A visual language‐based system for extraction–transformation–loading development

Data warehouse loading and refreshment is typically performed by means of complex software processes called extraction–transformation–loading (ETL). In this paper, we propose a system based on a suite of visual languages for mastering several aspects of the ETL development process, turning it into a visual programming task. The approach can be easily generalized and applied to other data integration contexts beyond data warehouses. It introduces two new visual languages that are used to specify the ETL process, which can also be represented by means of UML activity diagrams. In particular, the first visual language supports data manipulation activities, whereas the second one provides traceability information of attributes to highlight the impact of potential transformations on integrated schemas depending on them. Once the whole ETL process has been visually specified, the designer might invoke the automatic generation of an activity diagram representing a possible orchestration of it based on its dependencies. The designer can edit such a diagram to modify the proposed orchestration provided that changes do not alter data dependencies. The final specification can be translated into code that is executable on the data sources. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach has been validated through a user study in which we have compared the effort needed to design an ETL process in our approach with respect to the one required with main visual approaches described in the literature.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Industrial visual inspection of lime granules by neural networks

Lime granule quality inspection is an important task in the pulp and paper industry. In this paper a new method, build-up on a neural network and a path search method, is introduced for lime granule automatic visual inspection. Several correction steps to Landau's method are also introduced.     

Vega中运动模型的研究与仿真

视景仿真是虚拟现实最主要的表现方式,而运动模型是视景仿真中的重要环节。首先简单介绍了Vega中提供的基本运动模型,然后介绍了应用路径和导航器定义运动的方法,阐明了如何利用LynX和路径工具创建与编辑路径和导航器,给出了利用API接口函数编程实现路径和导航器的流程,随后讨论了自定义运动模型的设计步骤及其数据结构,以鼠标控制浏览场景为例给出了自定义运动模型函数的编写方法,最后应用Vega结合MFC利用多种运动模型编写了飞行视景仿真平台,取得了理想的效果。     

Temporal Analysis of Motion in Video Sequences through Predictive Operators

We study the problem of recovering temporal parameters which act as predictive operators, generalize time-to-collision and have direct interpretation for navigational purposes for piecewise arbitrarily smooth (polynomial) motion. A result stating that, for monocular observers undergoing arbitrary polynomial laws, these parameters are visually observable, is presented in the first part of this paper. This property suggests an alternate temporal representation of visual looming information. The second part of this paper is concerned with algorithmic approaches for environments with maneuvering agents. A method addressing model order determination, collision detection, and temporal parameter estimation is proposed. Experimental results are reported.     

仿人形机器人两眼协调运动控制系统的实现

人的两个眼球通常都是协调运动的,两个眼球各自独立地运动是不可能的。为此,我们以人的视觉生理学和解剖学研究成果为基础,对上述人的视觉机理进行研究,目的是简化人类复杂的视觉反馈系统,研制出相应的仿人形机器人视觉系统。本文主要介绍作者开发的一个仿人形机器人两眼协调运动控制系统及其控制软件。该控制系统及其控制软件可以用于实时地追踪、定位和识别活动人脸等运动目标。     

The design and efficacy of a robot‐mediated visual motor program for children learning disabilities

This study investigated the effects of a robot‐mediated visual motor program on improving the visual motor skills of children ages 5 to 11 years with learning disabilities and visual motor delays. It also compared the effects of a robotic program with traditional occupational therapy and tested the reliability of the computer‐generated scores. A randomized experimental design was used with 25 students assigned to either a robotic program group or traditional occupational therapy. The primary outcome measure was the Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI). Non‐parametric statistics evaluated the effects of intervention and compared the two methods. The correlation between the computer‐based scoring methods and the VMI was tested. The children who received the robotic program demonstrated significant gains in visual motor performance. The correlation between the computer‐based scoring and the VMI was moderate, but not significant.     

Example‐Based Retargeting of Human Motion to Arbitrary Mesh Models

We present a novel method for retargeting human motion to arbitrary 3D mesh models with as little user interaction as possible. Traditional motion‐retargeting systems try to preserve the original motion, while satisfying several motion constraints. Our method uses a few pose‐to‐pose examples provided by the user to extract the desired semantics behind the retargeting process while not limiting the transfer to being only literal. Thus, mesh models with different structures and/or motion semantics from humanoid skeletons become possible targets. Also considering the fact that most publicly available mesh models lack additional structure (e.g. skeleton), our method dispenses with the need for such a structure by means of a built‐in surface‐based deformation system. As deformation for animation purposes may require non‐rigid behaviour, we augment existing rigid deformation approaches to provide volume‐preserving and squash‐and‐stretch deformations. We demonstrate our approach on well‐known mesh models along with several publicly available motion‐capture sequences.     

A Real-Time Approach to the Spotting, Representation, and Recognition of Hand Gestures for Human–Computer Interaction

Aiming at the use of hand gestures for human–computer interaction, this paper presents a real-time approach to the spotting, representation, and recognition of hand gestures from a video stream. The approach exploits multiple cues including skin color, hand motion, and shape. Skin color analysis and coarse image motion detection are joined to perform reliable hand gesture spotting. At a higher level, a compact spatiotemporal representation is proposed for modeling appearance changes in image sequences containing hand gestures. The representation is extracted by combining robust parameterized image motion regression and shape features of a segmented hand. For efficient recognition of gestures made at varying rates, a linear resampling technique for eliminating the temporal variation (time normalization) while maintaining the essential information of the original gesture representations is developed. The gesture is then classified according to a training set of gestures. In experiments with a library of 12 gestures, the recognition rate was over 90%. Through the development of a prototype gesture-controlled panoramic map browser, we demonstrate that a vocabulary of predefined hand gestures can be used to interact successfully with applications running on an off-the-shelf personal computer equipped with a home video camera.