This thesis book describes the development and production of Escape Velocity, a short narrative film. The writing, pre-production, shooting, and editing of the film are reviewed. Script drafts and a final budget are included in the appendices. The film concerns Larry Pipe and Percy Knuckle, best friends who dream of moving to Barbados. They hope to open a beachside bar and spend the rest of their days relaxing and watching girls. When Percy starts dating Melinda Bundt, however, Larry's jealousy threatens to destroy the men's friendship. When Percy needs money to follow Melinda to Atlanta, Larry must choose between supporting his best friend or pursuing their dream of Barbados alone. Escape Velocity examines the ways we hold ourselves back from pursuing our dreams, the reasons we justify doing so, and the changes in our life that finally inspire us to move toward our goals.

By utilizing a Research through Design approach this master thesis studies how technological changes might affect professionals working in the motion picture industry, specifically; how the advent of HDR (High Dynamic Range) affects the colorist. The research questions formulated are the following; (1) How can color grading in HDR be approached? (2) What effect can HDR have on visual modality? (3) What specific affordances can HDR offer the colorist? (4) How can HDR affect the creative space of the colorist? Three of the research questions are derived from the theoretical framework applied in this master thesis; starting with the social semiotic implementation of the term modality (models of reality), the Gibsonian term affordance (possibilities for action and meaning making) and its use in communications research, and lastly; the concept of creative space in motion picture production. Analytic autoethnography was used to generate primary data by documenting the process of color grading a 13-minute short film, and also performing semistructured interviews with four colorists. Amongst other findings, this study found that HDR offers a wider range of modality expression than SDR (Standard Dynamic Range); regarding several visual modality markers. Four HDR-specific affordances were formulated; (1) color expandability, (2) highlight differentiability, (3) tonal rangeability, (4) brightness disturbability. Relating to the concept of creative space; the colorists expressed a concern that they will have to create multiple versions when delivering HDR, but not get a bigger budget for it, therefore having less time to spend on other aspects of color grading.

Digital video is being used widely in a variety of applications such as entertainment, surveillance and security. Large amount of video in surveillance and security requires systems capable to processing video to automatically detect and recognize events to alleviate the load on humans and enable preventive actions when events are detected. The main objective of this work is the analysis of computer vision techniques and algorithms used to perform automatic detection of events in video sequences. This thesis presents a surveillance system based on optical flow and background subtraction concepts to detect events based on a motion analysis, using an event probability zone definition. Advantages, limitations, capabilities and possible solution alternatives are also discussed. The result is a system capable of detecting events of objects moving in opposing direction to a predefined condition or running in the scene, with precision greater than 50% and recall greater than 80%. / by Ricardo Augusto Castellanos Jimenez. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

by Chung-Wing Ng. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-107). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgment --- p.vi / Table of Contents --- p.vii / List of Tables --- p.x / List of Figures --- p.xi / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Image-based Video Description --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Video Summary --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Video Matching --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Contributions --- p.7 / Chapter 1.5 --- Outline of Thesis --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- Video Retrieval in Digital Video Libraries --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- The VISION Project --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- The INFORMEDIA Project --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Discussion --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2 --- Video Structuring --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Video Segmentation --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Color histogram Extraction --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Further Structuring --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3 --- XML Technologies --- p.19 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- XML Syntax --- p.20 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- "Document Type Definition, DTD" --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- "Extensible Stylesheet Language, XSL" --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4 --- SMIL Technology --- p.22 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- SMIL Syntax --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Model of SMIL Applications --- p.23 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Overview of ADVISE --- p.25 / Chapter 3.1 --- Objectives --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2 --- System Architecture --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Video Preprocessing Module --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Web-based Video Retrieval Module --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Video Streaming Server --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3 --- Summary --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Construction of Video Table-of-Contents (V-ToC) --- p.36 / Chapter 4.1 --- Video Structuring --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Terms and Definitions --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Regional Color Histograms --- p.39 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Video Shot Boundaries Detection --- p.43 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- Video Groups Formation --- p.47 / Chapter 4.1.5 --- Video Scenes Formation --- p.50 / Chapter 4.2 --- Storage and Presentation --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Definition of XML Video Structure --- p.54 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- V-ToC Presentation Using XSL --- p.55 / Chapter 4.3 --- Evaluation of Video Structure --- p.58 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Video Summarization --- p.62 / Chapter 5.1 --- Terms and Definitions --- p.64 / Chapter 5.2 --- Video Features Used for Summarization --- p.65 / Chapter 5.3 --- Video Summarization Algorithm --- p.67 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Combining Extracted Video Segments --- p.68 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Scoring the Extracted Video Segments --- p.69 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Selecting Extracted Video Segments --- p.70 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Refining the Selection Result --- p.71 / Chapter 5.4 --- Video Summary in SMIL --- p.74 / Chapter 5.5 --- Evaluations --- p.76 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Experiment 1: Percentages of Features Extracted --- p.76 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Experiment 2: Evaluation of the Refinement Process --- p.78 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Video Matching Using V-ToC --- p.80 / Chapter 6.1 --- Terms and Definitions --- p.81 / Chapter 6.2 --- Video Features Used for Matching --- p.82 / Chapter 6.3 --- Non-ordered Tree Matching Algorithm --- p.83 / Chapter 6.4 --- Ordered Tree Matching Algorithms --- p.87 / Chapter 6.5 --- Evaluation of Video Matching --- p.91 / Chapter 6.5.1 --- Applying Non-ordered Tree Matching --- p.92 / Chapter 6.5.2 --- Applying Ordered Tree Matching --- p.94 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.96 / Bibliography --- p.100

Abstract not available

The power consumption in commercial processors and application specific integrated circuits increases with decreasing technology nodes. Power saving techniques have become a first class design point for current and future VLSI systems. These systems employ large on-chip SRAM memories. Reducing memory leakage power while maintaining data integrity is a key criterion for modern day systems. Unfortunately, state of the art techniques like power-gating can only be applied to logic as these would destroy the contents of the memory if applied to a SRAM system. Fortunately, previous works have noted large temporal and spatial locality for data patterns in commerical processors as well as application specific ICs that work on images, audio and video data. This thesis presents a novel column based Energy Compression technique that saves SRAM power by selectively turning off cells based on a data pattern. This technique is applied to study the power savings in application specific inegrated circuit SRAM memories and can also be applied for commercial processors. The thesis also evaluates the effects of processing images before storage and data cluster patterns for optimizing power savings.

The first topic of this thesis presents a bus driver design which is based on a charge recycle technique. The proposed design is mainly composed of a differential low swing circuit and a charge recycling circuit. The differential low swing signaling has been adopted to achieve low power and robust data transmission. The charge recycle is utilized to reduce power dissipation on long lines for the differential low swing signaling. The second topic is the coded orthogonal frequency division multiplex demodulation (COFDM) demodulator compliant with the European digital video broadcasting over terrestrial (DVB-T). It can recover the frequency offset of COFDM signal and dynamically select the FFT stages to synchronize the start of a symbol. The proposed design mainly contains four blocks : a time synchronization block, a frequency synchronization block, a 2K/8K FFT processor, and a channel estimation block.

The aim of the study was to investigate the dynamics of two online communities of practice (oCoP) for preservice teachers. The research process encompassed three main phases. Phase 1 was related to the design and development of online environment. By the help of existing literature and a pilot study, a portal which is called as &ldquo / Professional Development Circle (PDC)&rdquo / was developed. In Phase-2, 28 preservice teachers from three different universities participated to an online course as a part of an undergraduate course. During the term, they discussed on different video cases which were recorded in real classroom environments and produced new lesson plans for these lessons in the light of given suggestions. In the third phase, the same preservice teachers got involved in a different online environment without any grading motivation in the Phase 2. They discussed on some hot topics in mathematics teaching with other preservice teachers, academicians and experienced teachers. This research study was mainly a qualitative study. Two cases of the study were two oCoP which included mandatory or voluntary participation of preservice teachers to discussions. The data were collected through written reflection reports, observations and interviews. In addition, private e-mail exchange with participants and discussion list message history were rich data sources. The data were analyzed according to qualitative data analysis techniques. The design principles and findings of this research study were discussed in the frame of Activity Theory. This study revealed outcomes of two online communities of practice environments in preservice teacher education. In addition, motivators and barriers to be active in oCoP environments were discussed. Some of the motivators were getting more responsibility, self confidance, sociable personality, altruism, sincerity in the environment, and quality of materials while some of the barriers were not wanting to enter a fight, lack of time, the idea &ldquo / max benefit minimum effort&rdquo / , feeling availability of others, and Internet access and computer availability.

Video stabilization methods are classified as mechanical and digital. Mechanical methods are based on motion sensors. Digital methods are computer programs and classified into two as time domain and frequency domain based on the signal processing methods used for the motion analysis. Although, mechanical methods have good real time stabilization performance, they are not suitable for small platforms such as mobile robots. On the other hand, digital video stabilization methods are easy to implement on various hardware, however, they require high computational load and long processing time. Two different digital video stabilization methods, one frequency and one time domain algorithms, are implemented on FPGA to realize their real time performances. Also, the methods are implemented and tested in MATLAB. FPGA results are compared with MATLAB&rsquo / s to see the accuracy performance.The input video format is PAL of which frame period is 40ms. The FPGA implementation is capable of producing new stabilization data at every PAL frame which allows the implementation to be classified as real time. Also, the simulation and hardware tests show that FPGA implementation can reach the MATLAB accuracy performance.

Η εργασία αυτή πραγματοποιήθηκε σε αποκλειστική συνεργασία του φοιτητή Αθανάσιου Μιχαήλ και του επίκουρου καθηγητή Ευάγγελου Δερματά του πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Το θέμα αποφασίστηκε από κοινού των προαναφερόμενων προσώπων, στα πλαίσια των προπτυχιακών σπουδών του φοιτητή. Οι λόγοι που οδήγησαν σε αυτό είναι πολλοί. Όχι μόνο η ραγδαία αύξηση των ψυχαγωγικών εφαρμογών που χρησιμοποιούν τρισδιάστατες τεχνικές αλλά και η απόκτηση όλο και μεγαλύτερης σημασίας σε επιστημονικούς τομείς όπως της ιατρικής κίνησαν το ενδιαφέρον του φοιτητή. Επίσης, πρόσφατες χρήσεις σε υποβοηθητικά συστήματα οδηγών όπως στερεοσκοπικές ή κάμερες κοντινού εύρους αλλά και σε βιομηχανικές εφαρμογές με ρομπότ, καθιστούν γενικότερα τον τομέα υπολογιστικής όρασης ιδιαίτερα σπουδαίο. Πολλά προβλήματα απεικόνισης και προσανατολισμού στο χώρο μπορούν να λυθούν με μια χωρική αντίληψη από τον άνθρωπο. Για την αναπαράσταση στις τρεις διαστάσεις θα βασιστούμε στην παθητική στερεοσκόπιση και τη βαθμωτή δομή από κίνηση με Multi-View-Stereo. Στην υπολογιστική όραση η 3D ανακατασκευή είναι η διαδικασία της σύλληψης του σχήματος και της εμφάνισης πραγματικών αντικειμένων. Θα παρουσιαστούν οι διάφορες μέθοδοι εκτίμησης βάθους (ανάκτησης τρίτης διάστασης από δισδιάστατη ψηφιακή εικόνα). Θα δοθεί έμφαση στο γεωμετρικό υπόβαθρο και η παραπομπή σε αρκετές σημαντικές εργασίες όπου αυτό κρίνεται αναγκαίο. Θα αναφερθούμε τόσο στην μοντελοποίηση της κάμερας όσο και στην βαθμονόμησή της, βήμα απαραίτητο για μια ρεαλιστική αναπαράσταση. Στη συνέχεια περνάμε στην ψηφιακή επεξεργασία των εικόνων και την ανάδειξη σημείων ενδιαφέροντος επί αυτών. Ύστερα εξηγούνται οι βασικές αρχές τις επιπολικής γεωμετρίας κι έπειτα δίνεται βαρύτητα στη σθεναρότητα μεθόδων εκτίμησης. Παρουσιάζεται η διόρθωση των εικόνων με αντιπροσωπευτικά πειραματικά αποτελέσματα και τελικά φτάνουμε στην αραιή και πυκνή ανακατασκευή στις τρεις διαστάσεις. Κατά τη διάρκεια διεκπεραίωσης της εργασίας αφιερώθηκε αρκετός χρόνος για το θεωρητικό της μέρος, ώστε ο αναγνώστης να μπορέσει να κατανοήσει εύκολα τις βασικές αρχές και τα βασικά στάδια αναπαράστασης ενός τρισδιάστατου χώρου. Ταυτόχρονα απεικονίζονται γραφικά αποτελέσματα που τεκμηριώνουν τη θεωρία ή οδηγούν σε χρήσιμα συμπεράσματα. / The current thesis has been written in an exclusive collaboration of the student Athanasios Michail and Assistant Professor Evangelos Dermatas of the University of Patras. The subject was decided jointly by the above persons in the context of the undergraduate study. There are many reasons for this decision. Not only the rapidly growth of entertainment applications using three-dimensional techniques but also the acquisition of more and more importance in the science sector, such as medicine, caught the student´s attention. Also, recent usages in Driver Assistance Systems like Stereoscopic or Near Range Cameras and industrial applications with robots, make the general sector of Computer Vision particularly important. Many specific depiction and spatial orientation problems can be solved by the spatial perception by humans. For the representation in three dimensions we will rely on stereoscopic vision and structure from motion in combination with Multi-View-Stereo. In Computer Vision the 3D reconstruction means a process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects. We will present the various depth estimation methods (third dimension recovery from two-dimensional digital image). Emphasis will be placed at the geometric background and it will be referred to several important works where necessary. Both modeling of a camera and its calibration are mentioned. This is a necessary step for a realistic representation. Then we introduct digital image processing, highlighting the points of interest at captured frames. As a next step, we explain the basic principles of epipolar geometry and emphasize on the robust estimation methods. After we present the chapter of image rectification, we finally reach the dense reconstruction in three dimensions. A lot of time was spent to the theoretical part during this work, so that the reader can easily understand the basic principles and key stages of the representation of three-dimensional space. Simultaneously to this, graphed results are illustrated. They can substantiate the theory or lead to useful conclusions.