes involved.

This book is a result of a workshop, the 8th of the successful TopoInVis workshop series, held in 2019 in Nykoeping, Sweden. The workshop regularly gathers some of the world's leading experts in this field. Thereby, it provides a forum for discussions on the latest advances in the field with a focus on finding practical solutions to open problems in topological data analysis for visualization. The contributions provide introductory and novel research articles including new concepts for the analysis of multivariate and time-dependent data, robust computational approaches for the extraction and approximations of topological structures with theoretical guarantees, and applications of topological scalar and vector field analysis for visualization. The applications span a wide range of scientific areas comprising climate science, material sciences, fluid dynamics, and astronomy. In addition, community efforts with respect to joint software development are reported and discussed.

A definitive guide to contemporary video game studies, this second edition has been fully revised and updated to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies. Expertly compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, the Companion includes comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games, new perspectives on video games both as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games, and accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games. Brand new to this second edition are essays examining topics such as preservation, augmented, mixed and virtual reality, eSports, disability, diversity, and identity, as well as a new section that specifically examines the industrial aspects of video games including digital distribution, game labor, triple-A games, indie games, and globalization. Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. A comprehensive overview of the present state of video game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to students, scholars, and game designers alike.

This anthology contributes to creating awareness on how digital ageism operates in relation to the widely spread symbolic representations of old and young age, the (lack of) representation of diverse older individuals in the design, development, and discourses and in the actual algorithms and datasets. It also shows how individuals and institutions deal with digital ageism in everyday life. In the past decades, digital technologies permeated most aspects of everyday life and became ingrained into human existence. With a focus on how age is represented and experienced in relation to digital technologies leading to digital ageism, digitalisation's reinforcement of spirals of exclusion and loss of autonomy of some collectives is explored, when it could be natural for a great part of society and represent a sort of improvement. The book addresses social science students and scholars interested in everyday digital technologies, society and the power struggles about it, providing insights from different parts of the globe. By using different methods and touching upon different aspects of digital ageism and how it plays out in contemporary connected data societies, this volume will raise awareness, challenge power, initiate discussions and spur further research into this field.

Biomedical signals provide unprecedented insight into abnormal or anomalous neurological conditions. The computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system plays a key role in detecting neurological abnormalities and improving diagnosis and treatment consistency in medicine. This book covers different aspects of biomedical signals-based systems used in the automatic detection/identification of neurological disorders. Several biomedical signals are introduced and analyzed, including electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate (HR), magnetoencephalogram (MEG), and electromyogram (EMG). It explains the role of the CAD system in processing biomedical signals and the application to neurological disorder diagnosis. The book provides the basics of biomedical signal processing, optimization methods, and machine learning/deep learning techniques used in designing CAD systems for neurological disorders.

Fourier Vision provides a new treatment of figure-ground segmentation in scenes comprising transparent, translucent, or opaque objects. Exploiting the relative motion between figure and ground, this technique deals explicitly with the separation of additive signals and makes no assumptions about the spatial or spectral content of the images, with segmentation being carried out phasor by phasor in the Fourier domain. It works with several camera configurations, such as camera motion and short-baseline binocular stereo, and performs best on images with small velocities/displacements, typically one to ten pixels per frame. The book also addresses the use of Fourier techniques to estimate stereo disparity and optical flow. Numerous examples are provided throughout. Fourier Vision will be of value to researchers in image processing & computer vision and, especially, to those who have to deal with superimposed transparent or translucent objects. Researchers in application areas such as medical imaging and acoustic signal processing will also find this of interest.

This book discusses human emotion recognition from face images using different modalities, highlighting key topics in facial expression recognition, such as the grid formation, distance signature, shape signature, texture signature, feature selection, classifier design, and the combination of signatures to improve emotion recognition. The book explains how six basic human emotions can be recognized in various face images of the same person, as well as those available from benchmark face image databases like CK+, JAFFE, MMI, and MUG. The authors present the concept of signatures for different characteristics such as distance and shape texture, and describe the use of associated stability indices as features, supplementing the feature set with statistical parameters such as range, skewedness, kurtosis, and entropy. In addition, they demonstrate that experiments with such feature choices offer impressive results, and that performance can be further improved by combining the signatures rather than using them individually. There is an increasing demand for emotion recognition in diverse fields, including psychotherapy, biomedicine, and security in government, public and private agencies. This book offers a valuable resource for researchers working in these areas.

This book introduces the basics in game usability and overall game UX mindset and techniques, as well as looking at current industry best practices and trends. Fully updated for its second edition, it includes practical advice on how to include usability in already tight development timelines, and how to advocate for UX and communicate results to higher-ups effectively. The book begins with an introduction to UX strategy considerations for games, and to UX design, before moving on to cover core user research and usability techniques as well as how to fit UX practices into the business process. It provides considerations of player differences and offers strategies for inclusion as well as chapters that give platform and context specific advice. With a wealth of new interviews with industry leaders and contributions from the very best in game UX, the book also includes brand new chapters on: Accessibility Mobile Game Usability Data Science Virtual and Augmented Reality Esports This book will be vital reading for all professional game developers and game UX advocates, as well as those students aspiring to work in game development and game UX.

"Biometrics andKansei Engineering "is the first book to bring together the principles and applications of each discipline. The future of biometrics is in need of new technologies that can depend on people's emotions and the prediction of their intention to take an action. Behavioral biometrics studies the way people walk, talk, and express their emotions, and Kansei Engineering focuses on interactions between users, products/services and product psychology. They are becoming quite complementary.

This book also introduces biometric applications in our environment, which further illustrates the close relationship between Biometrics and Kansei Engineering. Examples and case studies are provided throughout this book.

"Biometrics and Kansei Engineering "is designed as a reference book for professionals working in these related fields. Advanced-level students and researchers studying computer science and engineering will find this book useful as a reference or secondary text book as well. "

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.

Semantic Video Object Segmentation for Content-Based Multimedia Applications provides a thorough review of state-of-the-art techniques as well as describing several novel ideas and algorithms for semantic object extraction from image sequences. Semantic object extraction is an essential element in content-based multimedia services, such as the newly developed MPEG4 and MPEG7 standards. An interactive system called SIVOG (Smart Interactive Video Object Generation) is presented, which converts user's semantic input into a form that can be conveniently integrated with low-level video processing. Thus, high-level semantic information and low-level video features are integrated seamlessly into a smart segmentation system. A region and temporal adaptive algorithm was further proposed to improve the efficiency of the SIVOG system so that it is feasible to achieve nearly real-time video object segmentation with robust and accurate performances. Also included is an examination of the shape coding problem and the object segmentation problem simultaneously. Semantic Video Object Segmentation for Content-Based Multimedia Applications will be of great interest to research scientists and graduate-level students working in the area of content-based multimedia representation and applications and its related fields.

This book covers all main aspects of guidance information processing technologies for airborne optical imaging seekers, including theoretical models; image pre-processing; automatic target detection, recognition and tracking; and embedded real-time processing systems. The book is divided into three major sections: firstly, a theoretical model for optical-seeker information processing is introduced; then information processing methods are presented, including target modeling, online image pre-processing, typical surface fixed-target detection and recognition, and moving-target detection and recognition; lastly, embedded real-time processing systems are introduced, including new system architectures, image processing ASIC/SoC design, embedded real-time operating systems, system implementation aspects, and system testing and evaluation technologies. The book offers a unique and valuable resource, helping readers understand both fundamental and advanced information processing technologies employed in airborne optical imaging seekers.

3D rotation analysis is widely encountered in everyday problems thanks to the development of computers. Sensing 3D using cameras and sensors, analyzing and modeling 3D for computer vision and computer graphics, and controlling and simulating robot motion all require 3D rotation computation. This book focuses on the computational analysis of 3D rotation, rather than classical motion analysis. It regards noise as random variables and models their probability distributions. It also pursues statistically optimal computation for maximizing the expected accuracy, as is typical of nonlinear optimization. All concepts are illustrated using computer vision applications as examples. Mathematically, the set of all 3D rotations forms a group denoted by SO(3). Exploiting this group property, we obtain an optimal solution analytical or numerically, depending on the problem. Our numerical scheme, which we call the "Lie algebra method," is based on the Lie group structure of SO(3). This book also proposes computing projects for readers who want to code the theories presented in this book, describing necessary 3D simulation setting as well as providing real GPS 3D measurement data. To help readers not very familiar with abstract mathematics, a brief overview of quaternion algebra, matrix analysis, Lie groups, and Lie algebras is provided as Appendix at the end of the volume.

Congruences are ubiquitous in computer science, engineering, mathematics, and related areas. Developing techniques for finding (the number of) solutions of congruences is an important problem. But there are many scenarios in which we are interested in only a subset of the solutions; in other words, there are some restrictions. What do we know about these restricted congruences, their solutions, and applications? This book introduces the tools that are needed when working on restricted congruences and then systematically studies a variety of restricted congruences. Restricted Congruences in Computing defines several types of restricted congruence, obtains explicit formulae for the number of their solutions using a wide range of tools and techniques, and discusses their applications in cryptography, information security, information theory, coding theory, string theory, quantum field theory, parallel computing, artificial intelligence, computational biology, discrete mathematics, number theory, and more. This is the first book devoted to restricted congruences and their applications. It will be of interest to graduate students and researchers across computer science, electrical engineering, and mathematics.

Working with Sound is an exploration of the ever-changing working practices of audio development in the era of hybrid collaboration in the games industry. Through learnings from the pre-pandemic remote and isolated worlds of audio work, sound designers, composers and dialogue designers find themselves equipped uniquely to thrive in the hybrid, remote, and studio-based realms of today's fast-evolving working landscapes. With unique insights into navigating the worlds of isolation and collaboration, this book explores ways of thinking and working in this world, equipping the reader with inspiration to sustainably tackle the many stages of the development process. Working with Sound is an essential guide for professionals working in dynamic audio teams of all sizes, as well as the designers, producers, artists, animators and programmers who collaborate closely with their colleagues working on game audio and sound.

Computer vision falls short of human vision in two respects: execution time and intelligent interpretation. This book addresses the question of execution time. It is based on a workshop on specialized processors for real-time image analysis, held as part of the activities of an ESPRIT Basic Research Action, the Working Group on Vision. The aim of the book is to examine the state of the art in vision-oriented computers. Two approaches are distinguished: multiprocessor systems and fine-grain massively parallel computers. The development of fine-grain machines has become more important over the last decade, but one of the main conclusions of the workshop is that this does not imply the replacement of multiprocessor machines. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 introduces different architectures for vision: associative and pyramid processors as examples of fine-grain machines and a workstation with bus-oriented network topology as an example of a multiprocessor system. Parts 2 and 3 deal with the design and development of dedicated and specialized architectures. Part 4 is mainly devoted to applications, including road segmentation, mobile robot guidance and navigation, reconstruction and identification of 3D objects, and motion estimation.

The Game Music Toolbox provides readers with the tools, models and techniques to create and expand a compositional toolbox, through a collection of 20 iconic case studies taken from different eras of game music. Discover many of the composition and production techniques behind popular music themes from games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Mario Kart 8, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II, Diablo, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, and many others. The Game Music Toolbox features: Exclusive interviews from industry experts Transcriptions and harmonic analyses 101 music theory introductions for beginners Career development ideas and strategies Copyright and business fundamentals An introduction to audio implementation for composers Practical takeaway tasks to equip readers with techniques for their own game music The Game Music Toolbox is crucial reading for game music composers and audio professionals of all backgrounds, as well as undergraduates looking to forge a career in the video game industry.

Each Game Mechanisms Entry Contains: The definition of the mechanism An explanatory diagram of the mechanism Discussion of how the mechanism is used in successful games Considerations for implementing the mechanism in new designs

The text covers recent advances in artificial intelligence, smart computing, and their applications in augmenting medical and health care systems. It will serve as an ideal reference text for graduate students and academic researchers in diverse engineering fields including electrical, electronics and communication, computer, and biomedical. The book- Presents architecture, characteristics, and applications of artificial intelligence and smart computing in health care systems Highlight privacy issues faced in health care and health informatics using artificial intelligence and smart computing technologies. Discusses nature-inspired computing algorithms for the brain-computer interface. Covers graph neural network application in the medical domain. Provides insights into the state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence and Smart Computing enabling and emerging technologies. This book text discusses recent advances and applications of artificial intelligence and smart technologies in the field of healthcare. It highlights privacy issues faced in health care and health informatics using artificial intelligence and smart computing technologies. It covers nature-inspired computing algorithms such as genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization algorithms, and common scrambling algorithms to study brain-computer interfaces. It will serve as an ideal reference text for graduate students and academic researchers in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics and communication engineering, computer engineering, and biomedical engineering.

This textbook is designed for postgraduate studies in the field of 3D Computer Vision. It also provides a useful reference for industrial practitioners; for example, in the areas of 3D data capture, computer-aided geometric modelling and industrial quality assurance. This second edition is a significant upgrade of existing topics with novel findings. Additionally, it has new material covering consumer-grade RGB-D cameras, 3D morphable models, deep learning on 3D datasets, as well as new applications in the 3D digitization of cultural heritage and the 3D phenotyping of crops. Overall, the book covers three main areas: 3D imaging, including passive 3D imaging, active triangulation 3D imaging, active time-of-flight 3D imaging, consumer RGB-D cameras, and 3D data representation and visualisation; 3D shape analysis, including local descriptors, registration, matching, 3D morphable models, and deep learning on 3D datasets; and 3D applications, including 3D face recognition, cultural heritage and 3D phenotyping of plants. 3D computer vision is a rapidly advancing area in computer science. There are many real-world applications that demand high-performance 3D imaging and analysis and, as a result, many new techniques and commercial products have been developed. However, many challenges remain on how to analyse the captured data in a way that is sufficiently fast, robust and accurate for the application. Such challenges include metrology, semantic segmentation, classification and recognition. Thus, 3D imaging, analysis and their applications remain a highly-active research field that will continue to attract intensive attention from the research community with the ultimate goal of fully automating the 3D data capture, analysis and inference pipeline.

The book augurs to be a mix of theoretical and practical perceptions of the related concepts pertaining to image processing. The primary objectives orient to offer an overview to the elementary concepts and practices appropriate to DIP as well as to provide theoretical exposition. It starts with an expanded coverage of the fundamentals to provide a more comprehensive and cohesive coverage of the topics including but not limited to: Applications and tools for image processing, fundamentals with several implementation examples Concepts of image formation, OpenCV installation with step-by-step screen shots Concepts behind intensity, brightness and contrast, color models Ways by which noises are created in an image and the possible remedial measures Edge detection, Image segmentation, classification, regression, Classification algorithms Importance of frequency domain in image processing field Relevant code snippets and the MATLAB codes, several interesting set of simple programs in OpenCV and Python to aid learning and for complete understanding The video lectures for specific topics through YouTube by the authors enable easy inference for the readers to apply the learnt theory into practice. The addition of contents at the end of each chapter such as quiz, review questions etc., fully prepares the readers for further study. Graduate Students, Post Graduate students, Researchers, and anyone in general interested in Image Processing, Computer Vision, Machine Learning domains etc. can find this book an excellent starting point for information and as an able ally.