Reading Readings: An Approach to the Relationship between Television and Literature at School

The main problem addressed by this research was that of what are the relations between TV viewing at home and studying literature at school, and how an adequate position on this can be reached. As well as the theoretical background, it involved an experimental study with classes of second and sixth grade students, discussing and observing their reactions to and interpretations of a number of animated cartoons. The work is divided into four parts - Is there a Class in this Text?, Stories of Reading, Narratives of Animation and Animation of Narratives, and The (Three) Unrepeatable (Pigs). Beginning, Middle End - which examine the tensions between the "undiscriminating sequence" of the televisual flow and a way of "thinking", "making" and "doing" education that presupposes a fundamental belief in possible re-productions, copies unescaping, following the original, or competing. The work focuses on animated cartoons, seeing them not merely as a part of the flow of television, but as an allegory of reading this flow, of the flow within the flow itself. What they question - "identity", "end", "followability" - is what is most important to teaching. Thus the interest in the metamorphoses of animated films is an interest in the tensions which their "strange law/flow" introduces into the field of teaching - this totally forbidden place of saying everything.

ANIMATED TRANSITION IN SIMILARITY-BASED TILED IMAGE LAYOUT

Effective techniques for organizing and visualizing large image collections are in growing demand as visual search gets increasingly popular. iMap is a treemap representation for visualizing and navigating image search and clustering results based on the evaluation of image similarity using both visual and textual information. iMap not only makes effective use of available display area to arrange images but also maintains stable update when images are inserted or removed during the query. A key challenge of using iMap lies in the difficult to follow and track the changes when updating the image arrangement as the query image changes. For many information visualization applications, showing the transition when interacting with the data is critically important as it can help users better perceive the changes and understand the underlying data. This work investigates the effectiveness of animated transition in a tiled image layout where the spiral arrangement of the images is based on their similarity. Three aspects of animated transition are considered, including animation steps, animation actions, and flying paths. Exploring and weighting the advantages and disadvantages of different methods for each aspect and in conjunction with the characteristics of the spiral image layout, we present an integrated solution, called AniMap, for animating the transition from an old layout to a new layout when a different image is selected as the query image. To smooth the animation and reduce the overlap among images during the transition, we explore different factors that might have an impact on the animation and propose our solution accordingly. We show the effectiveness of our animated transition solution by demonstrating experimental results and conducting a comparative user study.

Automatic Data Normalization and Parameterization for Optical Motion Tracking

Methods for optical motion capture often require timeconsuming manual processing before the data can be used for subsequent tasks such as retargeting or character animation. These processing steps restrict the applicability of motion capturing especially for dynamic VR-environments with real time requirements. To solve these problems, we present two additional, fast and automatic processing stages based on our motion capture pipeline presented in [HSK05]. A normalization step aligns the recorded coordinate systems with the skeleton structure to yield a common and intuitive data basis across different recording sessions. A second step computes a parameterization based on automatically extracted main movement axes to generate a compact motion description. Our method does not restrict the placement of marker bodies nor the recording setup, and only requires a short calibration phase.

Verfahren und Anlage zum automatisierten Kommissionieren von in Beuteln verpackten Gütern

Automatisiertes Kommissionieren von biegeschlaffen Teilen stellt seit jeher ein besonderes Problem für die Handhabungstechnik dar, und es sind bisher verschiedenartigste sondermaschinenbauliche Lösungen hervorgebracht worden. Auch für das Kommissionieren von in Folien verpackten Artikeln gibt es einige L��sungen. Diese sind aber hinsichtlich ihrer Anwendung für in Beuteln verpackte Güter eingeschränkt. Ein neuartiges, am Fraunhofer-IML entwickeltes Verfahren verspricht Abhilfe. Der folgende Beitrag stellt dieses Verfahren im Detail vor und zeigt vergangene und zukünftige Untersuchungsfelder auf, die im Rahmen der Entwicklung bearbeitet wurden bzw. werden und sich insbesondere mit der Dimensionierung der Gerätschaften und Hilfsmittel beschäftigen.

The art to keep in touch: The ''good use'' of Lagrange multipliers

Physically-based modeling for computer animation allows to produce more realistic motions in less time without requiring the expertise of skilled animators. But, a computer animation is not only a numerical simulation based on classical mechanics since it follows a precise story-line. One common way to define aims in an animation is to add geometric constraints. There are several methods to manage these constraints within a physically-based framework. In this paper, we present an algorithm for constraints handling based on Lagrange multipliers. After few remarks on the equations of motion that we use, we present a first algorithm proposed by Platt. We show with a simple example that this method is not reliable. Our contribution consists in improving this algorithm to provide an efficient and robust method to handle simultaneous active constraints.

Predictive-DCT Coding for 3D Mesh Sequences Compression

This paper proposes a new compression algorithm for dynamic 3d meshes. In such a sequence of meshes, neighboring vertices have a strong tendency to behave similarly and the degree of dependencies between their locations in two successive frames is very large which can be efficiently exploited using a combination of Predictive and DCT coders (PDCT). Our strategy gathers mesh vertices of similar motions into clusters, establish a local coordinate frame (LCF) for each cluster and encodes frame by frame and each cluster separately. The vertices of each cluster have small variation over a time relative to the LCF. Therefore, the location of each new vertex is well predicted from its location in the previous frame relative to the LCF of its cluster. The difference between the original and the predicted local coordinates are then transformed into frequency domain using DCT. The resulting DCT coefficients are quantized and compressed with entropy coding. The original sequence of meshes can be reconstructed from only a few non-zero DCT coefficients without significant loss in visual quality. Experimental results show that our strategy outperforms or comes close to other coders.

Generating Realistic Camera Shake for Virtual Scenes

When depicting both virtual and physical worlds, the viewer's impression of presence in these worlds is strongly linked to camera motion. Plausible and artist-controlled camera movement can substantially increase scene immersion. While physical camera motion exhibits subtle details of position, rotation, and acceleration, these details are often missing for virtual camera motion. In this work, we analyze camera movement using signal theory. Our system allows us to stylize a smooth user-defined virtual base camera motion by enriching it with plausible details. A key component of our system is a database of videos filmed by physical cameras. These videos are analyzed with a camera-motion estimation algorithm (structure-from-motion) and labeled manually with a specific style. By considering spectral properties of location, orientation and acceleration, our solution learns camera motion details. Consequently, an arbitrary virtual base motion, defined in any conventional animation package, can be automatically modified according to a user-selected style. In an animation package the camera motion base path is typically defined by the user via function curves. Another possibility is to obtain the camera path by using a mixed reality camera in motion capturing studio. As shown in our experiments, the resulting shots are still fully artist-controlled, but appear richer and more physically plausible.

Learning Two-Person Interaction Models for Responsive Synthetic Humanoids

Imitation learning is a promising approach for generating life-like behaviors of virtual humans and humanoid robots. So far, however, imitation learning has been mostly restricted to single agent settings where observed motions are adapted to new environment conditions but not to the dynamic behavior of interaction partners. In this paper, we introduce a new imitation learning approach that is based on the simultaneous motion capture of two human interaction partners. From the observed interactions, low-dimensional motion models are extracted and a mapping between these motion models is learned. This interaction model allows the real-time generation of agent behaviors that are responsive to the body movements of an interaction partner. The interaction model can be applied both to the animation of virtual characters as well as to the behavior generation for humanoid robots.

Accident or homicide - virtual crime scene reconstruction using 3D methods

The analysis and reconstruction of forensically relevant events, such as traffic accidents, criminal assaults and homicides are based on external and internal morphological findings of the injured or deceased person. For this approach high-tech methods are gaining increasing importance in forensic investigations. The non-contact optical 3D digitising system GOM ATOS is applied as a suitable tool for whole body surface and wound documentation and analysis in order to identify injury-causing instruments and to reconstruct the course of event. In addition to the surface documentation, cross-sectional imaging methods deliver medical internal findings of the body. These 3D data are fused into a whole body model of the deceased. Additional to the findings of the bodies, the injury inflicting instruments and incident scene is documented in 3D. The 3D data of the incident scene, generated by 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry, is also included into the reconstruction. Two cases illustrate the methods. In the fist case a man was shot in his bedroom and the main question was, if the offender shot the man intentionally or accidentally, as he declared. In the second case a woman was hit by a car, driving backwards into a garage. It was unclear if the driver drove backwards once or twice, which would indicate that he willingly injured and killed the woman. With this work, we demonstrate how 3D documentation, data merging and animation enable to answer reconstructive questions regarding the dynamic development of patterned injuries, and how this leads to a real data based reconstruction of the course of event.

Visualizing the Simulation of 3-D Underwater Sensor Networks

The majority of sensor network research deals with land-based networks, which are essentially two-dimensional, and thus the majority of simulation and animation tools also only handle such networks. Underwater sensor networks on the other hand, are essentially 3D networks because the depth at which a sensor node is located needs to be considered as well. Due to that additional dimension, specialized tools need to be used when conducting simulations for experimentation. The School of Engineering’s Underwater Sensor Network (UWSN) lab is conducting research on underwater sensor networks and requires simulation tools for 3D networks. The lab has extended NS-2, a widely used network simulator, so that it can simulate three-dimensional networks. However, NAM, a widely used network animator, currently only supports two-dimensional networks and no extensions have been implemented to give it three-dimensional capabilities. In this project, we develop a network visualization tool that functions similarly to NAM but is able to render network environments in full 3-D. It is able to take as input a NS-2 trace file (the same file taken as input by NAM), create the environment, position the sensor nodes, and animate the events of the simulation. Further, the visualization tool is easy to use, especially friendly to NAM users, as it is designed to follow the interfaces and functions similar to NAM. So far, the development has fulfilled the basic functionality. Future work includes fully functional capabilities for visualization and much improved user interfaces.

Caracterización de diferentes homologaciones axiológicas vigentes en los dibujos animados para televisión

Los dibujos animados norteamericanos, sigilosamente, han ido ocupando un lugar cada vez más relevante en la industria cultural. Tanto es así, que hoy se pueden discriminar canales específicamente destinados a la animación y, a su vez, series de animaciones producidas para diversos públicos: niños, adolescentes y adultos. Frente a esta gran cantidad y diversidad de textos llama especialmente mi atención la convivencia de contrapuestos sistemas de valor. Numerosas tiras de dibujos animados, dirigidos especialmente a los niños, ayudan a conformar el gusto infantil contemporáneo (en el sentido de Calabrese) que no responde a un único sistema unificador de valores. Es decir, lo feo o lindo, lo malo o bueno, lo conforme o informe, lo disfórico o eufórico no está dictaminado hoy por un solo discurso axiológico imperante. En este escrito pretendo describir, desde una perspectiva semiótica, las particularidades que resultan de la coexistencia de morfologías, éticas y tímicas distintas. Para ello, me detendré en un grupo de cartoons que se presentan como las antípodas de los tradicionales y conocidos textos audiovisuales de Disney y de las clásicas y exitosas series animadas de la Warner Bross o la Metro Goldywn Mayer. Estas creaciones buscaron exhibir, desde su nacimiento, estabilidad en las formas, armonía cromática y uniformidad de comportamientos. Contrariamente, los mundos posibles que hoy también integran el universo de dibujos animados, evidencian lo que Calabrese denomina el placer de lo impreciso, lo indefinido, lo vago y lo ambiguo. Estas representaciones sincréticas exaltan notorias diferencias en sus homologaciones axiológicas liberándose de las pretensiones de perfección, tanto de sus escenarios como de sus actores figurativos: seres híbridos, animales aversivos, niños nefastos, criaturas deformes y escenarios difusos son algunas de las características que definen a los últimas producciones animadas para televisión.

Mitología y magia óptica: sobre la relación entre retraro, espejo y escritura en la poesía de Góngora

Cuando en el contexto de la magia artificialis barroca se apela a modelos míticos para describir y explicar los fenómenos ópticos, esta referencia al mito se integra esencialmente al horizonte histórico-cultural de la emergencia de complejos dispositivos de imágenes ópticas, artísticas, técnicas y científicas. Esto se manifiesta principalmente en la continuidad de tradiciones más antiguas pertenecientes a la magia de la imagen, en las que la idea de la 'vivificación' o 'animación' de imágenes se vincula en múltiples casos con las figuras míticas de los demiurgos-artistas de Prometeo y Pigmalión.