Distributed shared abstractions (DSA) on multiprocessors

Any parallel program has abstractions that are shared by the program's multiple processes. Such shared abstractions can considerably affect the performance of parallel programs, on both distributed and shared memory multiprocessors. As a result, their implementation must be efficient, and such efficiency should be achieved without unduly compromising program portability and maintainability. The primary contribution of the DSA library is its representation of shared abstractions as objects that may be internally distributed across different nodes of a parallel machine. Such distributed shared abstractions (DSA) are encapsulated so that their implementations are easily changed while maintaining program portability across parallel architectures. The principal results presented are: a demonstration that the fragmentation of object state across different nodes of a multiprocessor machine can significantly improve program performance; and that such object fragmentation can be achieved without compromising portability by changing object interfaces. These results are demonstrated using implementations of the DSA library on several medium scale multiprocessors, including the BBN Butterfly, Kendall Square Research, and SGI shared memory multiprocessors. The DSA library's evaluation uses synthetic workloads and a parallel implementation of a branch and bound algorithm for solving the traveling salesperson problem (TSP)     

(Computer) Vision without Sight

Computer vision holds great promise for helping persons with blindness or visual impairments (VI) to interpret and explore the visual world. To this end, it is worthwhile to assess the situation critically by understanding the actual needs of the VI population and which of these needs might be addressed by computer vision. This article reviews the types of assistive technology application areas that have already been developed for VI, and the possible roles that computer vision can play in facilitating these applications. We discuss how appropriate user interfaces are designed to translate the output of computer vision algorithms into information that the user can quickly and safely act upon, and how system-level characteristics affect the overall usability of an assistive technology. Finally, we conclude by highlighting a few novel and intriguing areas of application of computer vision to assistive technology.     

Vision for man-machine interaction

Computer vision provides a powerful tool for the interaction between man and machine. The barrier between physical objects (paper, pencils, calculators) and their electronic counterparts limits both the integration of computing into human tasks, and the population willing to adapt to the required input devices. Computer vision, coupled with video projection using low cost devices, makes it possible for a human to use any convenient object, including fingers, as digital input devices. In such an “augmented reality”, information is projected onto ordinary objects and acquired by watching the way objects are manipulated. In the first part of this paper we describe experiments with techniques for watching the hands and recognizing gestures.

Vision of the face is an important aspect of human-to-human communication. We have been experimenting with the use of computer vision “watch the face”. In the second part of this paper we describe techniques for detecting, tracking and recognizing faces. When combined with real time image processing and active control of camera parameters, these techniques can greatly reduce the communications bandwidth required for videophone and videoconference communications.     

Multiresolution volumetric 3D object reconstruction for collaborative interactions

Within the framework of collaborative interactions with 3D numerical copies of real objects inserted in virtual environments, this paper tackles the issue of 3D object reconstruction from multiple calibrated cameras. After examining the various constraints related to collaborative systems, we propose comprehensive, state of the art 3D reconstruction techniques. The main families of approaches are here identified, described, and discussed in detail. An analysis of the literature shows that there is a lack of methods that are able to respond to the needs of the collaborative interaction applications, and that perform adequately in terms of computation time and reconstruction accuracy. Accordingly, we propose a new multiresolution volumetric approach that is able to obtain numerical copies of real objects at multiple resolutions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach provides accurate reconstructions at reasonable, interactive computation times. The use of the proposed approach for progressive insertion of reconstructed objects in the prototype interfaces MOWGLI and Spin-3D developed by FranceTelecom R&D is also illustrated. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Rachid Guerchouche. Was born in Algeria in 1979. He received an Engineer Degree in electronics from the National Polytechnic School of Algiers, Algeria in June 2004, and a research Masters Degree in Virtual Reality and Complex Systems Engineering from Université Evry-Val d’Essonne (France) in June 2005. He is currently a PhD student jointly in the ARTEMIS Department at TELECOM & Management SudParis and in the VIA Project Unit of the IRIS Laboratory at France Télécom R&D. Olivier Bernier. Was born in 1964. He received the diploma of the Ecole Polytech-nique (Palaiseau, France) in 1986 and the diploma of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (Paris, France) in 1988. Since this date, he has worked as a Research Engineer at Orange Labs-FT R&D, the research center of France Telecom. His areas of interest are computer vision, statistical learning and pattern recognition, in particular applied to advanced human machine interfaces. Titus Zaharia. Received an Engineer Degree in Electronics and the Masters Degree in Electronics from University POLITEHNICA (Bucharest, Romania) in 1995 and 1996, respectively. In 2001, he obtained a PhD degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from University Paris V—René Descartes (Paris, France). He then joined the ARTEMIS Department at TELECOM & Management SudParis as a research engineer, and became an Associate Professor in 2002. His research interests concern visual content indexing and coding, and include feature extraction, image and video segmentation, motion detection and estimation, 2D/3D reconstruction, virtual character modelling and animation, virtual/augmented reality, digital interactive TV, calibration techniques, and color image processing. Titus Zaharia is a member of SPIE.     

Symbol design: a user-centered method to design pen-based interfaces and extend the functionality of pointer input devices

A method called “SymbolDesign” is proposed that can be used to design user-centered interfaces for pen-based input devices. It can also extend the functionality of pointer input devices, such as the traditional computer mouse or the Camera Mouse, a camera-based computer interface. Users can create their own interfaces by choosing single-stroke movement patterns that are convenient to draw with the selected input device, and by mapping them to a desired set of commands. A pattern could be the trace of a moving finger detected with the Camera Mouse or a symbol drawn with an optical pen. The core of the SymbolDesign system is a dynamically created classifier, in the current implementation an artificial neural network. The architecture of the neural network automatically adjusts according to the complexity of the classification task. In experiments, subjects used the SymbolDesign method to design and test the interfaces they created, for example, to browse the web. The experiments demonstrated good recognition accuracy and responsiveness of the user interfaces. The method provided an easily-designed and easily-used computer input mechanism for people without physical limitations, and, with some modifications, has the potential to become a computer access tool for people with severe paralysis.     

应用设计模式设计可移植的、可扩充、简单灵活的嵌入式GUIToolkit

The environments in which embedded software run are different in that they may run on different processors, have different input devices, and display graphics on a variety of video devices. In addition, it usually has limited computing and storing capability which require embedded GUI toolkit simple and flexible. According to the characteristics and the requirements of embedded environment, this story shows an embedded GUI toolkit and some design concerns, that is, applying design patters to design embedded GUI Toolkit to achieve high portability,extensibility and flexibility.     

光场成像技术及其在计算机视觉中的应用

目的 光场成像技术刚刚在计算机视觉研究中展开初步应用,其相关研究比较零散,缺乏系统性。本文旨在系统介绍光场成像技术发展以及其应用在计算机视觉研究中有代表性的工作。方法 从解决计算机视觉问题的角度出发,4个层面讨论光场成像技术最近十年的研究工作,包括:1)主流的光场成像设备及其作为计算机视觉传感器的优点与不足;2)光场相机作为视觉传感器的标定、解码以及预处理方法;3)基于4维光场的图像渲染与重建技术,以及其如何促进计算机视觉研究;4)以4维光场数据为基础的特征表达方法。结果 逐层梳理出光场成像在求解视觉问题中的优势和局限,分析其中根本性的原理与掣肘,力图总结出亟待解决的关键问题以及未来的发展趋势。结论 作为一种颇具前景的新型计算机视觉传感器技术,光场成像技术的研究必将更为广泛和深入。研究应用于计算机视觉的光场成像技术将有力的引导和促进计算机视觉和光场成像技术协同发展。     

Robust detection and ordering of ellipses on a calibration pattern

The aim of this work is to accurately estimate from an image the parameters of some ellipses and their relative positions with respect to a given pattern. The process is characterized because it is fully automated and is robust against image noise and occlusions. We have built a calibrator pattern with two planes each containing several ordered circles in known 3D positions. Our method is able to estimate the position of every ellipse and to put them into correspondence with the original calibrator circles. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Luis álvarez received an MS in applied mathematics in 1985 and a PhD in mathematics in 1988, both from CompIntense University (Madrid, Spain). Between 1991 and 1992, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at CEREMADE, Université Paris IX—Dauphine (France). Currently, he is with the Computer Science Department of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. His research interests are computer vision and partial differential equations. He is the scientific leader of computer vision group of the University of Las Palmas named AMI. Agustín Salgado received an MS in computer science in from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Las Palmas, Spain). Currently, he holds a grant from the Computer Science Department of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where he is working on his doctoral thesis under the direction of Javier Sánchez. Javier Sánchez received an MS in computer science in 1997 and a PhD in computer science in 2001, both from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Las Palmas, Spain). Between 1997 and 1998, he attended some courses of the DBA 127 “Informatique: Systemes Intelligentes” at the Université Paris IX—Dauphine (France). Currently, he is a lecturer at the Computer Science Department of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. His research interests are computer vision and partial differential equations, specially applied to stereoscopic vision and optical flow estimation.     

Strange Bedfellows: Human-Computer Interaction, Interface Design, and Composition Pedagogy

As digital interfaces increasingly mediate our access to information, the design of these interfaces becomes increasingly important. Designing digital interfaces requires writers to make rhetorical choices that are sometimes technical in nature and often correspond with principles taught in the computer science subfield of human-computer interaction. We propose that an HCI-informed writing pedagogy can complicate for both writing and computer science students the important role audience should play when designing traditional and digital interfaces. Although it is a subtle shift in many ways, this pedagogy seemed to complicate student understanding of the relationship between audience and the texts/interfaces they created: it was not just the “human” (beliefs, attitudes, values, demographics) or the “computer” (the software or hardware or other types of mediation) that mattered but rather the “interaction” between the two. First we explore some of the ways in which writing code and writing prose have merged and paved the way for an HCI-informed writing pedagogy. Next we examine some parallels between human-computer interaction principles and composition principles. Finally, we refer to assignments, student responses, and anecdotal evidence from our classes where an HCI-informed writing pedagogy drew—or could have drawn—student attention more acutely to various audience-related technical and rhetorical interface design choices.     

Innovative wearable interfaces: an exploratory analysis of paper-based interfaces with camera-glasses device unit

The new ubiquitous interaction methods change people’s life and facilitate their tasks in everyday life and in the workplace, enabling people to access their personal data as well as public resources at any time and in any place. We found two solutions to enable ubiquitous interaction and put a stop to the limits imposed by the desktop mode: namely nomadism and mobility. Based on these two solutions, we have proposed three interfaces (Zhou et al. in HCI international 2011: human–computer interaction. Interaction techniques and environments, Springer, Berlin, pp 500–509, 2011): in-environment interface (IEI), environment dependent interface (EDI), and environment independent interface (EII). In this paper, we first discuss an overview of IEI, EDI, and EII, before excluding IEI and focusing on EDI and EII, their background, and distinct characteristics. We also propose a continuum from physical paper-based interface to digital projected interface in relation with EDI and EII. Then, to validate EDI and EII concepts, we design and implement a MobilePaperAccess system, which is a wearable camera-glasses system with paper-based interface and original input techniques allowing mobile interaction. Furthermore, we discuss the evaluation of the MobilePaperAccess system; we compare two interfaces (EDI and EII) and three input techniques (finger input, mask input, and page input) to test the feasibility and usability of this system. Both the quantitative and qualitative results are reported and discussed. Finally, we provide the prospects and our future work for improving the current approaches.     

基于PSoC的数控运动控制器

采用PSoC可编程片上系统设计了一个数控运动控制器,由于PSoC具有灵活的可自由配置的模拟、数字资源和输入输出接口以及对多种通信接口的支持,该运动控制器具有良好的可扩展性和可移植性。介绍了系统的整体结构、控制器的硬件模块设计以及直线、圆弧、Nurbs曲线插补方式和速度控制方案的软件实现,使用该控制器控制一台三轴雕刻机进行雕刻,结果表明该系统具有良好的性能。     

基于IMAQ Vision和PLC的水果大小自动分级系统设计

水果大小是水果分级的一个重要依据,随着计算机技术和图像处理技术的飞速发展,计算机视觉技术被广泛用于水果品质的检测。所设计的水果大小自动分级系统由机器视觉检测系统和基于PLC的水果传送分拣机构组成。使用LabbVIEW软件编写水果大小自动分级系统的监控界面,并实现对CCD摄像机的控制及获取图片;使用IMAQ Vision工具包对所获取的水果图片进行处理,并进行大小分析,根据大小的等级由LabVIEW通过串口通信发送命令给PLC,由PLC控制水果的传送并进入对应的分级口,从而完成水果的自动分级。实际运行证明该系统能实时进行动态采集图片,有效地进行水果大小分析及自动分级。     

Acting by hand: Informing interaction design for the periphery of people’s attention

Interactions in and with the physical world have enabled us to perform everyday activities in the periphery of our attention. Even though digital technologies are becoming increasingly present in the everyday environment, interaction with these technologies usually requires people’s focused attention. In the realm of the vision of calm technology, we think that designing interactions with the digital world inspired by our peripheral interaction with the physical world, will enable digital technologies to better blend into our everyday lives. However, for such interaction design to be effective, a detailed understanding of the everyday periphery is required. In this paper, we therefore present a qualitative study on everyday activities that may take place in the periphery of the attention. We provide a broad range of examples of such everyday activities and cluster them to present the conditions under which they may be performed peripherally. Furthermore, we discuss how our findings may be relevant for the design of peripheral interactions with digital technologies, and present two conceptual designs that are based on our findings.     

基于手绘输入理解的智能3D几何建模系统

近年来,图形学领域已经开发了大量的3D建模和可视化工具,但是这些工具的界面往往过于复杂,制约了设计人员的创造性工作,也进一步限制了这些工具为普遍用户所使用。事实上,理想的3D建模工具应该提供给用户以尽可能自然、简单的操作,例如基于电子笔的草图输入,而且随着移动设备的发展,也使之成为图形学中更有前景的研究方向。文章论述了当前支持手绘的建模技术的研究现状,并提出了一个更加智能化的多模块建模体系,突出了交互技术、智能理解和高质量的可视化输出技术的结合;而且针对手绘输入的不明确性,着重分析了图形数据的基于特性的语义描述,提出了智能的逻辑推理模型,并进一步描述了下一代融合自然输入、逻辑推理与虚拟显示于一体的智能图形建模系统的实现。预测了人工智能技术与CA D技术的结合将是未来图形学领域发展的主要方向之一。     

A generic classification and object-oriented simulation toolkit forSMT assembly equipment

Applications of computer simulation for surface mount technology (SMT) assembly lines have addressed many aspects of supply chain management, e.g., estimating cycle times, evaluating production equipment and line configurations, optimizing throughput and assessing product design for manufacturability. The implementation of an SMT machine simulator typically requires specialized code based on cycle time characterization experiments for the given machine type. This paper describes a generic simulation toolkit based on a classification of current SMT equipment. A detailed survey of machines has led to the definition of machine families and a generic machine model. A simulation toolkit consisting of object classes written in C++ has been developed to represent the generic machine model. Object-oriented design has enabled the construction of an object hierarchy that models the physical structure of a machine and its operation. A machine definition language has been specified to let the user configure the toolkit for a particular machine. The concept of a "snapshot" object is introduced, as a way to capture simulated operations for both parallel and sequential processes. Finally, this paper presents an application of the toolkit in the optimization of SMT machines. Results are presented for the Universal GSM2, a gantry-type machine     

Physical objects as bidirectional user interface elements

The planar manipulator display uses physical objects for human-computer interaction. This system addresses the poor match between standard computer interfaces and human spatial awareness. The desire to take advantage of these abilities was our primary motivation in developing the planar manipulator display (PMD). The PMD uses movable physical objects as a means of human-computer interaction. Our work extends research on the use of tracked physical objects as tangible input elements by providing a practical method to use bidirectional physical elements, whereby objects can be moved both by users and by the computer.     

Finger gesture input utilizing the rear camera of a mobile phone: A perspective of mobile CAD

Various interfaces have been suggested for mobile devices, including touch gesture and embedded sensor‐based interfaces. However, if a user's task requires a thorough look, these interfaces hinder sight of view in display and thus can be inappropriate for the tasks. This problem is more important especially in the mobile computer aided design (CAD) context, which performs visually demanding tasks on the limited screen. To address this point, this study suggests a mobile interface utilizing the rear camera of the device and describes the function mapping for CAD. The suggested interface detects finger attachment and movement direction. The number of colors in camera vision and local binary pattern are used as features, and a support vector machine (SVM) is used for feature classification. A prototype application is designed for validation, and appropriate SVM models are selected through benchmarking tests. The validation results show that the suggested interface can perform with high accuracy and low computational resources.     

An Object-Oriented Framework for Loop Parallelization

Generation of efficient parallel code is a major goal of a well-designed and developed parallelizing compiler. Another important goal is portability of both compiler system and the resulting output source codes. The various choices of current and future parallel computer architectures as well as the cost of developing a parallelizing compiler make portability a very important design goal. Since the design of parallelizing compilers is considerably move complex than designing conventional compilers, it is very important to achieve both efficiency and portability. To meet this dual goal, we have investigated the application of object oriented design to parallelizing compilers. Our parallelizing compiler design is based on abstractions of intermediate representations of loops and their class definitions. In this paper, we address the problem of loop parallelization and propose a framework where the loop parallelization process is divided into three phases and the optimization of loops is performed via a cyclic application of these three phases. The class of each phase is hierarchically derived from intermediate representations of loops. This facilitates the portability of the resulting parallelizing compilers. Furthermore, one of the phases uses a reservation table of hardware resources in order to obtain optimized parallel programs for given hardware resources. The validation of the proposed framework is given through the application of the object oriented design on an example program which is then parallelized efficiently.     

Perci: Pervasive Service Interaction with the Internet of Things

The advancement of ubiquitous computing technologies has greatly improved the availability of digital resources in the real world. Here, the authors investigate mobile interaction with tagged, everyday objects and associated information that's based on the Internet of Things and its technologies. Their framework for integrating Web services and mobile interaction with physical objects relies on information typing to increase interoperability. Two prototypes for mobile interaction with smart posters build upon this framework to realize multi-tag interaction with physical user interfaces. The authors' evaluation identifies usability issues regarding the design of physical mobile interactions, interfaces, and applications.     

What's ahead for embedded software?

Once deemed too small and retro for research, embedded software has grown complex and pervasive enough to attract the attention of computer scientists. There are many research questions, but most center around one issue: how to reconcile a set of domain-specific requirements with the demands of interaction in the physical world. How do you adapt software abstractions designed merely to transform data to meet requirements like real-time constraints, concurrency, and stringent safety considerations? The answer to this question has given rise to some promising research angles, including novel ways to deal with concurrency and real time and methods for augmenting component interfaces to promote safety and adaptability