Optimizing BRDF orientations for the manipulation of anisotropic highlights

This paper introduces a system for the direct editing of highlights produced by anisotropic BRDFs, which we call anisotropic highlights. We first provide a comprehensive analysis of the link between the direction of anisotropy and the shape of highlight curves for arbitrary object surfaces. The gained insights provide the required ingredients to infer BRDF orientations from a prescribed highlight tangent field. This amounts to a non‐linear optimization problem, which is solved at interactive framerates during manipulation. Taking inspiration from sculpting software, we provide tools that give the impression of manipulating highlight curves while actually modifying their tangents. Our solver produces desired highlight shapes for a host of lighting environments and anisotropic BRDFs.     

A distributed solution to the network reconstruction problem

It has been recently shown in Ren et al. (2010) that by collecting noise-contaminated time series generated by a coupled-oscillator system at each node of a network, it is possible to robustly reconstruct its topology, i.e. determine the graph Laplacian. Restricting ourselves to linear consensus dynamics over undirected communication networks, in this paper we introduce a new dynamic average consensus least-squares algorithm to locally estimate these time series at each node, thus making the reconstruction process fully distributed and more easily applicable in the real world. We also propose a novel efficient method for separating the off-diagonal entries of the reconstructed Laplacian, and examine several concepts related to the trace of the dynamic correlation matrix of the coupled single integrators, which is a distinctive element of our network reconstruction method. The theory is illustrated with examples from computer, power and transportation systems.     

Spatio‐temporal geometry fusion for multiple hybrid cameras using moving least squares surfaces

Multi‐view reconstruction aims at computing the geometry of a scene observed by a set of cameras. Accurate 3D reconstruction of dynamic scenes is a key component for a large variety of applications, ranging from special effects to telepresence and medical imaging. In this paper we propose a method based on Moving Least Squares surfaces which robustly and efficiently reconstructs dynamic scenes captured by a calibrated set of hybrid color+depth cameras. Our reconstruction provides spatio‐temporal consistency and seamlessly fuses color and geometric information. We illustrate our approach on a variety of real sequences and demonstrate that it favorably compares to state‐of‐the‐art methods.     

Continuous Levels‐of‐Detail and Visual Abstraction for Seamless Molecular Visualization

Molecular visualization is often challenged with rendering of large molecular structures in real time. We introduce a novel approach that enables us to show even large protein complexes. Our method is based on the level‐of‐detail concept, where we exploit three different abstractions combined in one visualization. Firstly, molecular surface abstraction exploits three different surfaces, solvent‐excluded surface (SES), Gaussian kernels and van der Waals spheres, combined as one surface by linear interpolation. Secondly, we introduce three shading abstraction levels and a method for creating seamless transitions between these representations. The SES representation with full shading and added contours stands in focus while on the other side a sphere representation of a cluster of atoms with constant shading and without contours provide the context. Thirdly, we propose a hierarchical abstraction based on a set of clusters formed on molecular atoms. All three abstraction models are driven by one importance function classifying the scene into the near‐, mid‐ and far‐field. Moreover, we introduce a methodology to render the entire molecule directly using the A‐buffer technique, which further improves the performance. The rendering performance is evaluated on series of molecules of varying atom counts.     

Approximations to auctions of digital goods with share-averse bidders

We consider the case of a digital product for share-averse bidders, where the product can be sold to multiple buyers who experience some disutility from other firms or consumers owning the same product. We model the problem of selling a digital product to share-averse bidders as an auction and apply a Bayesian optimal mechanism design. We also design constant-approximation algorithms in the prior-free setting including both average- and worst-case analyses.     

Online stiffness estimation for robotic tasks with force observers

In this paper we propose an online stiffness estimation technique for robotic tasks based only on force data, therefore, not requiring contact position information. This allows estimations to be obtained in robotic tasks involving interactions with unstructured and unknown environments where geometrical data is unavailable or unreliable. Our technique – the Candidate Observer Based Algorithm (COBA) – uses two force observers, configured with different candidate stiffnesses, to estimate online the actual target object stiffness. COBA is embedded in a force control architecture with computed torque in the task space. The theoretical presentation of the algorithm, as well as simulation tests and experimental results with a lightweight robot arm are also presented.     

基于Snake的图像分割算法研究

图像分割算法是指从待割图像中提取出感兴趣的目标,以便进行图像分析与图像理解。Snake算法不同于传统的图像分割方法。文中详细介绍了Snake模型的数学机理及离散化方法,最后利用贪婪法实现了Snake算法,并应用与实际图像的分割。     

遗传算法理论及其应用研究进展

首先阐述遗传算法的原理和求解问题的一般过程;然后讨论了近年来从遗传算子、控制参数等方面对遗传算法的改进,并对遗传算法在计算机科学与人工智能、自动控制以及组合优化等领域的应用进行陈述;最后评述了遗传算法未来的研究方向和主要研究内容。     

量块快速检测仪的使用保养及常见故障处理概述

LK型系列量块快速检测仪是一种新型量块测量仪器。该仪器成功地将传感器应用于精密量块检测上,系统稳定、可靠,测量的重复性好,具有多种智能功能,从而提高了量块检测的精度和效率,减轻了检测人员的劳动强度,用户可以从数字显示屏读取测量数据,也可以利用仪器配置的标准通讯接口与计算机连接,对测试结果进行数据处理,从而更为有效地保证了测量数据的可靠性。     

一种新的求解移动Agent路由问题优化算法

文章对移动Agent在无线传感器网络中的路由问题进行描述,给出该问题的多约束最优非劣路径求解模型,并提出一种SA-CA算法求解移动Agent路由问题:利用模拟退火(Simulated Annealing,SA)算法接受最优单体以推动文化算法(Cultural Algorithms,CA)中信仰空间的进化,并将搜索步长作为情景知识指导群体空间最优解的搜索.这种双层结构特性减少了搜索时间,表现出较好的全局寻优性能.仿真实验也表明,与粒子群优化算法(PSO)、遗传算法(GA)的计算结果相比,提出的新算法在保证求解准确性的同时,具有更快的收敛速度和较高的可靠性,是解决无线传感器网络多约束QoS路由的有效途径,能提高整个网络的性能.