3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Autodesk Maya is a hands-on academic textbook as well as a do-it-yourself training manual for the individual animator. This second edition has been completely rewritten to take into account updates to Autodesk Maya, including Autodesk's renderer, Arnold. It contains entirely new examples and tutorial lessons. All 612 images are in full color. The book directs the reader to the parts of Maya that must be mastered in order to create complete 3D projects, and thus it simplifies the process of taking on Maya's vast and intricate interface, while giving the reader a firm foundation on which to build future knowledge of Maya. It also presents brief examples of other popular 3D applications and rendering engines. This principles-based, yet pragmatic book: Introduces the basic steps of the 3D modeling, materials, animation, lighting, and rendering processes. Presents clear and concise tutorials that link key concepts to practical techniques. Includes access to a webpage for the book: https://buzzking.com/AnimationTextbook/AnimationTextbook.html. On this webpage are videos that cover many of the lessons in the book, as well as video tutorials that present bonus material not included in the book. Frees instructors from the painstaking task of developing step-by-step examples to present Maya's complex interface and basic capabilities. Boasts an easy-to-follow, tutorial-based learning style ideal for individual study by aspiring animators and do-it yourselfers. Roger "Buzz" King is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he teaches 3D Animation for the Computer Science Department and the Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society (ATLAS), an institute dedicated to the application of technology to the arts. Buzz is an independent 3D animator who serves on the board of directors of a 3D animation startup. Buzz has a B.A. in Mathematics from Occidental College, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, and an M.Div. from the Iliff School of Theology. Key Features Introduces critical aspects of the 3D animation process Presents clear and concise tutorials that link key concepts to practical techniques Includes access to a dedicated Web site, http://3dbybuzz.com, featuring useful videos, lessons, and updates Frees instructors from developing step-by-step examples to present Maya's complex interface and basic Boasts an easy-to-follow, hands-on learning style ideal for individual study by aspiring animators and do-ityourselfers

This book encompasses a collection of topics covering recent advances that are important to the Arabic language in areas of natural language processing, speech and image analysis. This book presents state-of-the-art reviews and fundamentals as well as applications and recent innovations.The book chapters by top researchers present basic concepts and challenges for the Arabic language in linguistic processing, handwritten recognition, document analysis, text classification and speech processing. In addition, it reports on selected applications in sentiment analysis, annotation, text summarization, speech and font analysis, word recognition and spotting and question answering.Moreover, it highlights and introduces some novel applications in vital areas for the Arabic language. The book is therefore a useful resource for young researchers who are interested in the Arabic language and are still developing their fundamentals and skills in this area. It is also interesting for scientists who wish to keep track of the most recent research directions and advances in this area.

This book tells you how, why, and when you should perform certain audio postproduction tasks within Soundtrack Pro while editing your video in the Final Cut Studio suite. Intertwining video editing workflows with audio editing workflows for video editors using Final Cut Studio, it also describes in-depth the audio postproduction process as well as the specific tools used for editing and mixing audio within Soundtrack Pro. The final section is designed as an audio postproduction "cook-book", describing typical audio post scenarios with detailed workflows for dealing with them. The book provides real-world workflows and step-by-step instruction on the basics of audio editing in STP, implementing sound effects, spectral tools and much more. Also included are downloadable resources containing both video and audio files, demonstrating surround sound, mixing procedures, and other audio editing processes. Included as well are project files with which you can refine techniques learned in the book.

Content protection and digital rights management (DRM) are fields that receive a lot of attention: content owners require systems that protect and maximize their revenues; consumers want backwards compatibility, while they fear that content owners will spy on their viewing habits; and academics are afraid that DRM may be a barrier to knowledge sharing. DRM technologies have a poor reputation and are not yet trusted. This book describes the key aspects of content protection and DRM systems, the objective being to demystify the technology and techniques. In the first part of the book, the author builds the foundations, with sections that cover the rationale for protecting digital video content; video piracy; current toolboxes that employ cryptography, watermarking, tamper resistance, and rights expression languages; different ways to model video content protection; and DRM. In the second part, he describes the main existing deployed solutions, including video ecosystems; how video is protected in broadcasting; descriptions of DRM systems, such as Microsoft's DRM and Apple's FairPlay; techniques for protecting prerecorded content distributed using DVDs or Blu-ray; and future methods used to protect content within the home network. The final part of the book looks towards future research topics, and the key problem of interoperability. While the book focuses on protecting video content, the DRM principles and technologies described are also used to protect many other types of content, such as ebooks, documents and games. The book will be of value to industrial researchers and engineers developing related technologies, academics and students in information security, cryptography and media systems, and engaged consumers.

This book deals with two fundamental issues in the semiotics of the image. The first is the relationship between image and observer: how does one look at an image? To answer this question, this book sets out to transpose the theory of enunciation formulated in linguistics over to the visual field. It also aims to clarify the gains made in contemporary visual semiotics relative to the semiology of Roland Barthes and Emile Benveniste. The second issue addressed is the relation between the forces, forms and materiality of the images. How do different physical mediums (pictorial, photographic and digital) influence visual forms? How does materiality affect the generativity of forms? On the forces within the images, the book addresses the philosophical thought of Gilles Deleuze and Rene Thom as well as the experiment of Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne. The theories discussed in the book are tested on a variety of corpora for analysis, including both paintings and photographs, taken from traditional as well as contemporary sources in a variety of social sectors (arts and sciences). Finally, semiotic methodology is contrasted with the computational analysis of large collections of images (Big Data), such as the "Media Visualization" analyses proposed by Lev Manovich and Cultural Analytics in the field of Computer Science to evaluate the impact of automatic analysis of visual forms on Digital Art History and more generally on the image sciences.

The Book presents an overview of newly developed watermarking techniques in various independent and hybrid domains Covers the basics of digital watermarking, its types, domain in which it is implemented and the application of machine learning algorithms onto digital watermarking Reviews hardware implementation of watermarking Discusses optimization problems and solutions in watermarking with a special focus on bio-inspired algorithms Includes a case study along with its MATLAB code and simulation results

Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting UX Metrics, Third Edition provides the quantitative analysis training that students and professionals need. This book presents an update on the first resource that focused on how to quantify user experience. Now in its third edition, the authors have expanded on the area of behavioral and physiological metrics, splitting that chapter into sections that cover eye-tracking and measuring emotion. The book also contains new research and updated examples, several new case studies, and new examples using the most recent version of Excel.

Cogs, cranks, wheels, plates, chains, springs and pistons - a nightmare for animators. This book shows 3D artists how to create, setup, control and automate movements for complex and technically challenging mechanical structures all while working on a super-detailed steampunk train! This book will specifically implement current industry trends and techniques for animated mechanical structures. We will be using Autodesk 3ds Max only, with no plugins and no additional software required. Readers will close out this book with a completed steampunk train for their portfolios and practical knowledge to combat other tricky hard-surface rigging and animation challenges. Key Features This is the only book available for mechanical setups in Autodesk 3ds Max. Although 3ds Max specific, the techniques and foundations will work for any 3D application. By following the step-by-step guides in this book, you can finish and complete a portfolio-ready steampunk train. Each chapter will include an introduction and a summary, giving significance to the start and end of each section where readers can rest! Boxed step-by-step guides will be used for the creation of technical setups in 3ds Max. A "Memory Refresh" section is included in each chapter, this gives short and quick reminders for the stages needed to complete the chapter setup - helpful as a reference guide for those that have already read the book and just need a reminder, saving them time as they won't have to re-read the whole thing!

The purpose of this volume is to present current work of the Intelligent Computer Graphics community, a community growing up year after year. This volume is a kind of continuation of the previously published Springer volume "Artificial Int- ligence Techniques for Computer Graphics". Nowadays, intelligent techniques are more and more used in Computer Graphics in order, not only to optimise the pr- essing time, but also to find more accurate solutions for a lot of Computer Gra- ics problems, than with traditional methods. What are intelligent techniques for Computer Graphics? Mainly, they are te- niques based on Artificial Intelligence. So, problem resolution (especially constraint satisfaction) techniques, as well as evolutionary techniques, are used in Declarative scene Modelling; heuristic search techniques, as well as strategy games techniques, are currently used in scene understanding and in virtual world exploration; multi-agent techniques and evolutionary algorithms are used in behavioural animation; and so on. However, even if in most cases the used intelligent techniques are due to Artificial - telligence, sometimes, simple human intelligence can find interesting solutions in cases where traditional Computer Graphics techniques, even combined with Artificial Intelligence ones, cannot propose any satisfactory solution. A good example of such a case is the one of scene understanding, in the case where several parts of the scene are impossible to access.

The purpose of this book is to look over the past 35 years of games to discuss titles whose design deserves to be studied by anyone with an interest in game design. While there are plenty of books that focus on the technical side of Game Development, there are few that study the nature of game design itself. Featuring a mix of console and PC offerings, I purposely left off some of the easy choices (Mario, Starcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch) to focus on games that stood out thanks to their designs. Key Features An informative breakdown focusing on the design and gameplay of successful games Written to be useful for students or designers starting out in game development Books focused specifically on design are rare Perfect for students and professionals alike, or can be read for the nostalgia and history

"Blind Signal Processing: Theory and Practice" not only introduces related fundamental mathematics, but also reflects the numerous advances in the field, such as probability density estimation-based processing algorithms, underdetermined models, complex value methods, uncertainty of order in the separation of convolutive mixtures in frequency domains, and feature extraction using Independent Component Analysis (ICA). At the end of the book, results from a study conducted at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the areas of speech signal processing, underwater signals, image feature extraction, data compression, and the like are discussed.

This book will be of particular interest to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, university instructors and research scientists in related disciplines. Xizhi Shi is a Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Inspection is crucial to the management of ageing infrastructure. Visual information on structures is regularly collected but very little work exists on its organised and quantitative analysis, even though image processing can significantly enhance these inspection processes and transfer real financial and safety benefits to the managers, owners and users. Additionally, new opportunities exist in the fast evolving sectors of wind and wave energy to add value to image-based inspection techniques. This book is a first for structural engineers and inspectors who wish to harness the full potential of cameras as an inspection tool. It is particularly directed to the inspection of offshore and marine structures and the application of image-based methods in underwater inspections. It outlines a set of best practice guidelines for obtaining imagery, then the fundamentals of image processing are covered along with several image processing techniques which can be used to assess multiple damage forms: crack detection, corrosion detection, and depth analysis of marine growth on offshore structures. The book provides benchmark performance measures for these techniques under various visibility conditions using an image repository which will help inspectors to envisage the effectiveness of the techniques when applied. MATLAB (R) scripts and access to the underwater image repository are included so readers can run these techniques themselves. Practising engineers and managers of infrastructure assets are guided in image processing based inspection. Researchers can use this book as a primer, and it also suits advanced graduate courses in infrastructure management or on applied image processing.

The Game Audio Strategy Guide is a comprehensive text designed to turn both novices and experienced audio designers into technical game audio pros. Providing both a theoretical foundation and practical insights, The Game Audio Strategy Guide offers a thorough look at the tools and methods needed to create industry-quality music and sound design for games. The text is supported by an extensive companion website, featuring numerous practical tutorials and exercises, which allows the reader to gain hands-on experience creating and implementing audio assets for games. The Game Audio Strategy Guide is the essential manual for anyone interested in creating audio for games, inside or outside the classroom.

Edited by a renowned international expert in the field, Nuclear Medicine Physics offers an up-to-date, state-of-the-art account of the physics behind the theoretical foundation and applications of nuclear medicine. It covers important physical aspects of the methods and instruments involved in modern nuclear medicine, along with related biological topics. The book first discusses the physics of and machines for producing radioisotopes suitable for use in conventional nuclear medicine and PET. After focusing on positron physics and the applications of positrons in medicine and biology, it describes the use of radiopharmaceuticals in molecular imaging, clinical, and research studies. The text then covers modern radiation detectors and measuring methods, including those used in nuclear imaging, as well as numerous imaging methodologies and models, such as two- and three-dimensional image reconstruction algorithms, data processing sequences, new nuclear oncology techniques, and physiological models of the central nervous system. It also introduces biological systems theory, nuclear medicine methods as systems theory procedures, and aspects of kinetic modeling. The final chapter explores dosimetry and the biological effects of ionizing radiation. With many new developments occurring in nuclear medicine, it is important to understand how advanced approaches are being used in emerging applications. Offering invaluable insight into this growth, Nuclear Medicine Physics provides in-depth descriptions of new radiolabeled biological drugs, new cell labeling techniques, new technical concepts in radiation detection, improvements in instrumentation, and much more.

This volume offers a valuable starting point for anyone interested in learning computational diffusion MRI and mathematical methods for brain connectivity, while also sharing new perspectives and insights on the latest research challenges for those currently working in the field. Over the last decade, interest in diffusion MRI has virtually exploded. The technique provides unique insights into the microstructure of living tissue and enables in-vivo connectivity mapping of the brain. Computational techniques are key to the continued success and development of diffusion MRI and to its widespread transfer into the clinic, while new processing methods are essential to addressing issues at each stage of the diffusion MRI pipeline: acquisition, reconstruction, modeling and model fitting, image processing, fiber tracking, connectivity mapping, visualization, group studies and inference. These papers from the 2016 MICCAI Workshop "Computational Diffusion MRI" - which was intended to provide a snapshot of the latest developments within the highly active and growing field of diffusion MR - cover a wide range of topics, from fundamental theoretical work on mathematical modeling, to the development and evaluation of robust algorithms and applications in neuroscientific studies and clinical practice. The contributions include rigorous mathematical derivations, a wealth of rich, full-color visualizations, and biologically or clinically relevant results. As such, they will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of computer science, MR physics, and applied mathematics.

The compendium presents the latest results of the most prominent competitions held in the field of Document Analysis and Text Recognition. It includes a description of the participating systems and the underlying methods on one hand and the datasets used together with evaluation metrics on the other hand. This volume also demonstrates with examples, how to organize a competition and how to make it successful. It will be an indispensable handbook to the document image analysis community.

High Efficiency Video Coding and Other Emerging Standards provides an overview of high efficiency video coding (HEVC) and all its extensions and profiles. There are nearly 300 projects and problems included, and about 400 references related to HEVC alone. Next generation video coding (NGVC) beyond HEVC is also described. Other video coding standards such as AVS2, DAALA, THOR, VP9 (Google), DIRAC, VC1, and AV1 are addressed, and image coding standards such as JPEG, JPEG-LS, JPEG2000, JPEG XR, JPEG XS, JPEG XT and JPEG-Pleno are also listed. Understanding of these standards and their implementation is facilitated by overview papers, standards documents, reference software, software manuals, test sequences, source codes, tutorials, keynote speakers, panel discussions, reflector and ftp/web sites - all in the public domain. Access to these categories is also provided.

This much-needed text brings the treatment of optical pattern recognition up-to-date in one comprehensive resource. Optical pattern recognition, one of the first implementations of Fourier Optics, is now widely used, and this text provides an accessible introduction for readers who wish to get to grips with how holography is applied in a practical context. A wide range of devices are addressed from a user perspective and are accompanied with detailed tables enabling performance comparison, in addition to chapters exploring computer-generated holograms, optical correlator systems, and pattern matching algorithms. This book will appeal to both lecturers and research scientists in the field of electro-optic devices and systems. Features: Covers a range of new developments, including computer-generated holography and 3D image recognition Accessible without a range of prior knowledge, providing a clear exposition of technically difficult concepts Contains extensive examples throughout to reinforce learning

Creative solutions without the filler. That is what you get from this practical guide to enhancing your titles, motion graphics and visual effects with Motion. Step-by-step instruction is concisely described and lavishly illustrated. The downloadable resources show the techniques at work so you can take them and run.

This book presents the theoretical basis and applications of biomedical signal analysis and processing. Initially, the nature of the most common biomedical signals, such as electroencephalography, electromyography, electrocardiography and others, is described. The theoretical basis of linear signal processing is summarized, with continuous and discrete representation, linear filters and convolutions, Fourier and Wavelets transforms. Machine learning concepts are also presented, from classic methods to deep neural networks. Finally, several applications in neuroscience are presented and discussed, involving diagnosis and therapy, in addition to other applications. Features: Explains signal processing of neuroscience applications using modern data science techniques. Provides comprehensible review on biomedical signals nature and acquisition aspects. Focusses on selected applications of neurosciences, cardiovascular, muscle related biomedical areas. Includes computational intelligence, machine learning and biomedical signal processing and analysis. Reviews theoretical basis of deep learning and state-of-the-art biomedical signal processing and analysis. This book is aimed at researchers, graduate students in biomedical signal processing, signal processing, electrical engineering, neuroscience, and computer science.

Game Devs & Others: Tales from the Margins tell the true stories of life in the industry by people of color, LGBTQIA and other marginalized identities. This collection of essays give people a chance to tell their stories and to let others know what life on the other side of the screen is like when you're not part of the supposed "majority". Key Features This book is perfect for anyone interested in getting into the games industry who feels they have a marginalized identity For those who wish to better diversify their studio or workplace who may or may not have access to individuals that could or would share their stories about the industry Includes initiatives aimed at diversifying the industry that have a positive or negative impact on the ongoing discussions Coverage of ajor news items about diversity, conferences aimed at or having diversity at its core of content and mission are discussed Included essays are written with as little game dev specific jargon as possible, makeing it accessible to people outside the industry as well as those in the scene but that may not have all the insider lingo

Autoethnography allows researchers to make sense of the 'ethno' - the cultural - by studying their own experiences - the 'auto'. It links the self to the cultural, allowing for an inductive grounding of theoretical insight into researchers' lived experiences. But what happens when the culture that we research is not conventionally or entirely our 'own'? What happens when our culture does not neatly conceptualise the 'auto' as an individual, Western self? And does autoethnographic writing risk reducing cultural 'Others' if we cannot help but see them through 'imperial eyes'? Questions of Culture in Autoethnography showcases how cross-cultural autoethnographies might be done effectively, ethically, and reflectively. Chapters include: identity work among Tibetans in India and among the descendants of Spanish conquistadores in Appalachia; insider/outsider identities in myriad contexts from Mexico to Japan; embodied (gendered, raced, sized) intercultural experiences from Samoa to Aotearoa/New Zealand and from Canada to Malawi; and language stories from Korea to Singapore and from Somalia to Australia. It also explores cultural Otherness within 'a' culture, including researchers' accounts of working with Indigenous Australians, of contesting mainstream cultural narratives from a body positive perspective, and as a US American man in New Zealand's 'bloke culture', only seemingly sharing the same English-language-speaking, 'Western' culture. For all scholars of qualitative methods and autoethnography, the book has a dual purpose - to show and to tell. It presents evocative autoethnographies of and about 'culture', as it is variously understood, and discusses the issues inherent in autoethnographic writing.

Television News is a comprehensive resource for newswriting, reporting, shooting and editing video, and producing a newscast. This book provides instruction in the basic steps of telling video stories, and is perfectly suited for preparing young professionals for entry-level positions as television or multimedia journalists. Moreover, the text goes to the heart of storytelling with guidance appropriate for advancement in an industry that is challenged more than ever to retain the public trust. The reporting and video storytelling skills found in this book can also be applied in non-traditional video communication jobs in both businesses and nonprofits. Conversational and easy to understand, this book grounds readers in the ethical and legal consideration necessary to do the job right. New to the fourth edition is coverage of social media, shooting and broadcasting with cell phones, and a discussion of "fake news." This book can be used in standalone introductory broadcast courses or across multiple, specialized modules. It features a website with ancillary material that helps students learn to write, shoot, and edit video with practical activities.

Highlights the Emergence of Image Processing in Food and Agriculture In addition to uses specifically related to health and other industries, biological imaging is now being used for a variety of applications in food and agriculture. Bio-Imaging: Principles, Techniques, and Applications fully details and outlines the processes of bio-imaging applicable to food and agriculture, and connects other bio-industries, as well as relevant topics. Due to the noncontact and nondestructive nature of the technology, biological imaging uses unaltered samples, and allows for internal quality evaluation and the detection of defects. Compared to conventional methods, biological imaging produces results that are more consistent and reliable, and can ensure quality monitoring for a variety of practices used in food and agriculture industries as well as many other biological industries. The book highlights every imaging technique available along with their components, image acquisition procedures, advantages, and comparisons to other approaches. Describes essential components of imaging technique in great detail Incorporates case studies in appropriate chapters Contains a wide range of applications from a number of biological fields Bio-Imaging: Principles, Techniques, and Applications focuses on the imaging techniques for biological materials and the application of biological imaging. This technology, which is quickly becoming a standard practice in agriculture and food-related industries, can aid in enhanced process efficiency, quality assurance, and food safety management overall.