Smart material interfaces : a vision

In this paper, we introduce a vision called Smart Material Interfaces (SMIs), which takes advantage of the latest generation of engineered materials that has a special property defined “smart”. They are capable of changing their physical properties, such as shape, size and color, and can be controlled by using certain stimuli (light, potential difference, temperature and so on). We describe SMIs in relation to Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) to convey the usefulness and a better understanding of SMIs.

Digital color reproduction on color television monitors

Color displays used in image processing systems consist of a refresh memory buffer storing digital image data which are converted into analog signals to display an image by driving the primary color channels (red, green, and blue) of a color television monitor. The color cathode ray tube (CRT) of the monitor is unable to reproduce colors exactly due to phosphor limitations, exponential luminance response of the tube to the applied signal, and limitations imposed by the digital-to-analog conversion. In this paper we describe some computer simulation studies (using the U*V*W* color space) carried out to measure these reproduction errors. Further, a procedure to correct for color reproduction error due to the exponential luminance response (gamma) of the picture tube is proposed, using a video-lookup-table and a higher resolution digital-to-analog converter. It is found, on the basis of computer simulation studies, that the proposed gamma correction scheme is effective and robust with respect to variations in the assumed value of the gamma.

Vision under mesopic and scotopic illumination

Evidence has accumulated that rod activation under mesopic and scotopic light levels alters visual perception and performance. Here we review the most recent developments in the measurement of rod and cone contributions to mesopic color perception and temporal processing, with a focus on data measured using the four-primary photostimulator method that independently controls rod and cone excitations. We discuss the findings in the context of rod inputs to the three primary retinogeniculate pathways to understand rod contributions to mesopic vision. Additionally, we present evidence that hue perception is possible under scotopic, pure rod-mediated conditions that involves cortical mechanisms.

In response: UV–vis light transmittance through tinted contact lenses and the effect of color on values

In the study, we used the Agilent 8453 spectrophotometer (which is equipped with a limiting aperture that restricts the light beam to the central 5 mm of the contact lens), to measure the transmittance of various coloured contact lenses including the one Day Acuvue define manufactured by Johnson and Johnson which the authors represent. We measured the instrument baseline before the transmittance spectra of lenses were tested. The values of lens transmittances were thus the difference between baseline and lens measurement at each time. The transmittance measurements were obtained at 0.5 nm intervals, from 200 to 700 nm after a soak in saline to remove the influence of any surface active agents within the packaging products. The technique used in our study was not very different from how other research studies [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6] have measured the spectra transmittances of contact lenses...

Kernel-based spatial-color modeling for fast moving object tracking

Visual tracking has been a challenging problem in computer vision over the decades. The applications of Visual Tracking are far-reaching, ranging from surveillance and monitoring to smart rooms. Mean-shift (MS) tracker, which gained more attention recently, is known for tracking objects in a cluttered environment and its low computational complexity. The major problem encountered in histogram-based MS is its inability to track rapidly moving objects. In order to track fast moving objects, we propose a new robust mean-shift tracker that uses both spatial similarity measure and color histogram-based similarity measure. The inability of MS tracker to handle large displacements is circumvented by the spatial similarity-based tracking module, which lacks robustness to object's appearance change. The performance of the proposed tracker is better than the individual trackers for tracking fast-moving objects with better accuracy.

A vision-based remote control

This Chapter presents a vision-based system for touch-free interaction with a display at a distance. A single camera is fixed on top of the screen and is pointing towards the user. An attention mechanism allows the user to start the interaction and control a screen pointer by moving their hand in a fist pose directed at the camera. On-screen items can be chosen by a selection mechanism. Current sample applications include browsing video collections as well as viewing a gallery of 3D objects, which the user can rotate with their hand motion. We have included an up-to-date review of hand tracking methods, and comment on the merits and shortcomings of previous approaches. The proposed tracker uses multiple cues, appearance, color, and motion, for robustness. As the space of possible observation models is generally too large for exhaustive online search, we select models that are suitable for the particular tracking task at hand. During a training stage, various off-the-shelf trackers are evaluated. From this data differentmethods of fusing them online are investigated, including parallel and cascaded tracker evaluation. For the case of fist tracking, combining a small number of observers in a cascade results in an efficient algorithm that is used in our gesture interface. The system has been on public display at conferences where over a hundred users have engaged with it. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Color photometric stereo for multicolored surfaces

We present a multispectral photometric stereo method for capturing geometry of deforming surfaces. A novel photometric calibration technique allows calibration of scenes containing multiple piecewise constant chromaticities. This method estimates per-pixel photometric properties, then uses a RANSAC-based approach to estimate the dominant chromaticities in the scene. A likelihood term is developed linking surface normal, image intensity and photometric properties, which allows estimating the number of chromaticities present in a scene to be framed as a model estimation problem. The Bayesian Information Criterion is applied to automatically estimate the number of chromaticities present during calibration. A two-camera stereo system provides low resolution geometry, allowing the likelihood term to be used in segmenting new images into regions of constant chromaticity. This segmentation is carried out in a Markov Random Field framework and allows the correct photometric properties to be used at each pixel to estimate a dense normal map. Results are shown on several challenging real-world sequences, demonstrating state-of-the-art results using only two cameras and three light sources. Quantitative evaluation is provided against synthetic ground truth data. © 2011 IEEE.

Construction Worker Detection in Video Frames for Initializing Vision Trackers

Monitoring the location of resources on large scale, congested, outdoor sites can be performed more efficiently with vision tracking, as this approach does not require any pre-tagging of resources. However, the greatest impediment to the use of vision tracking in this case is the lack of detection methods that are needed to automatically mark the resources of interest and initiate the tracking. This paper presents such a novel method for construction worker detection that localizes construction workers in video frames. The proposed method exploits motion, shape, and color cues to narrow down the detection regions to moving objects, people, and finally construction workers, respectively. The three cues are characterized by using background subtraction, the histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and the HSV color histogram. The method has been tested on videos taken in various environments. The results demonstrate its suitability for automatic initialization of vision trackers.

Research of Face Location System Based on Human Vision Simulations

In this paper we present a robust face location system based on human vision simulations to automatically locate faces in color static images. Our method is divided into four stages. In the first stage we use a gauss low-pass filter to remove the fine information of images, which is useless in the initial stage of human vision. During the second and the third stages, our technique approximately detects the image regions, which may contain faces. During the fourth stage, the existence of faces in the selected regions is verified. Having combined the advantages of Bottom-Up Feature Based Methods and Appearance-Based Methods, our algorithm performs well in various images, including those with highly complex backgrounds.

Effects of different light sources and illumination methods on growth and body color of shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

Shrimps Litopenaeus vannamei with initial body weight of 2.108 +/- 0.036 g were sampled for specific growth rates (SGR) and body color measurements for 50 days under different light sources (incandescent lamp, IL; cool-white fluorescent lamp, FL; metal halide lamp, MHL; and control without lamp) and different illumination methods (illumination only in day, IOD, and illumination day and night, IDN). Body color of L. vannamei was measured according to the free astaxanthin concentration (FAC) of shrimp. The SGR, food intake (FI), feed conversion efficiency (FCE) and FAC of shrimps showed significant differences among the experimental treatment groups (P < 0.05). Maximum and minimum SGR occurred under IOD by MHL and IDN by FL, respectively (difference 56.34%). The FI of shrimp for the control group did not rank lowest among treatments, confirming that shrimp primarily use scent, not vision, to search for food. FI and FCE of shrimps were both the lowest among treatment groups under IDN by FL and growth was slow, thus FL is not a preferred light source for shrimp culture. Under IOD by MHL, shrimps had the highest FCE and the third highest FI among treatment groups ensuring rapid growth. FAC of shrimp were about 3.31 +/- 0.20 mg/kg. When under IOD by MHL and IDN by FL, FAC was significantly higher than the other treatments (P < 0.05). To summarize, when illuminated by MHL, L. vannamei had not only vivid body color due to high astaxanthin concentration but also rapid growth. Therefore, MHL is an appropriate indoor light source for shrimp super-intensive culture. SGR of shrimp was in significantly negative correlation to FAC of shrimp (P < 0.05). Thus, when FAC increased, SGR did not always follow, suggesting that the purpose of astaxanthin accumulation was not for growth promotion but for protection against intense light. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Binocular, Foveated Active Vision System

This report documents the design and implementation of a binocular, foveated active vision system as part of the Cog project at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The active vision system features a three degree of freedom mechanical platform that supports four color cameras, a motion control system, and a parallel network of digital signal processors for image processing. To demonstrate the capabilities of the system, we present results from four sample visual-motor tasks.

Using hybrid knowledge engineering and image processing in color virtual restoration of ancient murals

IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 1338-1343, 2003.

Laminar Cortical Dynamics of 3D Surface Perception: Stratification, transparency, and Neon Color Spreading

How does the laminar organization of cortical circuitry in areas VI and V2 give rise to 3D percepts of stratification, transparency, and neon color spreading in response to 2D pictures and 3D scenes? Psychophysical experiments have shown that such 3D percepts are sensitive to whether contiguous image regions have the same relative contrast polarity (dark-light or lightdark), yet long-range perceptual grouping is known to pool over opposite contrast polarities. The ocularity of contiguous regions is also critical for neon color spreading: Having different ocularity despite the contrast relationship that favors neon spreading blocks the spread. In addition, half visible points in a stereogram can induce near-depth transparency if the contrast relationship favors transparency in the half visible areas. It thus seems critical to have the whole contrast relationship in a monocular configuration, since splitting it between two stereogram images cancels the effect. What adaptive functions of perceptual grouping enable it to both preserve sensitivity to monocular contrast and also to pool over opposite contrasts? Aspects of cortical development, grouping, attention, perceptual learning, stereopsis and 3D planar surface perception have previously been analyzed using a 3D LAMINART model of cortical areas VI, V2, and V4. The present work consistently extends this model to show how like-polarity competition between VI simple cells in layer 4 may be combined with other LAMINART grouping mechanisms, such as cooperative pooling of opposite polarities at layer 2/3 complex cells. The model also explains how the Metelli Rules can lead to transparent percepts, how bistable transparency percepts can arise in which either surface can be perceived as transparent, and how such a transparency reversal can be facilitated by an attention shift. The like-polarity inhibition prediction is consistent with lateral masking experiments in which two f1anking Gabor patches with the same contrast polarity as the target increase the target detection threshold when they approach the target. It is also consistent with LAMINART simulations of cortical development. Other model explanations and testable predictions will also be presented.

3-D Vision and Figure-Ground Separation by Visual Cortex

A neural network theory of :3-D vision, called FACADE Theory, is described. The theory proposes a solution of the classical figure-ground problem for biological vision. It does so by suggesting how boundary representations and surface representations are formed within a Boundary Contour System (BCS) and a Feature Contour System (FCS). The BCS and FCS interact reciprocally to form 3-D boundary and surface representations that arc mutually consistent. Their interactions generate 3-D percepts wherein occluding and occluded object completed, and grouped. The theory clarifies how preattentive processes of 3-D perception and figure-ground separation interact reciprocally with attentive processes of spatial localization, object recognition, and visual search. A new theory of stereopsis is proposed that predicts how cells sensitive to multiple spatial frequencies, disparities, and orientations are combined by context-sensitive filtering, competition, and cooperation to form coherent BCS boundary segmentations. Several factors contribute to figure-ground pop-out, including: boundary contrast between spatially contiguous boundaries, whether due to scenic differences in luminance, color, spatial frequency, or disparity; partially ordered interactions from larger spatial scales and disparities to smaller scales and disparities; and surface filling-in restricted to regions surrounded by a connected boundary. Phenomena such as 3-D pop-out from a 2-D picture, DaVinci stereopsis, a 3-D neon color spreading, completion of partially occluded objects, and figure-ground reversals are analysed. The BCS and FCS sub-systems model aspects of how the two parvocellular cortical processing streams that join the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus to prestriate cortical area V4 interact to generate a multiplexed representation of Form-And-Color-And-Depth, or FACADE, within area V4. Area V4 is suggested to support figure-ground separation and to interact. with cortical mechanisms of spatial attention, attentive objcect learning, and visual search. Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) mechanisms model aspects of how prestriate visual cortex interacts reciprocally with a visual object recognition system in inferotemporal cortex (IT) for purposes of attentive object learning and categorization. Object attention mechanisms of the What cortical processing stream through IT cortex are distinguished from spatial attention mechanisms of the Where cortical processing stream through parietal cortex. Parvocellular BCS and FCS signals interact with the model What stream. Parvocellular FCS and magnocellular Motion BCS signals interact with the model Where stream. Reciprocal interactions between these visual, What, and Where mechanisms arc used to discuss data about visual search and saccadic eye movements, including fast search of conjunctive targets, search of 3-D surfaces, selective search of like-colored targets, attentive tracking of multi-element groupings, and recursive search of simultaneously presented targets.