This book takes a real-world, in-depth journey through the game-design process, from the initial blue sky sessions to pitching for a green light. The author discusses the decision and brainstorming phase, character development and story wrap, creation of content and context outlines, flowcharting game play, and creating design documents. Special features include examples of both classic and contemporary games, and interviews with many of the game industry's brightest professionals who share their insights on key elements in game design, and their analysis on what makes a game a blockbuster hit. This book is a perfect guide for the novice, student, and game enthusiast interested in learning the nuts and bolts of the computer-game industry.

Photoshop is not just for photographers anymore. Photoshop 3D for Animators is one of the only titles available that discusses 3D Photoshop techniques specifically for animators. Now with Adobe CS5, 3D Digital artists can integrate 3D models into Photoshop or create 3D models in Photoshop with the high capability to customize, edit and animate. With Photoshop 3D for Animators, explore the new 3D tools and techniques that will enhance your animation pipeline and workflows with the Adobe Suite softwares, including After Effects and Flash. Explore the ins and outs of Adobe Photoshop and expand your 3D expertise with the comprehensive guide to Adobe 3D toolset for animators. Customize Adobe CS5 tools for your specific, animation workflow and integrate your 3D models with Adobe Flash and the entire Adobe Suite platform with ease. Learn to manipulate 3D images as well as import 3D content from the Adobe creative suite. With in-depth, step-by-step tutorials, explore lighting, digital painting, texturing and rendering for 2D and 3D the power of Adobe Photoshop software. Enhance your digital workflow and expand your expertise with this hands-on guide to Photoshop CS5. Includes downloadable resources with source files, working samples and models.

This book presents in a systematic manner the advanced technologies used for various modern robot applications. By bringing fresh ideas, new concepts, novel methods and tools into robot control, robot vision, human robot interaction, teleoperation of robot and multiple robots system, we are to provide a state-of-the-art and comprehensive treatment of the advanced technologies for a wide range of robotic applications. Particularly, we focus on the topics of advanced control and obstacle avoidance techniques for robot to deal with unknown perturbations, of visual servoing techniques which enable robot to autonomously operate in a dynamic environment, and of advanced techniques involved in human robot interaction. The book is primarily intended for researchers and engineers in the robotic and control community. It can also serve as complementary reading for robotics at the both graduate and undergraduate levels.

With the constant increase in applications involving image processing and multimedia procedures digital signal processing (DSP) is important for modern information engineering. One- and Multidimensional Signal Processing provides an introduction to the algorithmic basics of image and TV communication systems as well as for systems in automation and robotic applications using sensor based imaging techniques. This novel combination of both one- and multidimensional signal processing discusses the similarities between the two and aids the understanding of one theory over the other.
* Presents an applications-oriented approach to image processing including TV signal processing and discusses image scanning and the use of DSP procedures or digital filters
* Provides clear and comprehensive coverage of basic concepts such as spatial frequency, spatio-temporal signal processing and the spectral representation of motion and tracking of moving objects
* Features examples of applications including image pick-up and display as well as still image filtering and image sequence interpolation
* Introduces new design strategies for finite-impulse response (FIR) filters for image processing applciations using spatial and frequency design constraints
* Includes an introduction to nonlinear image processing techniques applying edge detection operators, morphological operators and rank order filters
Such a practical book will have wide-ranging appeal as a valuable resource for researchers and developers and as an ideal introductory text for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Focusing on mathematical methods in computer tomography, Image Processing: Tensor Transform and Discrete Tomography with MATLAB (R) introduces novel approaches to help in solving the problem of image reconstruction on the Cartesian lattice. Specifically, it discusses methods of image processing along parallel rays to more quickly and accurately reconstruct images from a finite number of projections, thereby avoiding overradiation of the body during a computed tomography (CT) scan. The book presents several new ideas, concepts, and methods, many of which have not been published elsewhere. New concepts include methods of transferring the geometry of rays from the plane to the Cartesian lattice, the point map of projections, the particle and its field function, and the statistical model of averaging. The authors supply numerous examples, MATLAB (R)-based programs, end-of-chapter problems, and experimental results of implementation. The main approach for image reconstruction proposed by the authors differs from existing methods of back-projection, iterative reconstruction, and Fourier and Radon filtering. In this book, the authors explain how to process each projection by a system of linear equations, or linear convolutions, to calculate the corresponding part of the 2-D tensor or paired transform of the discrete image. They then describe how to calculate the inverse transform to obtain the reconstruction. The proposed models for image reconstruction from projections are simple and result in more accurate reconstructions. Introducing a new theory and methods of image reconstruction, this book provides a solid grounding for those interested in further research and in obtaining new results. It encourages readers to develop effective applications of these methods in CT.

Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs) have become a new genre of "play culture," integrating communication and entertainment in a playful, computer-mediated environment that evolves through user interaction. This book comprehensively reviews the origins, players, and social dynamics of MOGs, as well as six major empirical research methods used in previous works to study MOGs (i.e., observation/ethnography, survey/interviews, content and discourse analysis, experiments, network analysis, and case studies). It concludes that MOGs represent a highly sophisticated, networked, multimedia and multimodal Internet technology, which can construct entertaining, simultaneous, persistent social virtual worlds for gamers. Overall, the book shows that what we can learn from MOGs is how games and gaming, as ubiquitous activities, fit into ordinary life in today's information society, in the moments where the increased use of media as entertainment, the widespread application of networked information technologies, and participation in new social experiences intersect. Key Features: Contains pertinent knowledge about online gaming: its history, technical features, player characteristics, social dynamics, and research methods Sheds light on the potential future of online gaming, and how this would impact every aspect of our everyday lives - socially, culturally, technologically, and economically Asks promising questions based on cutting-edge research in the field of online game design and development

• Showcases today's most influential architectural voices who have been instrumental in shifting the direction of design in the last decade • Includes perspectives of influential architects, practitioners and academics, as well as critics including philosophers • Case studies and essays engage and deploy a range of topics and technologies from speculative realism and Object Oriented Ontology to high computation, Big Data, parametricism, digital fabrication, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality • A rigorous account of architecture's theoretical and technological concerns over the last decade

The new realities are here. Virtual and Augmented realities and 360 video technologies are rapidly entering our homes and office spaces. Good quality audio has always been important to the user experience, but in the new realities, it is more than important, it's essential. If the audio doesn't work, the immersion of the experience fails and the cracks in the new reality start to show. This practical guide helps you navigate the challenges and pitfalls of designing audio for these new realities. This technology is different from anything we've seen before and requires an entirely new approach; this book will introduce the broad concepts you need to know before delving into the practical detail you need. Key Features This book covers audio for all types of new reality technology. At the moment, VR and 360 video are getting a lot of press, but in a few years we will be hearing a lot more about Augmented and Mixed reality technologies as well. A practical guide to creating, designing and implementing audio for this new technology by a leading sound design and implementation expert. Conceptual explanations address the new approaches necessary to designing effective audio for the new realities. Real-world examples and analysis of what does and does not work including detailed case study discussions.

Based on the experiences of the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa and the Radar and Surveillance System (RaSS) national laboratory of the National Interuniversity Consortium of Telecommunication (CNIT), Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation presents the most recent results in radar imaging for maritime observation. The book explores both the areas of sea surface remote sensing and maritime surveillance providing key theoretical concepts of SAR and ISAR imaging and more advanced and ad-hoc techniques for applications in maritime scenarios. The book is organized in two sections. The first section discusses the fundamentals of standard SAR/ISAR processing and novel imaging techniques, such as Bistatic, Passive, and, 3D Interferometric ISAR. The second section focuses on the applications and results obtained by processing real data from maritime observations like SAR image processing for oil spill, detection in SAR images and fractal analysis. Useful to both beginners and experts in maritime observation, this book provides several examples of (mainly space-borne) radar imaging of maritime targets. Nevertheless, the same principles and techniques apply to the case of manned or unmanned carriers and to ground and air moving targets.

1 Introduction.- 2 Continuous-Time Quadratic Guaranteed Cost Filtering.- 3 Discrete-Time Quadratic Guaranteed Cost Filtering.- 4 Continuous-Time Set-Valued State Estimation and Model Validation.- 5 Discrete-Time Set-Valued State Estimation.- 6 Robust State Estimation with Discrete and Continuous Measurements.- 7 Set-Valued State Estimation with Structured Uncertainty.- 8 Robust H? Filtering with Structured Uncertainty.- 9 Robust Fixed Order H? Filtering.- 10 Set-Valued State Estimation for Nonlinear Uncertain Systems.- 11 Robust Filtering Applied to Induction Motor Control.- References.

The analysis of QoE is not an easy task, especially for multimedia services, because all the factors (technical and non-technical) that directly or indirectly influence the user-perceived quality have to be considered. This book describes different methods to investigate users' QoE from the viewpoint of technical and non-technical parameters using multimedia services. It discusses the subjective methods for both controlled and uncontrolled environments. Collected datasets are used to analyze users' profiles, which sheds light on key factors to help network service providers understand end-users' behavior and expectations. Important adaptive video streaming technologies are discussed that run on unmanaged networks to achieve certain QoS features. The authors present a scheduling method to allocate resources to the end-user based on users' QoE and optimizes the power efficiency of users' device for LTE-A. Lastly, two key aspects of 5G networks are presented: QoE using multimedia services (VoIP and video), and power-saving model for mobile device and virtual base station.

This book introduces new techniques for cellular image feature extraction, pattern recognition and classification. The authors use the antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) in patient serum as the subjects and the Indirect Immunofluorescence (IIF) technique as the imaging protocol to illustrate the applications of the described methods. Throughout the book, the authors provide evaluations for the proposed methods on two publicly available human epithelial (HEp-2) cell datasets: ICPR2012 dataset from the ICPR'12 HEp-2 cell classification contest and ICIP2013 training dataset from the ICIP'13 Competition on cells classification by fluorescent image analysis. First, the reading of imaging results is significantly influenced by one's qualification and reading systems, causing high intra- and inter-laboratory variance. The authors present a low-order LP21 fiber mode for optical single cell manipulation and imaging staining patterns of HEp-2 cells. A focused four-lobed mode distribution is stable and effective in optical tweezer applications, including selective cell pick-up, pairing, grouping or separation, as well as rotation of cell dimers and clusters. Both translational dragging force and rotational torque in the experiments are in good accordance with the theoretical model. With a simple all-fiber configuration, and low peak irradiation to targeted cells, instrumentation of this optical chuck technology will provide a powerful tool in the ANA-IIF laboratories. Chapters focus on the optical, mechanical and computing systems for the clinical trials. Computer programs for GUI and control of the optical tweezers are also discussed. to more discriminative local distance vector by searching for local neighbors of the local feature in the class-specific manifolds. Encoding and pooling the local distance vectors leads to salient image representation. Combined with the traditional coding methods, this method achieves higher classification accuracy. Then, a rotation invariant textural feature of Pairwise Local Ternary Patterns with Spatial Rotation Invariant (PLTP-SRI) is examined. It is invariant to image rotations, meanwhile it is robust to noise and weak illumination. By adding spatial pyramid structure, this method captures spatial layout information. While the proposed PLTP-SRI feature extracts local feature, the BoW framework builds a global image representation. It is reasonable to combine them together to achieve impressive classification performance, as the combined feature takes the advantages of the two kinds of features in different aspects. Finally, the authors design a Co-occurrence Differential Texton (CoDT) feature to represent the local image patches of HEp-2 cells. The CoDT feature reduces the information loss by ignoring the quantization while it utilizes the spatial relations among the differential micro-texton feature. Thus it can increase the discriminative power. A generative model adaptively characterizes the CoDT feature space of the training data. Furthermore, exploiting a discriminant representation allows for HEp-2 cell images based on the adaptive partitioned feature space. Therefore, the resulting representation is adapted to the classification task. By cooperating with linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier, this framework can exploit the advantages of both generative and discriminative approaches for cellular image classification. The book is written for those researchers who would like to develop their own programs, and the working MatLab codes are included for all the important algorithms presented. It can also be used as a reference book for graduate students and senior undergraduates in the area of biomedical imaging, image feature extraction, pattern recognition and classification. Academics, researchers, and professional will find this to be an exceptional resource.

Journalism Design is about the future of journalism. As technologies increasingly, and continually, reshape the way we interact with information, with each other and with our environment, journalists need new ways to tell stories. Journalists often see technology as something that improves what they are doing or that makes it more convenient. However, the growing might of technology companies has put journalism and news organisations in a difficult position: readers and revenues have moved, and platforms exert increasing control over story design. Skye Doherty argues that, rather than adapting journalism to new technologies, journalists should be creating the technologies themselves and those technologies should be designed for core values such as the public interest. Drawing from theories and practices of interaction design, this book demonstrates how journalists can use their expertise to imagine new ways of doing journalism. The design and development of the NewsCube, a three-dimensional storytelling tool, is detailed, as well as how interaction design can be used to imagine new forms of journalism. The book concludes by calling for closer ties between researchers and working journalists and suggests that journalism has a hybrid future - in newsrooms, communities, design studios and tech companies.

Punk Playthings Provocations for 21st Century Game Makers "Punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that." Malcolm Mclaren Warning: If you want a silver bullet solution for efficient game making or a step-by-step guide to receiving Indie Game Dev hero worship, you're in the wrong place. Put the book back on the shelf. Punk Playthings is an antidote to complacency and orthodoxy. Packed with probes and provocations that explore game making through fresh lenses for uncertain times, it challenges gaming monoculture by constructing a trading space for ideas and learning from across domains and cultures. Punk Playthings has zero respect for boundaries between mediums, industries, sectors, specialisms or disciplines. Instead, it challenges you to expand your cultural capital, think laterally and make new connections. Punk Playthings advocates a truly independent mindset and DIY approach for creating playful experiences with cultural resonance. It proclaims creative entrepreneurship as the true legacy of punk. Punk Playthings is not for everyone. But it might be for you.

Scholars and professionals from all over the world, across experience levels and the gender and sexuality spectrum, share experiences and analysis of romance and sexuality in video games. Whether discussing casual sex in the Star Wars universe; analyzing various Otome games; examining "the gaze" in various games; player romance behavior in games; or exploring the ethical ramifications of sexuality in virtual reality and other emerging technologies, this book discusses what players want in video game romance, and how developers can best deliver it. Key Features: Examines the past, present, and future of romance in single-player, role-playing games Discusses common presentations of romance in single-player, role-playing games- both in the category and game mechanics that drive romance Discusses research on how players define a satisfying game romance and what specific steps narrative designers can take to design satisfying games Explains the notion of the empathic game and explores its importance in relation to romance in game design

Giannalberto Bendazzi brings to light some of the lost relics of animation history with his new book, Twice the First: Quirino Cristiani and the Animated Feature Film. Unlike other works, however, Bendazzi focuses on the growth of animation in non-western countries. This book particularly emphasizes the contributions of Quirino Cristiani and how his work influenced other animators. Bendazzi provides in-depth coverage about Cristiani's life, both professionally and personally. Twice the First takes the reader on an exciting journey through the historical development of animation through the eyes of Quirino Cristiani. Key Features A look back at the modest beginnings of feature film animation. An exciting account of some facts never before revealed in the history and development of animated film Among the fascinating information the reader can learn from this book, is that not all the action in cinematography took place in North America and Western Europe This book provides an important service in documenting the early period of animation and filling in the gaps in the history of the development of animation.

This is a beginner's guide to learning and implementing the essential aspects of modeling organic objects and using an organic workflow to model anything. This book gives an aspiring modeler all the tools that they need to know in order to begin creating great models that are efficient and laid out properly for rigging and texturing. The reader will be taken through all the primary techniques and methodologies for making "liveable" creatures for video, film, or games. The reader will also learn the basic physical structure that designates something as organic vs artificial, and how these varying structures can be tackled from a modeling perspective.through a practical, hands-on approach. Features Designed to approach organic modeling in a software-independent manner. Builds fundamental knowledge of 3D digital art from the ground up. Each lesson builds on the previous lesson. Has industry standard knowledge, based on simplicity and efficiency that will work for either production rendering or game development. Defines what organic modeling is and how it works, and why each technique was developed and implemented as it currently stands.

Managing and Mining Graph Data is a comprehensive survey book in graph management and mining. It contains extensive surveys on a variety of important graph topics such as graph languages, indexing, clustering, data generation, pattern mining, classification, keyword search, pattern matching, and privacy. It also studies a number of domain-specific scenarios such as stream mining, web graphs, social networks, chemical and biological data. The chapters are written by well known researchers in the field, and provide a broad perspective of the area. This is the first comprehensive survey book in the emerging topic of graph data processing.
Managing and Mining Graph Data is designed for a varied audience composed of professors, researchers and practitioners in industry. This volume is also suitable as a reference book for advanced-level database students in computer science and engineering.

Written for the new generation of hobbyists and aspiring game developers, HTML5 Game Development from the Ground Up with Construct 2 shows you how to use the sophisticated yet user-friendly HTML5-based game engine Construct 2 to develop and release polished, two-dimensional games on a multitude of different platforms. The book also covers the foundational knowledge of game analysis and design based on the author's research and teaching experiences at DigiPen Institute of Technology, James Cook University, and other institutions. The author first helps you understand what really matters in games. He guides you in becoming a better game designer from the ground up, being able to play any game critically, and expressing your ideas in a clear and concise format. The book then presents step-by-step tutorials on designing games. It explains how to build an arcade-style game as well as a platformer integrating some physics elements. It also shows you how to create a more complex puzzle game the author's own published game, Turky on the Run. Lastly, the book discusses different ways to deploy and monetize games across several platforms, including Facebook, iOS, Android, and web-based marketplaces. Sample Construct 2 project files for the games designed in the book are available on the author's website. Integrating hands-on guidance with theoretical game design concepts, this book gives you a solid foundation in game development. It will help you advance in your journey as an indie game developer.

Digital fundus images can effectively diagnose glaucoma and diabetes retinopathy, while infrared imaging can show changes in the vascular tissues. Likening the eye to the conventional camera, Image Analysis and Modeling in Ophthalmology explores the application of advanced image processing in ocular imaging. This book considers how images can be used to effectively diagnose ophthalmologic problems. It introduces multi-modality image processing algorithms as a means for analyzing subtle changes in the eye. It details eye imaging, textural imaging, and modeling, and highlights specific imaging and modeling techniques. The book covers the detection of diabetes retinopathy, glaucoma, anterior segment eye abnormalities, instruments on detection of glaucoma, and development of human eye models using computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer principles to predict inner temperatures of the eye from its surface temperature. It presents an ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) system for anterior chamber angle imaging and proposes an automated anterior segment eye disease classification system that can be used for early disease diagnosis and treatment management. It focuses on the segmentation of the blood vessels in high-resolution retinal images and describes the integration of the image processing methodologies in a web-based framework aimed at retinal analysis. The authors introduce the A-Levelset algorithm, explore the ARGALI system to calculate the cup-to-disc ratio (CDR), and describe the Singapore Eye Vessel Assessment (SIVA) system, a holistic tool which brings together various technologies from image processing and artificial intelligence to construct vascular models from retinal images. The text furnishes the working principles of mechanical and optical instruments for the diagnosis and healthcare administration of glaucoma, reviews state-of-the-art CDR calculation detail, and discusses the existing methods and databases. Image Analysis and Modeling in Ophthalmology includes the latest research development in the field of eye modeling and the multi-modality image processing techniques in ocular imaging. It addresses the differences, performance measures, advantages and disadvantages of various approaches, and provides extensive reviews on related fields.

Going beyond where introductory books leave off and written for experienced editors, especially those new to Final Cut Pro X, this new and revised edition of Final Cut Pro X Beyond the Basics is brimming with cutting-edge methods to bring your editing skills to the next level. Explained in jargon-free language by a seasoned teacher and digital editor, Tom Wolsky's text has been fully updated to address the new Final Cut Pro X 10.3 interface and changes to the software. This full-color workshop features tutorials that provide firsthand experience on the art and technique of editing at an advanced level with Final Cut Pro X, as well as in-depth information and time-saving tips that will allow you to master the application's interface elements, tools, and nuances. Wolsky covers all the bases, including: Library workflows and collaboration; Media organization and metadata customization for different genres; Editing techniques for projects of various lengths and types; Using markers and the timeline index; Audio tools; Multicam editing; Audio and video effects; Color correction, including secondary corrections and isolated color adjustments; Compositing and complex animation. An accompanying eResource features downloadable Final Cut Pro X project libraries for the tutorials discussed in the book, offering readers hands-on examples of the techniques and practices covered.

Want to create studio-quality work and get noticed? Just coming off Flash and looking for a Toon Boom intro? Are you a traditional pencil-and-paper animator? From scene setup to the final render, learn how to navigate the Toon Boom interface to create animation that can be published on a variety of platforms and formats. Animate to Harmony guides you through Toon Boom's Animate, Animate Pro and Harmony programs, teaching you how to create high-quality 2D animation of all complexities. The main text focuses onfeatures that are common across all three programs while "Advanced Techniques" boxes throughout the book elaborate on Pro and Harmony features, appealing to all levels of experience with any of the three main Toon Boom products.

Design and Implementation of 3D Graphics Systems covers the computational aspects of geometric modeling and rendering 3D scenes. Special emphasis is given to the architectural aspects of interactive graphics, geometric modeling, rendering techniques, the graphics pipeline, and the architecture of 3D graphics systems. The text describes basic 3D computer graphics algorithms and their implementation in the C language. The material is complemented by library routines for constructing graphics systems, which are available for download from the book's website. This book, along with its companion Computer Graphics: Theory and Practice, gives readers a full understanding of the principles and practices of implementing 3D graphics systems.

The book is a collection of invited chapters by experts in Chinese document and text processing, and is part of a series on Language Processing, Pattern Recognition, and Intelligent Systems. The chapters introduce the latest advances and state-of-the-art methods for Chinese document image analysis and recognition, font design, text analysis and speaker recognition. Handwritten Chinese character recognition and text line recognition are at the core of document image analysis (DIA), and therefore, are addressed in four chapters for different scripts (online characters, offline characters, ancient characters, and text lines). Two chapters on character recognition pay much attention to deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which are widely used and performing superiorly in various pattern recognition problems. A chapter is contributed to describe a large handwriting database consisting both online and offline characters and text pages. Postal mail reading and writer identification, addressed in two chapters, are important applications of DIA. The collection can serve as reference for students and engineers in Chinese document and text processing and their applications.

Fluid simulation is a computer graphic used to develop realistic animation of liquids in modern games. The Art of Fluid Animation describes visually rich techniques for creating fluid-like animations that do not require advanced physics or mathematical skills. It explains how to create fluid animations like water, smoke, fire, and explosions through computer code in a fun manner. The book presents concepts that drive fluid animation and gives a historical background of the computation of fluids. It covers many research areas that include stable fluid simulation, flows on surfaces, and control of flows. It also gives one-paragraph summaries of the material after each section for reinforcement. This book includes computer code that readers can download and run on several platforms so they can extend their work beyond what is described in the book. The material provided here is designed to serve as a starting point for aspiring programmers to begin creating their own programs using fluid animation.