published_or_final_version / abstract / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Mode confusion describes the psychological condition of a human operator when he or she finds it difficult or impossible to determine the current state of an automated system. The ability for a user to keep track of these modes internally is especially important in systems where the number of available functions is greater than the number of controls or indicators present in the user interface. In this thesis, we present a set of heuristics, intended for use by engineers during design time. to mitigate mode confusion potential in digital cameras. To test the applicability and effectiveness of these heuristics, we simulated a formative evaluation, as would be performed by a designer, and correlated these results with that of a usability study.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 30).

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-11-19Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:00:45Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ruy_rs_dr_prud.pdf: 5800893 bytes, checksum: eca044ea30603eb3cacb3a982ca7088c (MD5) / Nos últimos anos observa-se uma crescente utilização de câmaras digitais em Fotogrametria, especialmente os modelos profissionais de câmaras de pequeno e médio formato. Isso porque os sistemas digitais comerciais de grande formato possuem custos elevados e um complexo sistema de gerenciamento, armazenamento e processamento das imagens. Além disso, as câmaras digitais de pequeno e médio formato possuem algumas vantagens que as tornam altamente atrativas, como: grande disponibilidade no mercado; flexibilidade quanto ao intervalo de focalização; são pequenas, leves e de fácil manejo e; possuem custos substancialmente reduzidos quando comparadas aos sistemas digitais de grande formato. Por outro lado, algumas limitações ainda estão presentes nestes modelos de câmaras, no que se refere à confiabilidade da geometria interna e à resolução dos sensores. Contudo, estudos de caso têm mostrado que estes problemas podem ser contornados, podendo-se utilizar todo o potencial deste tipo de sensor para mapeamentos temáticos, topográficos e cadastrais em áreas de pequeno e médio porte, com grande flexibilidade em relação aos sensores aéreos e orbitais convencionais. Neste contexto, este trabalho teve como objetivo a concepção, implementação física e testes reais de um sistema de aquisição de imagens digitais, formado por câmaras digitais de médio formato integradas a sensores de orientação direta, dispositivos eletrônicos e interfaces de hardware e software. Foram desenvolvidos também estudos, análises, algoritmos e programas computacionais de Fototriangulação com parâmetros adicionais (FPA), com dados de georreferenciamento direto, voltados ao sistema desenvolvido... / In the last years there is a growing use of digital cameras in Photogrammetry, mainly the small and medium format cameras, because of high cost and problems with the images management and postprocessing in the high end digital cameras. Besides, if the small and medium format cameras are calibrated they can provide quality data, together with their advantages: variety in the market; focalization flexibility; are small, light, easy handling and; have low cost if compared with the high resolution cameras. Although, these models of digital cameras have some limitations, like the interior orientation reliability and the resolution of the sensor. Some case studies have showed that these problems can be solved and the digital sensors can be used with success in thematic, topographic and cadastral mapping of small and medium areas, with high flexibility if compared with conventional aerial and orbital sensors. In this context, the aim of this work is the conception, development and real tests performing of a digital image acquisition system composed by medium format digital cameras integrated to direct orientation systems, electronic devices and hardware and software developments. Studies, analysis and computational programs related to block triangulation with additional parameters with direct orientation data were performed for establishing the interior orientation of the cameras that compose the acquisition system... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Antonio Maria Garcia Tommaselli / Banca: Edson Aparecido Mitishita / Banca: Jorge Luis Nunes e Silva Brito / Banca: Julio Kiyoshi Hasegawa / Banca: Mauricio Galo / Resumo: Nos últimos anos observa-se uma crescente utilização de câmaras digitais em Fotogrametria, especialmente os modelos profissionais de câmaras de pequeno e médio formato. Isso porque os sistemas digitais comerciais de grande formato possuem custos elevados e um complexo sistema de gerenciamento, armazenamento e processamento das imagens. Além disso, as câmaras digitais de pequeno e médio formato possuem algumas vantagens que as tornam altamente atrativas, como: grande disponibilidade no mercado; flexibilidade quanto ao intervalo de focalização; são pequenas, leves e de fácil manejo e; possuem custos substancialmente reduzidos quando comparadas aos sistemas digitais de grande formato. Por outro lado, algumas limitações ainda estão presentes nestes modelos de câmaras, no que se refere à confiabilidade da geometria interna e à resolução dos sensores. Contudo, estudos de caso têm mostrado que estes problemas podem ser contornados, podendo-se utilizar todo o potencial deste tipo de sensor para mapeamentos temáticos, topográficos e cadastrais em áreas de pequeno e médio porte, com grande flexibilidade em relação aos sensores aéreos e orbitais convencionais. Neste contexto, este trabalho teve como objetivo a concepção, implementação física e testes reais de um sistema de aquisição de imagens digitais, formado por câmaras digitais de médio formato integradas a sensores de orientação direta, dispositivos eletrônicos e interfaces de hardware e software. Foram desenvolvidos também estudos, análises, algoritmos e programas computacionais de Fototriangulação com parâmetros adicionais (FPA), com dados de georreferenciamento direto, voltados ao sistema desenvolvido... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In the last years there is a growing use of digital cameras in Photogrammetry, mainly the small and medium format cameras, because of high cost and problems with the images management and postprocessing in the high end digital cameras. Besides, if the small and medium format cameras are calibrated they can provide quality data, together with their advantages: variety in the market; focalization flexibility; are small, light, easy handling and; have low cost if compared with the high resolution cameras. Although, these models of digital cameras have some limitations, like the interior orientation reliability and the resolution of the sensor. Some case studies have showed that these problems can be solved and the digital sensors can be used with success in thematic, topographic and cadastral mapping of small and medium areas, with high flexibility if compared with conventional aerial and orbital sensors. In this context, the aim of this work is the conception, development and real tests performing of a digital image acquisition system composed by medium format digital cameras integrated to direct orientation systems, electronic devices and hardware and software developments. Studies, analysis and computational programs related to block triangulation with additional parameters with direct orientation data were performed for establishing the interior orientation of the cameras that compose the acquisition system... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is being revolutionized by computational design and artificial intelligence. As the diversity of user interfaces shifts from personal desktops to mobile and wearable devices, yesterday’s tools and interfaces are insufficient to meet the demands of tomorrow’s devices. This dissertation describes my research on leveraging different physical channels (e.g., vibration, light, capacitance) to enable novel interaction opportunities. We first introduce FontCode, an information embedding technique for text documents. Given a text document with specific fonts, our method can embed user-specified information (e.g., URLs, meta data, etc) in the text by perturbing the glyphs of text characters while preserving the text content. The embedded information can later be retrieved using a smartphone in real time. Then, we present Vidgets, a family of mechanical widgets, specifically push buttons and rotary knobs that augment mobile devices with tangible user interfaces. When these widgets are attached to a mobile device and a user interacts with them, the nonlinear mechanical response of the widgets shifts the device slightly and quickly. Subsequently, this subtle motion can be detected by the Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), which is commonly installed on mobile devices. Next, we propose BackTrack, a trackpad placed on the back of a smartphone to track finegrained finger motions. Our system has a small form factor, with all the circuits encapsulated in a thin layer attached to a phone case. It can be used with any off-the-shelf smartphone, requiring no power supply or modification of the operating systems. BackTrack simply extends the finger tracking area of the front screen, without interrupting the use of the front screen. Lastly, we demonstrate MoiréBoard, a new camera tracking method that leverages a seemingly irrelevant visual phenomenon, the moiré effect. Based on a systematic analysis of the moiré effect under camera projection, MoiréBoard requires no power nor camera calibration. It can easily be made at a low cost (e.g., through 3D printing) and ready to use with any stock mobile device with a camera. Its tracking algorithm is computationally efficient and can run at a high frame rate. It is not only simple to implement, but also tracks devices at a high accuracy, comparable to the state-of-the-art commercial VR tracking systems.

High frame rate video (HFV) is an important investigational tool in sciences, engineering and military. In ultrahigh speed imaging, the obtainable temporal, spatial and spectral resolutions are limited by the sustainable throughput of in-camera mass memory, the lower bound of exposure time, and illumination conditions. In order to break these bottlenecks, we propose a new coded video acquisition framework that employs K>1 cameras, each of which makes random measurements of the video signal in both temporal and spatial domains. For each of the K cameras, this multi-camera strategy greatly relaxes the stringent requirements in memory speed, shutter speed, and illumination strength. The recovery of HFV from these random measurements is posed and solved as a large scale l1 minimization problem by exploiting joint temporal and spatial sparsities of the 3D signal. Three coded video acquisition techniques of varied trade o s between performance and hardware complexity are developed: frame-wise coded acquisition, pixel-wise coded acquisition, and column-row-wise coded acquisition. The performances of these techniques are analyzed in relation to the sparsity of the underlying video signal. To make ultra high speed cameras of coded exposure more practical and a fordable, we develop a coded exposure video/image acquisition system by an innovative assembling of multiple rolling shutter cameras. Each of the constituent rolling shutter cameras adopts a random pixel read-out mechanism by simply changing the read out order of pixel rows from sequential to random. Simulations of these new image/video coded acquisition techniques are carried out and experimental results are reported. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis presents a secure digital camera (SDC) that inserts biometric data into images found in forms of identification such as the newly proposed electronic passport. However, putting biometric data in passports makes the data vulnerable for theft, causing privacy related issues. An effective solution to combating unauthorized access such as skimming (obtaining data from the passport's owner who did not willingly submit the data) or eavesdropping (intercepting information as it moves from the chip to the reader) could be judicious use of watermarking and encryption at the source end of the biometric process in hardware like digital camera or scanners etc. To address such issues, a novel approach and its architecture in the framework of a digital camera, conceptualized as an SDC is presented. The SDC inserts biometric data into passport image with the aid of watermarking and encryption processes. The VLSI (very large scale integration) architecture of the functional units of the SDC such as watermarking and encryption unit is presented. The result of the hardware implementation of Rijndael advanced encryption standard (AES) and a discrete cosine transform (DCT) based visible and invisible watermarking algorithm is presented. The prototype chip can carry out simultaneous encryption and watermarking, which to our knowledge is the first of its kind. The encryption unit has a throughput of 500 Mbit/s and the visible and invisible watermarking unit has a max frequency of 96.31 MHz and 256 MHz respectively.

We have become increasingly dependent on our smartphones and use them for entertainment, navigation, to shop, and to connect among other tasks. For many, the camera on the smartphone has replaced a dedicated digital camera, especially for the adolescent. With advances in smartphone technology, it is has become increasingly difficult to determine differences between smartphone camera and digital camera photographs. To date there is little research on the differences between photographs taken by smartphone and digital cameras, particularly among adolescents, who are avid photographers.This study used a qualitative task-based research method to investigate differences in photographs taken by adolescents using both types of cameras. Twenty-three adolescents ages 15 to 17 attending a regularly scheduled high school photography class participated in the study. The students were invited to capture a typical day in their life, first using their digital camera or smartphone camera and then switching to the other type of camera. Data were collected by way of written reflections, student interviews, and the participants’ photographs. The three data sources were coded, analyzed, and triangulated to provide results for this study. Results suggest that, for these particular participants, marginal differences exist between the photographs taken with a smartphone camera and a digital camera. Analysis also suggests there were minimal differences across specific categories of focus, color balance, and thoughtfully captured images between the smartphone and the digital camera photographs for this population of students. The study concludes that teenagers ultimately use whatever capturing device is available to them, suggesting that it is the photographer who controls the quality of a photograph—not the capturing device. Educational implications of the study focus on the use of technology in the art classroom, and suggestions are offered for photographic curricula based on the results of this study. In addition, an examination of different pedagogical styles, such as reciprocal and remote teaching and learning models, finds them particularly appropriate in supporting photography education for adolescents.