The Journal of the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan
Online ISSN : 1348-0316
Print ISSN : 0285-9831
ISSN-L : 0285-9831
Volume 32, Issue 4
Special issue on Visual Computing
Displaying 1-23 of 23 articles from this issue
Papers
  • Koichi ONOUE, Tomoyuki NISHITA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 328-335
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In recent years there has been a particular interest in secondary phenomena caused by the motion of objects in CG animation. Examples of such secondary phenomena include footprints that a character leaves in its wake, tire marks caused by cars and bicycles, and marks made by objects such as balls falling onto or being dragged along the ground. In this paper, we propose a deformation algorithm for the ground surface when it is in contact with objects. The deformation algorithm is divided into three steps: (1) The detection of the collision between the objects and the ground surface, (2) The compression and displacement of the ground material, (3) The erosion at a steep slope. The deformation of the ground surface is calculated in real time by using graphics hardware for collision detection, and by calculating the erosion step in limited regions on the surface of the ground.
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  • Masanori KAKIMOTO, Yukiteru MUKAI, Takeshi HAGA, Tomoyuki NISHITA, Tak ...
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 336-345
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper proposes a novel glare generating method to render reflected light due to a strong light source on the surface of high-shininess objects. Phong's reflection model, which OpenGL adopts, is physically inexact when the brightness of the center of highlight exceeds maximum intensity. Higher reflection exponent (shininess) value, which should result in sharper highlight, only causes smaller highlight with the brightness unchanged. This makes the highlight look even darker. To solve this issue, we present a new glare generation model with a light energy preserving reflection model. By calculating more physically-correct high intensity reflection than Phong's model, the glare model produces realistic images which more plausibly represent the shininess of each object. An implementation of the glare model is done with OpenGL, which enables real-time rendering and flexible control of the glare shape.
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  • Katsumi TADAMURA, Xueying QIN, Guofang JIAO, Yasuo NAGAI, Eihachiro NA ...
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 346-354
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, we present a new method for representing optical effects caused by clouds, such as their shadows and illumination due to cloudy skylight, with practical precision. The proposed method is based on using a multi-layered parallelepiped for skylight illuminance, and allows us to calculate skylight luminance distribution with clouds located at arbitrary positions by efficiently obtaining a region of each cloud and its shadow volume. Traditional methods for rendering outdoor scenes considering skylight illuminance treat skylight luminance distribution for only perfectly clear or totally overcast weather, and ignore the effects of the distribution of clouds in the sky. Since a cloud is also usually defined as a density distribution model of participating media in voxels, we need much computation time for displaying a scene which renders dozens of clouds and their shadows. To solve these problems, we introduce “surface of a cloud” which consists of polygons, and use the depth information obtained by drawing them into depth buffers. Daytime landscapes under various weather conditions are rendered, and the results show the proposed method realizes a fairly satisfactory trade-off between computation time and quality of image including cloudy weather.
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  • Takaaki KURATATE, Eric VATIKIOTIS-BATESON
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 355-368
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Natural face motion during speech is one of the most important factors in not only improving the realism of talking face animation but also in inducing correct perception of auditory information. In this paper, we propose a new technique called Facial Motion Mapping that maps human face motion data to any target character based on the similarity of deformation characteristics between the real people and the target characters. This technique requires only a set of face postures with the same mesh topology per set from each person or character, and it will map face motion to characters of different topologies according to the results of principal component analysis (PCA). Even a small number of mapping parameters controlling the deformation can create a realistic talking face animation using deformation features already contained in each set. We demonstrate this technique for a 3D human face, a 3D dog face, and a 2D cartoon face.
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  • Rie TANAKA, Shun'ichi KANEKO
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 369-377
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    A method for fast picture search is proposed. Additive noise and quantization noise are statistically analyzed. Sample points can be qualified by use of the knowledge about those noises and randomly selected as pixels of low contrast. A proposed test quantity is proved to have an inequality to the χ 2 statistic calculated from the sampled brightness differences defined by a template picture and an object from the scene. Search evaluation is performed by increment sign correlation which is known as of fast computation. A modified version using a parameter is presented in the case of large noise. The feasibility of the proposed method is shown by experimental results.
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  • Mayumi EBIHARA, Hitoshi MAHARA, Tatsunari SAKURAI, Atsushi NOMURA, Atu ...
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 378-385
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    An increasing attention is focused on information processing by reaction-diffusion system, in which temporal and spatial patterns are self-organized. In the system, two interesting phenomena of Turing pattern formation and stochastic resonance have been reported. We have been proposed a new approach for image segmentation and edge detection based on a reaction-diffusion model (Fitz-Hugh & Nagumo (FHN) model). In this paper, noisy image or low contrast image are tested to confirm effectiveness of the method. Compared to the conventional method, the Turing condition realizes more reliable tool for noisy image segmentation. And, addition of moderate noise improves the performance of image segmentation. Stochastic resonance condition acts as more powerful tool for edge detection and segmentation for low contrast image.
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  • Saeko TAKAGI, Noriyuki MATSUDA, Masato SOGA, Hirokazu TAKI, Takashi SH ...
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 386-396
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    A picture is one of important research subjects in order to make our life spiritually rich. Most studies on pictures, however, only propose some substitute functions of actual drawing or painting materials. There is no system that evaluates pictures drawn by users and gives advice about them. We propose an educational software for beginners in basic pencil drawing. Our system receives a subject (motif) data set and an image of a user's sketch and returns advice to the user. The processing is composed of the four functions: feature extraction of motifs, feature extraction of sketches, error identification, and generation and presentation of advice. We developed and experimented a prototype system limited to treat a basic motif and some principal advice. As a result, the validity of the proposed system was confirmed.
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  • Tetsuo SHOJI, Yoshihiro OKADA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 397-406
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, we develop the book interface by using techniques of augmented reality. This system consists of the following processes: In the process of calibration, we calibrate the projector coordinate system, the image coordinate system and the world coordinate system. In the process of geometric correction, as the projection surface (the book screen) is a non-plane, we acquire 3-D data on the surface of this book screen based on multibaseline stereo method. Then, in order to correct geometry of image, geometric information are calculated from calibration parameter and acquired 3-D data on the surface of this book screen. In the process of page recognition, page number of the book screen is recognized by using bar code and CCD camera. In the process of image display, a book image is selected according to the recognized page number, and corrected image is generated by using the geometric information. Then, the corrected image is projected onto the book screen. Finally, we display old book images by using this system, and have confirmed its effectiveness.
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  • Yumi YAMAGUCHI, Takayuki ITOH, Yuko IKEHATA, Yasumasa KAJINAGA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 407-417
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    There are many hierarchical data in daily lives, such as file systems, human resources of companies, and web sites. We have proposed new visualization method for hierarchical data, “Data Jewelry Box” algorithm, which displays overviews of huge hierarchical data in one window. This paper presents the overview of “Data Jewelry Box” algorithm, and proposes a web site visualization tool using the algorithm. Our tool constructs directory-based hierarchical data of a web site, and represents its sitemap by “Data Jewelry Box” algorithm. The tool represents web pages as icons, and directories as nested rectangles. Importing web access log file, our tool automatically builds access statistics bar charts in addition to the web sitemap. Our tool provides a user interface which displays number of accesses onto a sitemap when user clicks a part of bar chats. This paper shows interesting access trends discovered by using our tool.
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  • Momoe TOKUNAGA, Yuriko TAKESHIMA, Shigeo TAKAHASHI, Issei FUJISHIRO
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 418-427
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Volume visualization is a key to understanding complicated inner structures of large-scale volume datasets. Indirect volume rendering (IVR) and direct volume rendering (DVR) are the representatives of such volume visualization techniques; to clarify the inner structures, the IVR extracts isosurfaces from the volume dataset whereas the DVR renders the overall dataset translucently. Although these two techniques have some potentials to generate comprehensible images, they still suffer from selections of related visualization parameters that allow us to emphasize features involved in the target volumes. This paper therefore presents a method of semi-automatically finding appropriate visualization parameter values by analyzing the topological structures of volume datasets. Also presented is another method which enables us to visualize volume datasets having complicated space cofigurations of isosurfces such as mutual inclusion relationships. Finally, a current version of our sophisticated volume viewer is reported. Several application examples are used to demonstrate the feasibility of the present methods.
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Contributed Papers
  • Takayuki NAKATA, Yue BAO, Naofumi FUJIWARA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 430-437
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, a method to detect position and orientation of an object is proposed; it matches three-dimensionally an object to its model object by repeating vote for the exact position and orientation of the object using three arbitrary points chosen from input data. Since both template data and input data are only information related a 3-dimensional point, it is simple for creation and acquisition of data, and has fewer influences from noise.
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  • Fumio KAWAZOE, Kazuo TORAICHI, Koji NAKAMURA, Paul Wing Hing KWAN
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 438-445
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The authors have succeeded in a series of research on function approximation of raster images and their subsequent reconstruction in a scalable manner. However, these earlier research, in which the target of approximation being the image contour, suffered from the quality problem of uneven line width. This problem is particularly apparent when it was applied to images having a large number of thin lines such as maps and circuit diagrams. In this paper, in order to function approximate thin line images with high quality, a novel contour tracking method is proposed that considers both characteristics of connectivity and continuity between contour segments. Furthermore, function approximation of the tracked pixel sequences by the suitable Fluency functions that include straight line, arc and second-degree curve is performed. To verify its effectiveness, the proposed contour tracking method is applied to blank map images for qualitative evaluation.
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  • Kensaku FUJII, Kenichi ARAKAWA, Tomohiko ARIKAWA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 446-453
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    We describe a new 3D input interface using string-like deformable objects to more effectively support human computer interaction. To achieve real-time 3D measurement, we use an infrared camera with a structured half-mirror. This configuration allows us to detect direct and reflected infrared images simultaneously. It is especially advantageous in terms of target detection reliability and simplified three-dimensional processing due to the reflected symmetry and the epipolar consistency. Experimental results compared 3D measurement accuracy against a Polhemus tracker show that our approach is stable and accurate. Our interface has also been used to experiment with the string-link interaction in virtual and real world. The natural string movements provide users with more intuitive interaction for Perceptual userinterface.
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  • Kazuhiro SATO, Wataru SUZUKI
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 454-460
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The vector quantization is a point of picture quality and compressibility, and it is influential encoding method for opposing in JPEG coding. In this paper, we discuss the pattern vector quantization using self-similar nature. To decide a codebook of a conventional vector quantization is very difficulty. The means of pattern vector quantization is a method of making and sending the codebook from the image-self. And that method of coding is similar to one of fractal coding.
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  • Kunihiko TAKANO, Kazuki OBANA, Takeshi TANAKA, Kazuyo WADA, Koki SATO, ...
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 461-467
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Holography is a technique for displaying 3D images naturally in three dimensional space, in which continuous parallax is obtained. In this paper, we present a holographic 3D color display system which reconstructs 3D images by making use of this characteristic. It reconstructs 3D color images in a highly coherent manner. As the source, we employed a white light laser, so that the three color lights of RGB could be obtained simultaneously on the same light axis. The three color lights illuminates a single DMD panel (time-shared use of CGH), and real images are projected onto a 3D screen made of water particles. As a result, 3D color images of the maximum size 15cm×15cm are displayed in three dimensional space.
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  • Takashi NOGUCHI, Yuichi OHTA
    Article type: Contributed Papers
    Subject area: electronics
    2003 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 468-477
    Published: 2003
    Released on J-STAGE: February 29, 2004
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The latest stereo algorithms use multiple-baseline stereo with many cameras to make sure of stability and to cope with occlusion. But the increase of stereo pairs still has difficulty in estimating true correspondence. In this paper we propose an improvement method for multiple-baseline stereo by SEVL (Stereo with Evaluation Value Limiter). The SEVL is a correspondence method that limits evaluation values. This method can avoid the bad effects of incorrectly corresponded stereo pairs and can cope with the occlusion without the stereo-pair selection as conventional occlusion avoidable methods. We first explain that false correspondence in occluded area by multiple-baseline stereo is caused by bad effects of evaluation values generated by incorrectly corresponded stereo pairs. We next show the bad effects of such stereo pairs can be restrained by SEVL. We compare the SEVL to other occlusion avoidable methods and show the superiority of SEVL. We have confirmed that the combination of these two methods has superiority to each single method.
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