Non-periodic Textures Research Articles

Derivation of elastic and inelastic characteristics of non-periodic masonry using homogenization techniques and micro-modelling approaches

The present study is aimed to develop an ad hoc four-steps procedure, based on the use of Digital Image Processing (DIP) techniques, homogenization methods and micro-modelling approaches, able to provide an effective tool for characterizing the mechanical properties of non-periodic masonry. More in detail, after creating, through a DIP technique and automated procedures, a finite element mesh from the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) image of a real masonry wall with non-periodic texture (Step 1 and Step 2), a homogenization method, which considers the properties of each masonry constituent (stone units and mortar joints), is used to derive the main elastic characteristics of a homogeneous continuum equivalent to the random masonry (Step 3). Specifically, this estimate can be achieved following the test-windows method based on the use of least-sized partitions subjected to boundary conditions in terms of displacements or stresses until a chosen convergence criterion is fulfilled. The non-linear response is then accomplished by means of a micro-modelling approach (Step 4). To this end, a three-dimensional finite element (FE) analysis can be therefore developed to characterize the main inelastic material parameters of the random masonry. Lastly, as a benchmark of the method, the proposed procedure has been validated against the laboratory outcomes obtained from a previous experimental campaign on non-periodic masonry walls.

An investigation of woven fabric density measurement using image analysis based on RTV-SFT

To overcome the shortcomings of time-consuming manual measurement methods of fabric density, a novel density measurement method of woven fabrics using image analysis technology via the relative total variation model based on the view of structure extraction from texture (RTV-SFT) is developed. Firstly, a fabric image acquisition system of multi-zoom portable digital microscope is constructed to obtain color dyed fabric images. Secondly, creatively from the perspective of analyzing periodic structure information of image texture information, a new structure extraction from texture algorithm, namely RTV-SFT is proposed to process fabric images to obtain images without non-periodic texture information aiming to achieve accurate yarn segmentation. Finally, the woven fabric density is calculated by effectively adopting the gray level projection method with the improved Gaussian filter algorithm. In the experiment, compared with manual method, the accuracy of the proposed density measurement method is above 93.3%.

A solution for the frictional resistance in macro-block limit analysis of non-periodic masonry

This paper proposes a general equation to assess the crack inclination upper threshold when non-periodic textures characterise masonry walls. The proposed formulation introduces the computation of the frictional resistance at the macro-block interface by evaluating two masonry quality indexes, i.e., vertical and horizontal lines of trace. The proposed equation is adopted in conjunction with a macro-block limit analysis formulation in which the failure mechanism is parametrised and formulated according to the upper bound limit analysis theorem, coupled with a heuristic solver that is able to minimise the load multiplier and identify the geometry of the associated macro-block. The proposed analytical model is verified in a number of case studies by comparing advanced DEM simulations and numerical results arising from the literature.

Parametric Analysis of Failure Loads of Masonry Textures by Means of Discontinuity Layout Optimization (DLO).

Several masonry structures of cultural and historical interest are made with a non-periodic masonry material. In the case of periodic textures, several methods are available to estimate the strength of the masonry; however, in the case of non-periodic masonry, few methods are available, and they are frequently difficult to use. In the present paper we propose using discontinuity layout optimization (DLO) to estimate the failure load and mechanism of a masonry wall made with non-periodic texture. We developed a parametric analysis to account for the main features involved in the estimation of failure: in particular we considered three different textures (periodic, quasi-periodic, and chaotic), variable height-to-width ratio of the wall (from 0 to 3) and of the blocks (from 0.25 to 1), different mechanical properties of mortar joints and blocks, and possible presence of a load on the top. The results highlight the importance of the parameters considered in the analysis, both on the values of the failure load and on the failure mechanism. Therefore, it is found that DLO can be an useful and affordable method in order to assess the mechanical strength of masonry wall made with non-periodic textures.

Electronic portal image enhancement based on nonuniformity correction in wavelet domain.

Electronic portal images are one of the most important tools to verify the ongoing radiotherapy treatment through comparison with a reference image generated during treatment planning. In this procedure, two images are geometrically matched by means of visible bone or other landmarks of interest such as implanted fiducials. However, the intrinsically poor contrast and low spatial resolution of portal images can limit imagequality. In this study, we have provided a multiresolution approach to enhance the quality of portal images acquired from the pelvis treatment fields. The main idea behind this work aims at removing some of the image artifacts that conceal the anatomical information. For this purpose, we have applied the homomorphic filtering on the approximation sub-band of wavelet decomposition to enhance local information. Moreover, in order to sharpen the bone edges, wavelet detail sub-bands were weighted to amplify important image details in the reconstruction of the desired enhanced image. The most appropriate image quality measure was chosen according to the image's characteristics in the spatial domain. By considering the characteristics of portal images as the random and nonperiodic texture, high level of noise, and a nonuniform background, three suitable quality measures of images were assessed: edge content, measure of enhancement, and measure of enhancement byentropy. The higher values of these measures indicate the quality improvement in the processed images through our proposed algorithm. Moreover, the subjective evaluation results indicate that the proposed multiresolution approach significantly enhances the perceived quality of images in comparison with original and the similar approach ( ). Our proposed wavelet-based enhancement algorithm successfully reduced image intensity nonuniformity and enhanced anatomical featured information, which drastically improved the objective metrics values. Subjective evaluation of enhanced image confirmed this qualityimprovement.

The Heeger & Bergen Pyramid Based Texture Synthesis Algorithm

This contribution deals with the Heeger-Bergen pyramid-based texture analysis/synthesis algorithm. It brings a detailed explanation of the original algorithm tested on many characteristic examples. Our analysis reproduces the original results, but also brings a minor improvement concerning non-periodic textures. Inspired by visual perception theories, Heeger and Bergen proposed to characterize a texture by its first-order statistics of both its color and its responses to multiscale and multi-orientation filters, namely the steerable pyramid. The Heeger-Bergen algorithm consists in the following procedure: starting from a white noise image, histogram matchings are performed to the noise alternatively in both the image domain and steerable pyramid domain, so that the corresponding histograms match the ones of the input texture.

Texture-induced vibrations in the forearm during tactile exploration

Humans can detect and discriminate between fine variations of surface roughness using active touch. It is hitherto believed that roughness perception is mediated mostly by cutaneous and subcutaneous afferents located in the fingertips. However, recent findings have shown that following abolishment of cutaneous afferences resulting from trauma or pharmacological intervention, the ability of subjects to discriminate between textures roughness was not significantly altered. These findings suggest that the somatosensory system is able to collect textural information from other sources than fingertip afference. It follows that signals resulting of the interaction of a finger with a rough surface must be transmitted to stimulate receptor populations in regions far away from the contact. This transmission was characterized by measuring in the wrist vibrations originating at the fingertip and thus propagating through the finger, the hand and the wrist during active exploration of textured surfaces. The spectral analysis of the vibrations taking place in the forearm tissues revealed regularities that were correlated with the scanned surface and the speed of exploration. In the case of periodic textures, the vibration signal contained a fundamental frequency component corresponding to the finger velocity divided by the spatial period of the stimulus. This regularity was found for a wide range of textural length scales and scanning velocities. For non-periodic textures, the spectrum of the vibration did not contain obvious features that would enable discrimination between the different stimuli. However, for both periodic and non-periodic stimuli, the intensity of the vibrations could be related to the microgeometry of the scanned surfaces.

Multiscale texture synthesis

Example-based texture synthesis algorithms have gained widespread popularity for their ability to take a single input image and create a perceptually similar non-periodic texture. However, previous methods rely on single input exemplars that can capture only a limited band of spatial scales. For example, synthesizing a continent-like appearance at a variety of zoom levels would require an impractically high input resolution. In this paper, we develop a multiscale texture synthesis algorithm. We propose a novel example-based representation, which we call an exemplar graph, that simply requires a few low-resolution input exemplars at different scales. Moreover, by allowing loops in the graph, we can create infinite zooms and infinitely detailed textures that are impossible with current example-based methods. We also introduce a technique that ameliorates inconsistencies in the user's input, and show that the application of this method yields improved interscale coherence and higher visual quality. We demonstrate optimizations for both CPU and GPU implementations of our method, and use them to produce animations with zooming and panning at multiple scales, as well as static gigapixel-sized images with features spanning many spatial scales.

Wang Tiles for image and texture generation

We present a simple stochastic system for non-periodically tiling the plane with a small set of Wang Tiles. The tiles may be filled with texture, patterns, or geometry that when assembled create a continuous representation. The primary advantage of using Wang Tiles is that once the tiles are filled, large expanses of non-periodic texture (or patterns or geometry) can be created as needed very efficiently at runtime.Wang Tiles are squares in which each edge is assigned a color. A valid tiling requires all shared edges between tiles to have matching colors. We present a new stochastic algorithm to non-periodically tile the plane with a small set of Wang Tiles at runtime.Furthermore, we present new methods to fill the tiles with 2D texture, 2D Poisson distributions, or 3D geometry to efficiently create at runtime as much non-periodic texture (or distributions, or geometry) as needed. We leverage previous texture synthesis work and adapt it to fill Wang Tiles. We demonstrate how to fill individual tiles with Poisson distributions that maintain their statistical properties when combined. These are used to generate a large arrangement of plants or other objects on a terrain. We show how such environments can be rendered efficiently by pre-lighting the individual Wang Tiles containing the geometry.We also extend the definition of Wang Tiles to include a coding of the tile corners to allow discrete objects to overlap more than one edge. The larger set of tiles provides increased degrees of freedom.