Camera Control in Computer Graphics

Recent progress in modelling, animation and rendering means that rich, high fidelity virtual worlds are found in many interactive graphics applications. However, the viewer's experience of a 3D world is dependent on the nature of the virtual cinematography, in particular, the camera position, orientation and motion in relation to the elements of the scene and the action. Camera control encompasses viewpoint computation, motion planning and editing. We present a range of computer graphics applications and draw on insights from cinematographic practice in identifying their different requirements with regard to camera control. The nature of the camera control problem varies depending on these requirements, which range from augmented manual control (semi‐automatic) in interactive applications, to fully automated approaches. We review the full range of solution techniques from constraint‐based to optimization‐based approaches, and conclude with an examination of occlusion management and expressiveness in the context of declarative approaches to camera control.     

A principle for learning egocentric-allocentric transformation

Numerous single-unit recording studies have found mammalian hippocampal neurons that fire selectively for the animal's location in space, independent of its orientation. The population of such neurons, commonly known as place cells, is thought to maintain an allocentric, or orientation-independent, internal representation of the animal's location in space, as well as mediating long-term storage of spatial memories. The fact that spatial information from the environment must reach the brain via sensory receptors in an inherently egocentric, or viewpoint-dependent, fashion leads to the question of how the brain learns to transform egocentric sensory representations into allocentric ones for long-term memory storage. Additionally, if these long-term memory representations of space are to be useful in guiding motor behavior, then the reverse transformation, from allocentric to egocentric coordinates, must also be learned. We propose that orientation-invariant representations can be learned by neural circuits that follow two learning principles: minimization of reconstruction error and maximization of representational temporal inertia. Two different neural network models are presented that adhere to these learning principles, the first by direct optimization through gradient descent and the second using a more biologically realistic circuit based on the restricted Boltzmann machine (Hinton, 2002; Smolensky, 1986). Both models lead to orientation-invariant representations, with the latter demonstrating place-cell-like responses when trained on a linear track environment.     

屹立在关系数据库上的语义网

都听说语义网是Web的未来,但你还是不知道它怎么能让你的应用变得更好。它能加快开发速度吗？能应付复杂的数据结构吗？面向对象的原则还要吗？     

The movement patterns and the experiential components of virtual environments

Human movement in virtual environments (VEs) is a largely unstudied area, and there are no well-established methods of measuring it in VEs. Consequently, it is unclear how movement affects the experiential side of VEs. We introduce a novel method of measuring and modelling human movement. A specific information entropy-based modelling method enabled us to identify different movement patterns and analyse the experiential components related to them. The data was collected by registering the movement patterns of 68 participants who were in a virtual house doing a search task. The experiential side of the VE was measured with the Experimental Virtual Environment Questionnaire (EVEQ). Four movement patterns were identified. In addition, fluent movement in VEs was related to a high sense of presence. Moreover, the participants who moved fluently in the environment assessed their skills high. The results show how movement is related the way in which people experience the VE. The movement analysis method introduced here is applicable to other related research areas as well.     

LCD motion‐blur estimation using different measurement methods

Abstract— The primary goal of this study was to find a measurement method for motion blur which is easy to carry out and gives results that can be reproduced from one lab to another. This method should be able to also take into account methods for reduction of motion blur such as backlight flashing. Two methods have been compared. The first method uses a high‐speed camera that permits us to directly picture the blurred‐edge profile. The second one exploits the mathematical analysis of the motion‐blur formation to construct the blurred‐edge profile from the temporal step response. Measurement results and method proposals are given and discussed.     

Finite-source M/M/S retrial queue with search for balking and impatient customers from the orbit

The present paper deals with a generalization of the homogeneous multi-server finite-source retrial queue with search for customers in the orbit. The novelty of the investigation is the introduction of balking and impatience for requests who arrive at the service facility with a limited capacity and FIFO queue. Arriving customers may balk, i.e., they either join the queue or go to the orbit. Moreover, the requests are impatient and abandon the buffer after a random time and enter the orbit, too. In case of an empty buffer, each server searches for a customer in the orbit after finishing service. All random variables involved in the model construction are supposed to be exponentially distributed and independent of each other. The primary aim of this analysis is to show the effect of balking, impatience, and buffer size on the steady-state performance measures. Concentrating on the mean response time, several numerical examples are investigated by the help of the MOSEL-2 tool used for creating the model and calculating the stationary characteristics.     

Weight distribution and dual distance

Several results in coding theory (e.g. the Carlitz-Uchiyama bound) show that the weight distributions of certain algebraic codes of lengthn are concentrated aroundn/2 within a range of width n. It is proved in this article that the extreme weights of a linear binary code of sufficiently high dual distance cannot be too close ton/2, the gap being of order n. The tools used involve the Pless identities and the orthogonality properties of Krawtchouk polynomials, as well as estimates on their zeroes. As a by-product upper bounds on the minimum distance of self-dual binary codes are derived.     

Toward a formal specification of multimedia synchronization scenarios

This paper introduces time stream Pétri nets (Ts treamPn), a model for the formal specification of multimedia synchronization scenarios. This new model extends time Pétri nets to formally describe the timed behaviour of multimedia objects and streams in asynchronous distributed systems. The proposed approach uses time intervals to label the arcs exiting from the places of the net, and typed transitions to define different firing rules. This model allows a complete and accurate specification of synchronization constraints between multimedia streams and can be used at different levels of granularity.