Integrating computer vision into a robotic system can provide a closed-loop controlled platform that increases the robustness of a robot's motion. This integration is also known as visual servo control or visual servoing. Visual servoing of a robot manipulator in real-time presents complex engineering problems with respect to both control and image processing particularly when we want the robot arm to perform complicated tasks such as portrait drawing. In my research, the implementation of torque feedback control and Image-based Visual Servoing (IBVS) approaches are proposed to improve previous open-loop portrait drawing tasks performed by Betty, a humanoid robot in the Autonomous Agent Lab, University of Manitoba. The implementations and evaluations of hardware, software and kinematic models are discussed in this document. I examined the problem of estimating ideal edges joining points in a pixel reduction image for an existing point-to-point portrait drawing humanoid robot, Betty. To solve this line drawing problem, two automatic sketch generators are presented. First, a modified Theta-graph, called Furthest Neighbour Theta-graph (FNTG). Second, an extension of the Edge Drawing Lines algorithm (EDLines), called Extended Edge Drawing Lines (eEDLines). The results show that the number of edges in the resulting drawing is significantly reduced without degrading the detail of the output image. The other main objective of this research is to propose the extension of the drawing robot project to further develop a robust visual servoing system for Betty to correct any drawing deviation in real-time as a human does. This is achieved by investigating and developing robust feature (lines and shading) extraction approaches for real-time feature tracking of IBVS in combination with adequate torque feedback in the drawing task.

The purpose of this project was to find out what it is about the self that deserves to be depicted in a work of art; what other artists have done in selfportraiture that may help me in my efforts; and what my own contribution to the history of self-portraiture could be. Self-portraiture is significant in its ability to serve as a personal platform to define the artist's life and relationships with society as well as other individuals. Many times selfportraiture becomes a visual self-search to recognize our own characteristics and traits that make us complete individuals. I investigated the history of self-portraiture as well as the life and work of six artists. I concentrated on the symbolism and psychological undercurrents present in many selfportraits. With my research in mind, four images were created based on preliminary sketches of myself and another close friend. The final images are watercolor, oilbar and sgraffito on paper. Two images are grid pieces and the other two are single companion pieces. The finished pieces were framed andexhibited at the Ball State University Museum of Art. The final images fulfilled all the goals at which I had aimed. They are visually exciting, successfully composed and well constructed. During their execution I was able to elevate the quality of my work, bringing it to a greater maturity level. This group of portraits also worked as a tool to put my life and relationships into a new perspective. / Department of Art

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

This thesis explored the problem of creating an illusion of textiles from the beginning stages through the finished work. Included in this study were the reasons for selection of problem, motivation and media. In addition the solutions and interpretations were presented with references to personal gains and insights.

This creative project explored and determined the visual characteristics of drawings and paintings of vegetables. The project consisted of a painting and a drawing of the following vegetables: a potato. a pea and pod, a tomato, a carrot, and an onion. The paintings were done in glazes of oil paint and the drawings in colored pencils. Fundamental to this creative investigation was the control of subject matter, composition and color variables. These variables were controlled in order to understand the way in which the media and techniques differentiated the visual appearance of the drawings and paintings.

Recollecting Place is the product of an experiential approach to Landscape Architecture. It is at once the re-telling of a place that is expected to be quite foreign to the reader as well as an examination of the method by which landscape architects assume truth of a place. As professionals, we develop a method by which we examine a site, re-tell its truth and then alter it somehow. Recollecting Place is the story of how the teller’s connections with the place in questions offer a version of the truth that can inform the design in a way that is different, and arguably more appropriate than if the site had been investigated by more traditional methods.

A straight line drawing of a graph is an open weak rectangle-of-influence (RI) drawing, if there is no vertex in the relative interior of the axis parallel rectangle induced by the end points of each edge. Despite recent interest of the graph drawing community in rectangle-of-influence drawings, no algorithm is known to test whether a graph has a planar open weak RI-drawing, not even for inner triangulated graphs. In this thesis, we have two major contributions. First we study open weak RI-drawings of plane graphs that must have a non-aligned frame, i.e., the graph obtained from removing the interior of every filled triangle is drawn such that no two vertices have the same coordinate. We introduce a new way to assign labels to angles, i.e., instances of vertices on faces. Using this labeling, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions characterizing those plane graphs that have open weak RI-drawings with non-aligned frame. We also give a polynomial algorithm to construct such a drawing if one exists. Our second major result is a negative result: deciding if a planar graph (i.e., one where we can choose the planar embedding) has an open weak RI-drawing is NP-complete. NP-completeness holds even for open weak RI-drawings with non-aligned frames.

No description available.

This project attempts to translate my experience of the everyday street for the viewer; to reveal my experience of walking and looking through drawing. The everyday is an elusive and slippery subject that has been used for various and sometimes radical agendas by many writers and artists in the last two centuries. It is seen as having potential for finding the authenticity that is lacking in other spheres of human activity. However, there is an inherent contradiction for the artist engaged with the everyday in that, by definition, the mundane is barely noticed yet it can swiftly become extraordinary when examined closely. This project uses a toolbox of everyday tactics, processes and methods to explore and devise appropriate modes of representing the everyday street, while taking this contradiction into account.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building. / Documentation within architecture refers to working drawings that are produced to envisage an imagined building. These drawings are a tangible representation of an object that has no tangible existence. Conventional documentation regards the act of drawing as that process upon which the object is wholly dependent for its coming into existence: they assist in ‘getting to’ the building. However, the definition of the word ‘document’ refers to a record of events, that is, post factum evidence. Within architecture, drawing as a record is not the dominant practice. Instead, representation that is a visualisation of the non-existent dominates. Hence, the realm of post factum documentation is under-examined. Due to the predominance of drawing within architecture, models are seen as an adjunct to drawings and so their role and potential has been examined in far less depth than that of architectural drawings. This thesis explores the notion of the model as three-dimensional post factum documentation of architecture. Through the theory of drawing, case studies of models of various scales are examined. These case studies are the Panorama model of New York City, the reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion, and the exhibition of architecture as post factum model, in particular the work of Peter Eisenman, Herzog and de Meuron, El Lissitzky, Allan Wexler and Diller and Scofidio. This examination repositions models within an expanded notion of the design process, which displaces the built object as the endpoint of this process, and investigates the critical facility of models.