Directional guidance from audible pedestrian signals for street crossing

Typical audible pedestrian signals indicate when the pedestrian walk interval is in effect but provide little, or even misleading information for directional alignment. In three experiments, blind and blindfolded sighted adults crossed a simulated crossing with recorded traffic noise to approximate street sounds. This was done to investigate how characteristics of signal presentation affected usefulness of the auditory signal for guiding crossing behaviour. Crossing was more accurate when signals came only from the far end of the crossing rather than the typical practice of presenting signals simultaneously from both ends. Alternating the signal between ends of the crossing was not helpful. Also, the customary practice of signalling two parallel crossings at the same time drew participants somewhat toward the opposite crossing. Providing a locator tone at the end of the crossing during the pedestrian clearance interval improved crossing accuracy. These findings provide a basis for designing audible pedestrian signals to enhance directional guidance. The principal findings were the same for blind and sighted participants and applied across a range of specific signals (e.g. chirps, clicks, voices).     

Interactive volume rendering of thin thread structures within multivalued scientific data sets

We present a threads and halos representation for interactive volume rendering of vector-field structure and describe a number of additional components that combine to create effective visualizations of multivalued 3D scientific data. After filtering linear structures, such as flow lines, into a volume representation, we use a multilayer volume rendering approach to simultaneously display this derived volume along with other data values. We demonstrate the utility of threads and halos in clarifying depth relationships within dense renderings and we present results from two scientific applications: visualization of second-order tensor valued magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and simulated 3D fluid flow data. In both application areas, the interactivity of the visualizations proved to be important to the domain scientists. Finally, we describe a PC-based implementation of our framework along with domain specific transfer functions, including an exploratory data culling tool, that enable fast data exploration.     

Computability in planar dynamical systems

In this paper we explore the problem of computing attractors and their respective basins of attraction for continuous-time planar dynamical systems. We consider C ¹ systems and show that stability is in general necessary (but may not be sufficient) to attain computability. In particular, we show that (a) the problem of determining the number of attractors in a given compact set is in general undecidable, even for analytic systems and (b) the attractors are semi-computable for stable systems. We also show that the basins of attraction are semi-computable if and only if the system is stable.     

MuscleBuilder: A modeling tool for human anatomy

A traditional multi-layered approach is adopted to human body modeling and deformation. The model is split into three general anatomical structures: the skeleton, musculature and skin. It is shown that each of these layers is modeled and deformed by using fast, procedural, ad-hoc methods that can painlessly be reimplemented. The modeling approach is generic enough to handle muscles of varying shape, size and characteristics and does not break in extreme skeleton poses. It is also described that the integrated MuscleBuilder system whose main features are: i) easy and quick creation of muscle deformation models; ii) automatic deformation of an overlying skin. It is shown that visually realistic results can be obtained at interactive frame rates with very little input from the designer.     

Simultaneous optimization of piezoelectric actuator topology and polarization

This article addresses the problem of piezoelectric actuator design for active structural vibration control. The topology optimization method using the Piezoelectric Material with Penalization and Polarization (PEMAP-P) model is employed in this work to find the optimum actuator layout and polarization profile simultaneously. A coupled finite element model of the structure is derived assuming a two-phase material, and this structural model is written into the state-space representation. The proposed optimization formulation aims to determine the distribution of piezoelectric material which maximizes the controllability for a given vibration mode. The optimization of the layout and poling direction of embedded in-plane piezoelectric actuators are carried out using a Sequential Linear Programming (SLP) algorithm. Numerical examples are presented considering the control of the bending vibration modes for a cantilever and a fixed beam. A Linear-Quadratic Regulator (LQR) is synthesized for each case of controlled structure in order to compare the influence of the polarization profile.