Simple Sketch Research Articles

Writing across Rome

I am writing this column in Rome. Yes, Rome, Italy. I am here for two weeks as part of St. John's University's Summer Writing Institute for faculty. What an opportunity! During the first week, which just ended, we spent much of the day discussing how to incorporate more writing into our courses. There are 20 of us and we come from a variety of disciplines, ranging from chemistry to literature, sociology to biology. Two years ago, the University launched an ambitious Writing Institute to provide substantial support for student writing. New Writing Center facilities were constructed, and the faculty hired to teach composition. A Writing Across the Curriculum program (WAC) was begun last year, and that's where Rome comes in. Faculty need direction in ways to use writing in their courses as well as time to plan. What better way to do both than to spirit them away to Europe where we can have classes at the University's new Rome campus and discuss writing over lunches and dinners of Italian food. Heaven! To make it even better, after a week of classes, we have a week to ourselves to explore Rome, and can even invite family or friends to join us. In addition to discussing student writing, we are also to work on our own writing. We've broken up into small groups, each including a member of the Writing Institute staff. We share writing that we are working on and comment on each other's drafts. I know what you are thinking: All of this could be done in New York. But the point is, that it's difficult to do this in New York because there we all have a dozen other things to do-in labs, offices, homes. In Rome, we are removed from all that, and can really talk about writing, quite literally, morning, noon, and night. And we do. However, actually doing our own writing is more difficult. The combination of five hours of class each day, jet lag, and long Italian dinners, makes fitting in writing a stretch. I do manage to take some notes during the week, read a few articles, and do for my writing project. That's really what I want to write about here, thus fulfilling my writing obligation, so I have the week ahead to enjoy Italy. I have a hard time figuring out what to work on in Rome. I don't want to do anything that requires a lot of research, since there was a limit to how many books and papers I could pack. So I decide to develop an idea I'd had a few months ago. I'm interested in the visual aspects of biology and in how biological information is organized visually, for example in the complex diagrams used to communicate genomic information. Also, over the past few years I've taken a couple of trips with a woman who likes to visit churches, so I've seen many from various eras in a number of European cities. Among my favorites is San Clemente here in Rome. Most Roman churches, no matter how ancient, were done over in the Baroque style during the Counter Reformation. So if you like Baroque, Rome is the place to visit--but I don't. San Clemente is a hybrid where there was substantial redecoration, but some of the older church remains, particularly a magnificent 12th century mosaic in the apse. It dawns on me that this mosaic is a very complex visualization not too dissimilar from genomic diagrams. They are both products of their times, designed to convey information about what the cultures in which they were created valued highly. I decide that this is a perfect idea to write about in Rome. I can visit San Clemente and other churches with such complex images, and see what they can tell me about the issue of organizing information visually. In other words, I can sightsee and do research for my writing at the same time. You can't beat that. San Clemente While others are slaving away on their laptops during our morning writing time, 1 go off to San Clemente. I have been there twice before and each time, I've marveled at the mosaic, but this is the first time I have really sat and studied it, making notes and simple sketches. …

Single image tree modeling

In this paper, we introduce a simple sketching method to generate a realistic 3D tree model from a single image. The user draws at least two strokes in the tree image: the first crown stroke around the tree crown to mark up the leaf region, the second branch stroke from the tree root to mark up the main trunk, and possibly few other branch strokes for refinement. The method automatically generates a 3D tree model including branches and leaves. Branches are synthesized by a growth engine from a small library of elementary subtrees that are pre-defined or built on the fly from the recovered visible branches. The visible branches are automatically traced from the drawn branch strokes according to image statistics on the strokes. Leaves are generated from the region bounded by the first crown stroke to complete the tree. We demonstrate our method on a variety of examples.

Peek‐in‐the‐Pic: Flying Through Architectural Scenes From a Single Image*

Abstract Many casually taken ‘tourist’ photographs comprise of architectural objects like houses, buildings, etc. Reconstructing such 3D scenes captured in a single photograph is a very challenging problem. We propose a novel approach to reconstruct such architectural scenes with minimal and simple user interaction, with the goal of providing 3D navigational capability to an image rather than acquiring accurate geometric detail. Our system, Peek‐in‐the‐Pic, is based on a sketch‐based geometry reconstruction paradigm. Given an image, the user simply traces out objects from it. Our system regards these as perspective line drawings, automatically completes them and reconstructs geometry from them. We make basic assumptions about the structure of traced objects and provide simple gestures for placing additional constraints. We also provide a simple sketching tool to progressively complete parts of the reconstructed buildings that are not visible in the image and cannot be automatically completed. Finally, we fill holes created in the original image when reconstructed buildings are removed from it, by automatic texture synthesis. Users can spend more time using interactive texture synthesis for further refining the image. Thus, instead of looking at flat images, a user can fly through them after some simple processing. Minimal manual work, ease of use and interactivity are the salient features of our approach.

Sir Charles Cotton (1885–1970): international geomorphologist

Abstract Sir Charles Cotton (1885–1970), a New Zealander by birth, was Professor of Geology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, between 1921 and 1953. He produced a quartet of well-known textbooks, the most influential being Geomorphology of New Zealand first published in 1921, and a remarkable number of pioneering papers on a great variety of subjects in geomorphology. Essentially self-taught, much of Cotton's earlier work followed the ideas of W. M. Davis in terms of an explanatory description of landforms (structure, process, form), but he also emphasized the importance of climate change and tectonic movements in landscape-forming processes. His work was enhanced by the use of block diagrams to demonstrate progressive evolution of landscape features and his simple sketches, in particular, provided a clarity allowing people to see the land around them with new interest and understanding. His studies were never quantitative, and he remained sceptical about illusions of precision and accuracy in the new post-World War II trends and ideas in geomorphology. Cotton's range of interests was wide, but certain themes keep returning; in particular, shore processes and shoreline development and classification, the significance of faulting in all its forms, and the geomorphic history of the area of his Wellington home in New Zealand. Although Cotton's work became well known throughout the scientific world, he did not create a school of geomorphological thought. His international reputation came from his scientific papers and especially his books that captured the interest of generations of university students and citizens from all walks of life. Indeed, the honour of a knighthood in 1959 could well have come 30 years earlier when, at the age of 41, he had already gained such recognition. He made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the evolution of New Zealand's landforms. Cotton's bibliography is included.

A Simple Model for Variant Congenital Cardiac Anomalies

Traditionally, echocardiography, computed tomography and angiocardiography are used to detect the anatomy of congenital cardiac defects. Either pediatric cardiologists or cardiac surgeons mentally reconstruct these images into a vague imaginary three-dimensional heart, but such an image usually includes unnecessary surrounding structures which may mask the defects to be detected. We use a perspective view model to draw a more stereoscopic picture of complex hearts instead of the simple two-dimensional sketch. With this model we have the ability to display cardiovascular anatomy in a three-dimensional structure to increase the understanding and appreciation of the complex spatial relationships in the majority of congenital hearts. Through these drawn images the physiology and structural defects of hearts may be understood more easily and explained more clearly in comparison to two-dimensional representations. The simple perspective drawing is not used to replace the three-dimensional examinations, but it is helpful in reconstructing a model of the heart based on the information we obtain through serial examinations, and such a model may be used to teach medical students, as well as to explain defects to patients' families.

Construction and optimal search of interpolated motion graphs

Many compelling applications would become feasible if novice users had the ability to synthesize high quality human motion based only on a simple sketch and a few easily specified constraints. We approach this problem by representing the desired motion as an interpolation of two time-scaled paths through a motion graph. The graph is constructed to support interpolation and pruned for efficient search. We use an anytime version of A* search to find a globally optimal solution in this graph that satisfies the user's specification. Our approach retains the natural transitions of motion graphs and the ability to synthesize physically realistic variations provided by interpolation. We demonstrate the power of this approach by synthesizing optimal or near optimal motions that include a variety of behaviors in a single motion.

A quantitative test of Jones NTC beaming theory using CLUSTER constellation

Abstract. Non-thermal continuum (NTC) radiation is, with auroral kilometric radiation (AKR), one of the two electromagnetic emissions generated within the Earth's magnetosphere and radiated into space. The location of the source of NTC has been sought for several decades, with only limited success. The constellation formed by the four CLUSTER spacecraft provides the possibility of triangulation in the vicinity of the source, thus allowing progress in source localisation, while simultaneously revealing the beaming properties of NTC radio sources. We present a case event showing two beams localised on opposite sides of the magnetic equator. At any selected frequency, triangulation points to a single region source of small size. Its position is compatible with the range of possible loci of sources predicted by the radio window theory of Jones (1982) in a frame of constraints relaxed from the simple sketch proposed in early works. The analysis of similar observations from the Dynamics Explorer 1 by Jones et al. (1987) enabled the authors to claim validation of the radio window theory. CLUSTER observations, however, reveal a large beaming cone angle projected onto the ecliptic plane, a feature unobservable by Dynamics Explorer which had a different spin axis orientation. According to the radio window theory, such a large observed cone angle can only be formed by a series of point sources, each beaming in a narrow cone angle. This study demonstrates the difficulty of validating NTC linear generation mechanisms using global beaming properties alone.

The acoustics and ventilation design tool applied retrospectively to four 19th century buildings

The acoustic and ventilation simple sketch design tool is a spread-sheet. It was constructed to encourage designers to explore a proposed building's size and shape, the natural ventilation and simple acoustics, in order to promote sustainable architecture. A number of simple input parameters are necessary, the number of people the space must accommodate and the volume of air per person appropriate to the acoustic function. Allowing the internal air temperature to rise by some 10–15%, the building geometry, the natural ventilation and acoustics can be discussed via the volume of the space. This paper has two aims, firstly to demonstrate the acoustic and ventilation design tool generating the geometric features, the simple acoustic properties and the natural ventilation rates for buildings, ranging from a simple open-plan office to a multi-purpose space. Secondly, the design tool is applied retrospectively to the London Custom House Long Room, the Truro Methodist Church, the Vienna Court Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall, so that the validity of the design tool may be discussed, and its effectiveness demonstrated and evaluated. This is achieved by comparing the design tool output with real data from the literature on these four 19th century buildings.

A generative sketch model for human hair analysis and synthesis

In this paper, we present a generative sketch model for human hair analysis and synthesis. We treat hair images as 2D piecewise smooth vector (flow) fields and, thus, our representation is view-based in contrast to the physically-based 3D hair models in graphics. The generative model has three levels. The bottom level is the high-frequency band of the hair image. The middle level is a piecewise smooth vector field for the hair orientation, gradient strength, and growth directions. The top level is an attribute sketch graph for representing the discontinuities in the vector field. A sketch graph typically has a number of sketch curves which are divided into 11 types of directed primitives. Each primitive is a small window (say 5 x 7 pixels) where the orientations and growth directions are defined in parametric forms, for example, hair boundaries, occluding lines between hair strands, dividing lines on top of the hair, etc. In addition to the three level representation, we model the shading effects, i.e., the low-frequency band of the hair image, by a linear superposition of some Gaussian image bases and we encode the hair color by a color map. The inference algorithm is divided into two stages: 1) We compute the undirected orientation field and sketch graph from an input image and 2) we compute the hair growth direction forthe sketch curves and the orientation field using a Swendsen-Wang cut algorithm. Both steps maximize a joint Bayesian posterior probability. The generative model provides a straightforward way for synthesizing realistic hair images and stylistic drawings (rendering) from a sketch graph and a few Gaussian bases. The latter can be either inferred from a real hair image or input (edited) manually using a simple sketching interface. We test our algorithm on a large data set of hair images with diverse hair styles. Analysis, synthesis, and rendering results are reported in the experiments.

Assessing Daylighting Performance of Buildings Using Orthographically Projected Area of Obstructions

Recently the Hong Kong Government has issued a performance-based code governing daylighting in buildings to supplement its prescriptive code. The performance-based method uses the vertical daylight factor (VDF) at the centre of the window pane in the specification of the performance standards. However, the calculation of VDF is not an easy task and is especially not suitable in the early design stage when designers may need to evaluate the daylighting performance quickly using simple sketches and limited data. In view of this, the current performance-based code allows the use of a simplified alternative method called the unobstructed vision area (UVA) method. In this paper, a review of the UVA method is first given. Then a method based on the orthographically projected area (OPA) of all obstructions above the reference point is presented. The OPA can be determined with similar efforts as determining the UVA. Case studies comparing the performance between the OPA and UVA methods are presented. Results show that the OPA method predicts the VDF reliably and therefore is truly a simplified performance-based method.

'Vento', esboço de um romance de Mario de Andrade

O presente estudo focaliza o percurso da criação de Mário de Andrade no romance inacabado Vento, narrativa a princípio autônoma que, na mobilidade da criação, sofre transformações, fragmentações e translados até 1945, quando o escritor vem a falecer deixando planos, esboços e versões não concluídas. O desenvolvimento da psicologia dos personagens e dos motivos da narrativa faz com que o manuscrito transcenda a dimensão de simples esboço, valendo como uma primeira versão fragmentária da obra e como instrumento para a análise de certas marcas da ficção mariodeandradiana, concluída ou não.

Retrieving designs from a sketch using an automated GT coding and classification system

While the retrieval of existing designs to prevent unnecessary duplication of parts is a recognised strategy in the control of design costs the available techniques to achieve this, even in product data management systems, are limited in performance or require large resources. A novel system has been developed based on a new version of an existing coding system (CAMAC) that allows automatic coding of engineering drawings and their subsequent retrieval using a drawing of the desired component as the input. The ability to find designs using a detail drawing rather than textual descriptions is a significant achievement in itself. Previous testing of the system has demonstrated this capability but if a means could be found to find parts from a simple sketch then its practical application would be much more effective. This paper describes the development and testing of such a search capability using a database of over 3000 engineering components.

Ebb and Flood Channel Systems in the Netherlands Tidal Waters1

The present paper, “Eb- en vloedschaarsystemen in de Nederlandse getijwateren” (Ebb- and Flood-Channel Systems in the Dutch Tidal Waters), which was published in 1950, should be considered as Van Veen's most important publication since his thesis. It summarizes the results of 20 years of intensive study of estuarine and tidal-basin mor-phodynamics in The Netherlands. Unfortunately, Van Veen's paper was published in Dutch, with only a brief summary in English. Luckily, the figure captions were given in both Dutch and English, allowing international researchers coming across the paper to read it as a kind of “cartoon.” Understandably though, the paper has received very limited recognition in the international literature. We have seized this occasion to publish an English version of Van Veen's paper. The paper is testimony to Van Veen's keen observational and artistic skills. His approach is nearly “Da Vincian,” in the sense that he is not only a fascinated observer of nature, but a sharp one as well, and he tries to capture the essentials of the dynamic behavior of complex coastal systems in apparently simple sketches. Many of the natural systems that Van Veen studied have been regulated since; thus, this paper contains a set of irreplaceable, high-quality observations on the natural dynamics of tidal systems. It forms an excellent introduction to the study of channel dynamics in estuaries, tidal inlets, and tidal basins.

Sketch Analysis-Based Engineering Solution for Online Story Authoring and Animation

This paper introduces an easy way of authoring and presenting a user’s own story in the form of animation on the World Wide Web. Since visual authoring is difficult and time-consuming, most of the existing online story-making tools support text-based authoring, and a few others allow users the freedom of choosing characters from a given database. Comparatively, we suggest a way of incorporating a user’s own sketches of characters and scenes to build a story without demanding much intervention from the user. We also present an automatic view control method to transform simple sketches into animation on the web.

Positron annihilation spectroscopy in carbon black–silica–styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) composites under deformation

Positron annihilation lifetime (PAL) spectroscopy has been used to investigate microstructural properties of carbon black–silica–styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) composites. The positron annihilation lifetime shows a direct dependence on the carbon black type as well as the silica content added to the rubber compound. The effect of the tensile strain ( ε=0–150%) on the positron annihilation parameters has been investigated by constructing a small load frame to permit the measurement of positron lifetime in situ. The variations in the o-Ps lifetime τ 3 and its intensity I 3 with deformation are discussed in the framework of free volume theories. A simple illustrative sketch for the rubber–filler matrix is proposed.

Progress in clinical pharmacology over the last 20 years.

Progress in clinical pharmacology over the last 20 years.

Days of Awe: September 11, 2001 and its Cultural Psychodynamics

Near the end of September 2001, my seven year-old son, Zev, came home from school with, among other papers, a pencil drawing he had made. Everyone in the second grade class had been asked to draw something about Halloween. His was a simple sketch. In the center of the 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper was a tall, thin rectangular boxy figure, flanked on either side by a couple of long, concave, petal-like strokes. I asked him what it was about—was there a story? He said, "It's a haunted tower, and at the bottom is the haunted basement." I did not ask him for the geographical reference or for an interpretation. Nor did I think I needed to.

Flight Vehicle Performance and Aerodynamic Control

Flight Vehicle Performance and Aerodynamic Control is designed to serve as a text for either an 11-week or a 16-week course at the sophomore level. It explains typical methods used to estimate aircraft performance, the theoretical basis of these methods, and how various parameters derived from the aircraft geometry can be used to estimate the requirements of control surfaces and the aerodynamic forces required to actuate these surfaces. This book includes time-tested computer programs that perform the analyses in a manner that reduces student error and improves result accuracy. Since the source code is given, users with a FORTRAN compiler can modify the program to suit particular needs. The major advantage of the software is that more realistic problems may be treated and the effects of parametric programs are more accurate than calculators. The programs are available as executables for Windows machines as well as in ASCII source code versions that can be readily compiled and then executed on Unix, Linux, and Macintosh machines and on mainframes.

Some results on stable manifolds

We state very general and simple non-perturbative theorems and sketch part of their proof. They imply, among other things [2], results of Fenichel [3], Hirsch, Pugh and Shub [4] on stable or unstable manifolds at compact invariant manifolds, the pseudo-(un)stable manifold theorem at a fixed point [4,6,7] and Sternberg's theorem [8,9] on smooth conjugacy of hyperbolic gems of maps or vector fields. The Perron–Irwin approach via sequence spaces [5,6,7] plays a crucial role in the proofs.

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SHAPE AND COLOR-BASED IMAGE RETRIEVAL OF ROTATED OBJECTS USING HIDDEN MARKOV MODELS

An integrated approach to shape and color-based image retrieval, where the cues color and shape are both utilized in a local rather than a global way, is presented in this paper. An experimental retrieval system has been developed, which enables the user to search a color image database intuitively by presenting simple sketches. In order to be able to perform an elastic matching, which is especially needed in sketch-based image retrieval, objects in the images are represented by Hidden Markov Models. The use of streams (sets of features that are assumed to be statistically independent) within the HMM framework allows the integration of shape and color derived features into a single model, thereby allowing to control the influence of the different streams via stream weights. The approach has been evaluated on a color image database containing 120 different isolated objects with arbitrary orientation and showed good retrieval results with several users. Furthermore, the use of HMMs allows efficient pruning and thus a fast retrieval even with large databases.