Toward an intuitive sign language animation authoring system for the deaf

This paper presents an ongoing effort toward an online collaborative framework allowing Deaf individuals to author intelligible signs using a dedicated 3D animation authoring interface. The results that are presented mainly focus on the design of a dedicated user interface assisted by novel input devices. This design cannot only benefit the Deaf but also the linguists studying sign language by providing them with a novel kind of study material. This material would consist of a symbolic representation of intelligible sign language animations together with a fine-grained log of the user’s edit actions. Two user studies demonstrate how Leap Motion and Kinect-like devices can be used together for recording and authoring hand trajectories as well as facial animation.     

Empirical comparisons of animation and narration in requirements validation

Increasingly powerful computing technology suggests an expansion of multimedia features in requirements engineering methods. It is not obvious, however, that techniques such as animation and narration would improve the effectiveness of communicating domain information to stakeholders for validation. Three principles from the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) are used to compare validation methods using animation and narration with more traditional methods using static diagrams and text. Results suggest animation and narration can have significant positive impact on the level of domain understanding attained by participants. In particular, narration yielded strongly significant results. While these results should be viewed as preliminary, they indicate a potential advantage in the use of narration and possibly animation in requirements validation. The results provide justification for further research on the integration of multimedia techniques in developing and validating requirements.     

The Directors’ cut: a solution to collaborative multimedia management

Web 2.0 applications allow rich media contents to be exposed and shared by users. Nevertheless, usually, a multimedia is provided as an unicum, made by synchronized media items. Sound tracks, video sequences, captions, cannot be customized “on-the-fly” by users. Managing multimedia in a deep way would meet the expectations of nowadays Web prosumers (i.e. producers and consumers), and it would widen the audience. Describing and synchronizing each medium, as well as specifying different alternative contents for it, are the keystones of multimedia customization and of audience widening. This paper presents a multimedia collaborative system, which provides support to the arrangement of medium into a multi-views composed multimedia. Each prosumer can add medium by juxtaposition or by defining it as an alternative (audio, video, textual) version of an existing one. The implementation of such a system is based on SMIL 3.0 specification but implements a new and compact syntax to let users manipulate the original multimedia synchronization and their alternatives. The proposed approach has been put to test in two different scenarios.     

Reconfigurable media processing

Multimedia processing is becoming increasingly important with wide variety of applications ranging from multimedia cell phones to high definition interactive television. Media processing techniques typically involve the capture, storage, manipulation and transmission of multimedia objects such as text, handwritten data, audio objects, still images, 2D/3D graphics, animation and full-motion video. A number of implementation strategies have been proposed for processing multimedia data. These approaches can be broadly classified into two major categories, namely (i) general purpose processors with programmable media processing capabilities, and (ii) dedicated implementations (ASICs). We have performed a detailed complexity analysis of the recent multimedia standard (MPEG-4) which has shown the potential for reconfigurable computing, that adapts the underlying hardware dynamically in response to changes in the input data or processing environment. We therefore propose a methodology for designing a reconfigurable media processor. This involves hardware–software co-design implemented in the form of a parser, profiler, recurring pattern analyzer, spatial and temporal partitioner. The proposed methodology enables efficient partitioning of resources for complex and time critical multimedia applications.     

多媒体公司网站制作

简要回顾了多媒体发展过程,由传统媒体发展到第四媒体。从多媒体网站应运而生和制作角度出发,系统研究并阐述如何使用Macromedia公司Dreamweaver 8建立多媒体公司网站网页、管理站点和发布过程。同时还详细介绍了多媒体技术及发展概况、超文本标记语言HTML和JavaScript等多媒体网页编辑语言的概念及在制作页面方面的使用。由于多媒体网页是由较为丰富的文字、图像、音频、视频和动画集成的媒体,所以也介绍了与其相关文件的结构及属性。     

有穷自动机的多媒体教学系统设计

利用多媒体技术的优势,采用多媒体课件制作工具Flash 8.0软件,将图形、动画和影视等多种媒体的素材溶于编译原理课程的教学课件中,形成富有特色的多媒体教学课件;学生通过系统能够进行自主学习,提高对形式语义、有穷自动机等抽象内容的学习兴趣、增强课堂教学效果。设计了该有穷自动机多媒体教学系统,既可在课堂上演示,也可在课后由学生自主观摩,以增强对编译原理课程的学习效果。     

Powerpoint2002使用技巧

Powerpoint是一种通用且易掌握的多媒体集成软件，能方便地制作文字：图形，加入图像、声音、动画等多媒体素材，教师常用它来制作教学时所用的课件。在用Powerpoint制作多媒体课件时，如果能掌握其中的一些技巧，那么就能够达到事半功倍的效果。本文列举了Powerpoint2002使用过程中的一些操作技巧。     

Assessing the effects of different multimedia materials on emotions and learning performance for visual and verbal style learners

Multimedia materials are now increasingly used in curricula. However, individual preferences for multimedia materials based on visual and verbal cognitive styles may affect learners' emotions and performance. Therefore, in-depth studies that investigate how different multimedia materials affect learning performance and the emotions of learners with visual and verbal cognitive styles are needed. Additionally, many education scholars have argued that emotions directly affect learning performance. Therefore, a further study that confirms the relationships between learners' emotions and performance for learners with visual and verbal cognitive styles will provide useful knowledge in terms of designing an emotion-based adaptive multimedia learning system for supporting personalized learning. To investigate these issues, the study applies the Style of Processing (SOP) scale to identify verbalizers and visualizers. Moreover, the emotion assessment instrument emWave, which was developed by HeartMath, is applied to assess variations in emotional states for verbalizers and visualizers during learning processes. Three different multimedia materials, static text and image-based multimedia material, video-based multimedia material, and animated interactive multimedia material, were presented to verbalizers and visualizers to investigate how different multimedia materials affect individual learning performance and emotion, and to identify relationships between learning performance and emotion. Experimental results show that video-based multimedia material generates the best learning performance and most positive emotion for verbalizers. Moreover, dynamic multimedia materials containing video and animation are more appropriate for visualizers than static multimedia materials containing text and image. Finally, a partial correlation exists between negative emotion and learning performance; that is, negative emotion and pretest scores considered together and negative emotion alone can predict learning performance of visualizers who use video-based multimedia material for learning.     

Assessing the effects of different multimedia materials on emotions and learning performance for visual and verbal style learners

Multimedia materials are now increasingly used in curricula. However, individual preferences for multimedia materials based on visual and verbal cognitive styles may affect learners' emotions and performance. Therefore, in-depth studies that investigate how different multimedia materials affect learning performance and the emotions of learners with visual and verbal cognitive styles are needed. Additionally, many education scholars have argued that emotions directly affect learning performance. Therefore, a further study that confirms the relationships between learners' emotions and performance for learners with visual and verbal cognitive styles will provide useful knowledge in terms of designing an emotion-based adaptive multimedia learning system for supporting personalized learning. To investigate these issues, the study applies the Style of Processing (SOP) scale to identify verbalizers and visualizers. Moreover, the emotion assessment instrument emWave, which was developed by HeartMath, is applied to assess variations in emotional states for verbalizers and visualizers during learning processes. Three different multimedia materials, static text and image-based multimedia material, video-based multimedia material, and animated interactive multimedia material, were presented to verbalizers and visualizers to investigate how different multimedia materials affect individual learning performance and emotion, and to identify relationships between learning performance and emotion. Experimental results show that video-based multimedia material generates the best learning performance and most positive emotion for verbalizers. Moreover, dynamic multimedia materials containing video and animation are more appropriate for visualizers than static multimedia materials containing text and image. Finally, a partial correlation exists between negative emotion and learning performance; that is, negative emotion and pretest scores considered together and negative emotion alone can predict learning performance of visualizers who use video-based multimedia material for learning.     

基于内容的电影动画素材检索

传统的电影动画素材检索，通常采用基于索引的方法。素材库中的动画素材数量巨大，采用这种方法会造成人力和时间的浪费，达不到满意的效果。MPEG-7标准是多媒体内容描述的接口，该文将MPEG-7标准运用到电影动画素材的检索中，缩短了制作周期，提高了工作效率。     

基于ActiveX技术的PPT作品探究

摘要：文章从实用角度出发,以ActiveX技术特征、ActiveX控件应用途径作为理论铺垫,在AcdveX控件的用法、环境安全性、非编辑环境下可靠运行三个层面,对AcdveX技术支持的OfficePowerpoint多媒体演示作品的制作进行了探究,以期为读者提供参考。文章认为：AcdveX技术不仅使Powerpoint针对flash动画、数字视频等动态媒体控制更加有效,而且还能实现动态文本输入、虚拟现实模型和全景电影的控制等功能。尽管基于该技术的作品在演示时,还不能完全脱离Office Powerpoint软件环境,但终究是增强和拓展了Office Powerpoint媒体集成功能。     

Decimation of human face model for real-time animation in intelligent multimedia systems

Animating a complex human face model in real-time is not a trivial task in intelligent multimedia systems for next generation environments. This paper proposes a generation scheme of a simplified model for real-time human face animation in intelligent multimedia systems. Previous work mainly focused on the geometric features when generating a simplified human face model. Such methods may lose the critical feature points for animating human faces. The proposed method can find those important feature points and can generate the feature-preserved low-level models busing our new quadrics. The new quadrics consist of basic error metrics and feature edge quadrics. The quality of facial animation with a lower-level model is as good as that of a computationally expansive original model. In this paper, we prove that our decimated facial model is effective in facial animation using a well-known expression-retargeting technique.     

计算机多媒体技术的应用研究

计算机多媒体技术,就是通过计算机将文字、图像、视频、声音、动画等多种形式的媒体信息都经过一系列的变换,转变成为数字信息,同时,把这些数字信息通过友好的界面进行显示出来。计算机多媒体技术的应用正在日趋广泛,结合笔者的实际工作经验,主要从多媒体教学方面探讨了计算机多媒体技术的应用。     

Feminist interventions in electronic environments

Recent feminist cultural studies of technology analyze how discourses and practices that circulate in high-tech culture reproduce and enact the same unequal power relations embedded in our institutions and day-to-day activities. Feminist interventions are communicative acts that bring attention to the shifting power relations within a specific discursive context. An analysis of the assumptions about audience that operate in electronic artifacts demonstrates how power relations play out within particular communities. The author argues that enacting feminist interventions in online environments changes the online community's identify and sense of audience, and that creating feminist multimedia can help ensure a more human, diverse and gender balanced human presence in all forms of technology and new media.     

GPU上的水彩画风格实时渲染及动画绘制

论文提出了一种基于GPU 的对三维场景进行实时水彩画效果渲染的方法。 该方法的大部分过程使用图像空间的技术实现。算法将画面分为细节层、环境层、笔触层分 别渲染,再进行合成。在过程中使用环境遮挡、shadow mapping 等技术进行快速的阴影计算, 并使用图像滤镜的方法模拟水彩的多种主要特征。由于该方法以图像空间的技术为主,因此 可以利用GPU 并行处理的特点对计算过程进行加速,进而达到实时的渲染速度。最后建立 动画脚本分析系统,进行实时动画渲染,表明该方法在计算机动画、游戏等数字娱乐产业领 域有较大的应用潜力。     

Scheduling multimedia presentations in educational digital libraries

An educational digital library is a specialized digital library containing instructional materials, such as class lectures, seminar presentations, and various training materials. These materials consist of a combination of audio, video, and image data. In such an environment, basic parts of multimedia data are usually stored in databases and sophisticated multimedia presentations may be assembled to generate various presentations. In this paper, we investigate a theory of the scheduling strategies for supporting the synchronized presentations of multimedia streams which is applicable to educational digital libraries. This scheduling theory includes the specification and representation of synchronization on media streams, the realization of appropriate synchronization granularity, and the scheduling principles for the presentations of multimedia streams. This investigation formulates criteria for specifying and scheduling the skipping/pausing of media streams with asynchronous presentations when various delays occur. Adaptability to various quality-of-service requirements is supported in the scheduling strategies. Various synchronization mechanisms at both client and server sides are proposed to implement the scheduling theory. Experimental analysis is conducted using instructional materials.     

斐波那契数列算法动画

算法动画(Algorithm Animation)作为一种可视化工具,以动态交互的图形化方式来形象的表示算法的执行过程。斐波那契数列(Fibonacci sequence)作为一种重要数列,可利用MFC,GDI+等技术,使斐波那契数列以图形、图像元素动态等算法动画的形式表现出来,便于理解。算法动画界面UI设计运用了MFC(Microsoft Foundation Classes),GDI+(Graphics Device Interface),PS((Photoshop))等技术。重点介绍动画开始界面,多媒体文件,动画主界面等的UI设计与实现。     

一套多媒体“工程制图”CAI.系列软件

该文介绍作者开发的一部工程制图多媒体电子教材。这本教材是在Ｐｗｉｎ９５平台上用Ｔｏｏｌｂｏｏｋ３．０和一些多媒体制作工具设计开发的（Ｒｗｉｎ３．ｘ和英文Ｗｉｎｄｏｗｓ加Ｃｓｔａｒ兼容）。它应用了计算机图形、图象、二维动画、三维动画、声音、文本与超文本组成了一个交互的、集成的系统。文章介绍这部电子教材物内容、系统结构、使用才效果以及研制方法等。这部材料是我国工程制图的一部多媒体电子教材，部分章节已在     

An articulated limb motion planner for optimized movement

Task level animation of articulated figures, such as the human body, requires the ability to generate collision-free goal-directed motion of individual limbs in the presence of obstacles. This paper describes a new articulated limb motion planner for goal-directed point-to-point reaching motions. The produced motion avoids obstacles while optimizing an objective function. This two-phase algorithm uses heuristic guided Monte Carlo techniques to create a consistent underlying paradigm. The first phase consists of an existing potential field based random path planner which generates a population of candidate paths. This initial population is fed into the second phase, a genetic algorithm, which iteratively refines the population as it optimizes with respect to the objective function. The refinement process works on the principle of path coherency, the idea that a family of closely related collision-free paths lies in the vicinity of a given collision-free path. This paper focuses on seven different optimization functions. Optimized trajectories produced by the new motion planner are compared to those generated solely by the random path planner. The presented algorithm is flexible in that a wide range of objective functions can be optimized. Applications of the algorithm include task level animation, ergonomics and robotics.     

计算机角色动画制作中的可视媒体融合综述

近年来,计算机角色动画在虚拟现实、计算机游戏、动画生成、影视特技及运动仿真等多个领域得到广泛深入的应用,同时在数据上涉及到图像、视频、运动捕获数据、三维模型等可视媒体,已经成为一个多种可视媒体融合的研究领域．在计算机角色动画制作中,传统的仅仅利用单一可视媒体进行模型制作和动画生成的方法正在被基于多种可视媒体融合的方法所取代．文中从可视媒体融合的角度对现有的计算机角色动画研究进行综述,并依据可视媒体融合框架进行归纳和分类．