Denna rapport presenterar ett alternativt sätt att ljussätta terräng i datorgrafik. Tidigare modeller har vanligtvis byggt på lokal ljussättning, som inte tar hänsyn till kringliggande geometri, och har med en extra process approximerat effekten av ljusinteraktionen. Genom att använda sig av en teknik som kallas precomputed radiance transfer (PRT) kan man förberäkna hur en punkt interagerar med ljus för olika inkommande riktningar och undviker därmed att göra detta under programkörningen. Det är viktigt att denna teknik även fungerar tillsammans med level-of-detail (LOD) terrängrenderingsalgoritmer eftersom rendering av alla trianglar i terrängen för varje skärmuppdatering inte är optimalt för dagens grafikkort. Man vill därför representera den underliggande terrängen med fler trianglar närmare betraktaren och färre längre bort. Motiveringen till detta är att trianglar längre ifrån betraktaren kommer resultera i färre pixlar på skärmen, så att rendera större trianglar gör en liten visuell skillnad. Arbetet visar på att tekniken fungerar med LOD-terrängrenderingsalgoritmer med bra prestanda och visuell kvalitet.

This thesis is focused on the improvement of an existing implementation of a waveform visualizer. The problem area handled in this work has its focus on how to reduce the number of points to be plotted. The given waveform visualizer was extended by the use of two additional algorithms. First, a Level Of Detail (LOD) algorithm that gives the subset of points that are necessary to plot the waveform in the current zoom level. Second, a straight line identification algorithm to find a series of points aligned in a straight line, only leaving the end points and then drawing a line between them. These two optimizations are the main focus of this work.Additionally, an exporting functionality was implemented to export the plot data into several different data formats. Also some improvements of zooming, panning, some GUI design, and a new drag and drop functionality was constructed.

Context. Triangulated irregular network (TIN) can produce terrain meshes with a reduced triangle count compared to a regular grid. At the same time, TIN meshes are more challenging to optimize in real-time in comparison to other approaches. Objectives. This thesis explores efficient generation of view-dependent, adaptive TIN meshes for terrain during runtime with no or minimal preprocessing. Methods. Since the workings of the proposed technique is a novel approach, an empirical strategy was employed to present the findings instead of partial comparisons to related techniques. Results. To determine the result of the technique, run-time performance is measured and presented to provide incentives for implementation and improvements on the proposed algorithm. Several problem sizes are tested with varying terrain features to determine the effectiveness as a result of the features in the mesh.  Conclusions. We conclude that reducing the problem of mesh simplification to that of 2D Delaunay triangulation on sampled points spanning terrains is valid approach for triangulating on-the-fly. Moreover, this approach opens up for further improvements which may soon allow real-time triangulation of TINs.

Cette thèse propose un parcours historique de l’évolution du motif de la bulle, depuis ses prolégomènes antiques et baroques jusqu’à la modernité, et une réflexion sur son expression et ses significations littéraires, plus particulièrement poétiques, à travers l’étude de quelques œuvres représentatives. De la formation de ses fascinants éclats irisés à son éclatement, la bulle permet de s’interroger sur le rapport du sujet à la fragile beauté du monde qui l’entoure. Le motif évolue, cependant, en fonction des périodes et des auteurs, selon la valeur que l’on accorde à cette beauté éphémère, oscillant entre exemplum moralisateur et idéal esthétique, entre la figuration de la Vanité de toute chose et celle d’un éclat fulgurant de présence. L’étude de ce fragile motif conduit à aborder des questions de poétique plus vastes, comme celles du détail et de l’éphémère. La bulle, isolée en tant que détail, amène à reconsidérer, dans le système sémiotique de l’œuvre littéraire, la charge de sens liée aux motifs ténus qui pourraient paraître insignifiants. L’éphémère, quant à lui, avec diverses implications culturelles, demande d’interroger des notions postulant un rapport subjectif de l’individu à sa perception du monde et du temps. Ce motif singulier engage également une thématique spatiale : la bulle, soufflée ou émergeant d’un liquide, prend dans l’espace une forme qui se caractérise par sa sphéricité et qui évoque métaphoriquement la création, divine ou littéraire. À partir de ce recensement des différentes implications culturelles du motif, dans ses constantes et ses évolutions, on étudie l’usage qu’en font quelques auteurs et textes exemplaires : Grégoire de Nysse, Erasme, Crashaw, Le Cardinal de Bernis, Chénier, Vigny, Hugo, Musset, Gautier, Baudelaire, Claudel, Tzara, Reverdy, Ponge, Jaccottet et Bonnefoy. / This thesis offers a historical journey through the evolution of the leitmotiv of the bubble, from the prolegomena of the antiquity and baroque eras to modern literature, as well as a reflection on its expression and its literary meanings, and more particularly in poetry, through the study of a few exemplary poems. From the formation of its fascinating iridescent reflections to its bursting, the leitmotiv of the bubble leads us to ponder the relationship between the subject and the fragile beauty of the world around him. The leitmotiv evolves, however, depending on the value the periods and the authors grant to this ephemeral beauty, oscillating between moralising exemplum and aesthetic ideal, between the representation of the Vanity of all things, and that of a transient flash of being. The study of this fragile leitmotiv brings us to consider more encompassing poetic questions: that of the details and of the ephemeral. The bubble, isolated as a detail, leads us to reconsider, within the semiotic system of a literary piece, the meaning tied to fine leitmotivs that could first appear insignificant. With its diverse cultural implications, the ephemeral makes us question the notions that postulate a subjective relationship between the individual and his perception of the world and of time. This singular leitmotiv also involves a spatial thematic: the bubble, blown or emerging from a liquid, takes upon a characteristic spherical shape, which metaphorically evokes creation, whether divine or literary. From this inventory of the various cultural implications of the leitmotiv, and considering its composing elements and its evolutions, we will study how it is employed through exemplary texts by a few authors such as : Gregory of Nyssa, Desiderius Erasmus, Crashaw, The Cardinal de Bernis, Chénier, Vigny, Hugo, Musset, Gautier, Baudelaire, Claudel, Tzara, Reverdy, Ponge, Bonnefoy and Jaccottet.

The steel bridge system referred to as Simple for Dead load and Continuous for Live load (SDCL) has gained popularity in non-seismic areas of the country. Accordingly, it results in many advantages including enhanced service life and lower inspection and maintenance costs as compared to conventional steel systems. To-date, no research studies have been carried out to evaluate the behavior of the SDCL steel bridge system in seismic areas. The main objective of this research was to extend the application of SDCL to seismic areas. The concept of the SDCL system was developed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a complete summary of the research is provided in five AISC Engineering Journal papers. The SDCL system is providing steel bridges with new horizons and opportunities for developing economical bridge systems, especially in cases for which accelerating the construction process is a priority. The SDCL steel bridge system also provides an attractive alternative for use in seismic areas. The SDCL concept for seismic areas needed a suitable connection between the girder and pier. In this research, an integral SDCL bridge system was considered for further investigation. The structural behavior and force resistance mechanism of the proposed seismic detail considered through analytical study. The proposed connection evaluated under push-up, push-down, inverse and axial loading to find the sequence of failure modes. The global and local behavior of the system under push-down forces was mainly similar to non-seismic detail. The nonlinear time history analysis indicated that there is a high probability that bottom flange sustains tension forces under seismic events. The finite element model subjected to push-up forces to simulate the response of the system under the vertical component of seismic loads. However, the demand-capacity ratio was low for vertical excitation of seismic loads. Besides finite element results showed that continuity of bottom flange increased ductility and capacity of the system. While the bottom flange was not continuous, tie bars helped the system to increase the ultimate moment capacity. To model the longitudinal effect of earthquake loads, the model subjected under inverse forces as well as axial forces at one end. In this case scenario, dowel bars were most critical elements of the system. Several finite element analyses performed to investigate the role of each component of preliminary and revised detail. All the results demonstrated that continuity of the bottom flange, bolts area (in the preliminary detail), tie bars over the bottom flange (in the revised detail) were not able to provide more moment capacity for the system. The only component increased the moment capacity was dowel bars. In fact, increasing the volume ratio of dowel bars could be able to increase the moment capacity and prevent premature failure of the system. This project was Phase I of an envisioned effort that culminated in the development of a set of details and associated design provisions to develop a version of the SDCL steel bridge system, suitable for the seismic application. Phase II of this project is an ongoing project and currently the component specimen design and test setup are under consideration. The test specimen is going to be constructed and tested in the structures lab of Florida International University. A cyclic loading will be applied to the specimen to investigate the possible damages and load resistance mechanism. These results will be compared with the analysis results. In the next step, as phase III, a complete bridge with all the components will be constructed in the structures lab at the University of Nevada-Reno. The connection between steel girders will be an SDCL connection and the bridge will be subjected to a shake table test to study the real performance of the connection due to earthquake excitation.

This thesis project set out to find and implement a comfortable way to explore vast, multidimensional datasets using interactive multiscale visualizations to combat the ever-growing information overload that the digitized world is generating. Starting at the realization that even for people not working in the fields of information visualization and data science the size of interesting datasets often outgrows the capabilities of standard spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel. This project established requirements for a system to overcome this problem. In this thesis report, we describe existing solutions, related work, and in the end designs and implementation of a working tool for initial data exploration that utilizes novel multiscale visualizations to make complex coherences comprehensible and has proven successful in a practical evaluation with two case studies.

Detaljplaner används av kommuner som ett sätt att reglera användningen av mark- och vattenområden. Plankartan som hör till detaljplanen är det juridiska dokumentet där kommunen använder sig av planbestämmelser vid utformningen av planområdet. Till plankartan följer det en planbeskrivning som anger syftet och redovisar hur planen ska genomföras och vilka konsekvenser den har på sakägare, miljön och andra som kan komma att beröras av detaljplanen. Vid bristfälliga planbestämmelser och planbeskrivningar kan konsekvenserna för de drabbade medföra kostsamma och utdragna processer. Enligt tidigare studier innehöll 17 % av antagna detaljplaner olämpliga planbestämmelser. Enligt tidigare bestämmelser så var kommunen inte tvungen att samråda med lantmäterimyndigheten vid alla planförfaranden. Lantmäterimyndighetens roll var under samrådet att verka för att planbestämmelser som kunde påverka det fastighetsrättsliga genomförandet var utformade på ett ändamålsenligt sätt. Lantmäterimyndighetens roll ändrades dock i samband med den lagändring som trädde i kraft 1 januari 2015. Regeringen ville effektivisera plangenomförande och detta ledde till att lantmäterimyndigheten fick en tydligare och utökad roll i planprocessen. Denna studie har som syfte att undersöka hur kommunernas ställningstagande till yttranden från lantmäterimyndigheten i samband med samråd och granskningstiden ser ut. Resultatet efter samråd visar att 12 % av detaljplanerna innehöll brister som påtalats av lantmäterimyndigheten men som kommunerna inte åtgärdat. Efter granskningstiden så gick procentandelen ner till 7 % av detaljplanerna. Vid granskning om det var någon skillnad i ställningstaganden mellan kommuner med kommunal lantmäterimyndighet och kommuner med statlig lantmäterimyndighet visade undersökningen att det inte förekom några större skillnader. Studien tyder på att kommunerna lyssnar på de synpunkter och råd lantmäterimyndigheten framför och följaktligen åtgärdar påtalade brister. Detta i sin tur leder förhoppningsvis till ett effektivare plangenomförande. / Detail development plans are a way for the municipalities to regulate the use of land and water territories. The map that follows with the detail development plan is a legal document used by the municipalities to shape the area of the plan by using plan regulations. With the map follows a plan description which describes the purpose of plan, presents the implementation of the plan and the consequences it has on interested parties, the environment and other parties that could be affected by the detail development plan. In the case of deficient plan regulations och plan description the consequences for the afflicted parties can lead to costly and drawn out processes. Earlier studies showed that 17 % of all approved detail development plans contained deficient plan regulations. According to earlier regulations, the municipalities did not have to consult with the cadastrial authorities for every planning proposal. During this time, the role of the cadastral authority was to make sure the plan regulations refering to property law were correct in their configuration not to cause negative consequenses to the implementation of the detail development plan. The role of the cadastral authories changed in conjunction with a constitutional amendment to the law which took effect 1 januari 2015. The government wanted to make the planning implementation more effective and one way to achieve this was to give the cadastral authority a more distinct and extended role during the planning process. The purpose of this study is to examine how the municipalities respond to comments made by the cadastral authority during the review time. The result shows that after the first review time 12 % of the detail development plans that the cadastral authority made remarks on had not been corrected by the municipalities. After the second review time, the procentage had decreased to 7 % of all detail development plans. When comparing the actions taken by municipalities with communal cadastral authority and municipalities with state cadastral authority the analysis showed that there where no significant differences between them. The studie indicates that the municipalities listen to the opinions and advice given by the cadastral authority, thereby deficient plan regulations and plan descriptions are amended accordingly. This will hopefully lead to a more effective implementation of the detail development plans.

The representation of 3D polygonal model on several levels of available detail is a problem inherent in the process of rendering a scene. Highly-detailed models, if placed far from the camera, suffer from spatial aliasing that results from inadequate sampling of their surface, and require disproportionately large amount of time to render. Low-detailed models on the other hand reduce the visual quality of the scene when placed too near to the camera. This report delves in both the theory and the practical techniques used for solving these problems. It describes various published solutions and the principles behind them, and presents a design and an implementation of selected techniques for the GPUEngine library.

The representation of 3D polygonal model on several levels of available detail is a problem inherent in the process of rendering a scene. Highly-detailed models, if placed far from the camera, suffer from spatial aliasing that results from inadequate sampling of their surface, and require disproportionately large amount of time to render. Low-detailed models on the other hand reduce the visual quality of the scene when placed too near to the camera. This report delves in both the theory and the practical techniques used for solving these problems. It describes various published solutions and the principles behind them, and presents a design and an implementation of selected techniques for the GPUEngine library.

Background. Shadow mapping is a method that is used for generating and imitating shadows in 3D-spaces. This technique has been used in the entertainment media industry in the form of games, movies and 3D renderings of environments to create a more realistic experience for consumers. Shadow mapping is not a perfect technique, and is performance costing on the GPU; however, some methods save performance by reducing the complexity of geometrical shapes and textures depending on the distance between observer and object. These techniques are based on that the observer will not notice the complexity reductions; can the usage of such methods be extended to textures covered in shadows without any consequences in the aspect of visual appearance and preference? Objectives. This thesis aims to examine if there is a possibility to extend the usage of LOD techniques to shadowed textures and to analyze individuals’ preferences of texture variants that are covered in shadows. Additionally, proposing the method of lowering texture resolution by using DirectX:s sampler data type, which is configurable to increase the level of details with mipmapping when sampling textures. Methods. This document presents a user study using the Two-alternative forced choice method and PsychoPy application to create a visual test. The visual test was conducted in a controlled and observed environment with volunteering participants. The objective of the visual test was to go through several sets of different images, and to choose which image of each set that was preferred. The stimulus was repeated with the initial images fading in and out slowly to prevent carry over effects. After the test participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire. The questionnaire assessed if they noticed any differences within the shadows, and if they had any additional thoughts about the experiment. Results. The results from the study were then evaluated through a binomial test that yielded that there was no statistically significant difference in preference between the lowered texture resolution in shadows and normal texture resolution in shadows. Separately evaluating the environments showed that there was a preference for shadowed low-resolution textures in environments that were dark. The environments with high illumination had more varied results. There were 17 participants that volunteered in the test and were ranging from the ages 18 to 29. Conclusions. With the results presented it was shown that the shadowed lowresolution textures were preferred in environments with low illumination. This suggests that the proposed concept method is better suited for similar environments. However, several factors may have affected the results. Factors such as images being too dark, the lack of exaggerated images, images fading in and out too fast, few participants, more partaking will assure there is less chance for bias.