Bézier and Splines in Image Processing and Machine Vision
Digital image processing and machine vision have grown considerably during the last few decades. Of the various techniques, developed so far, splines play a significant role in many of them. This book deals with various image processing and machine vision problems efficiently with splines and includes: the significance of Bernstein Polynomial in splines, detailed coverage of Beta-splines applications which are relatively new, Splines in motion tracking, various deformative models and their uses. Finally the book covers wavelet splines which are efficient and effective in different image applications. TOC:Part I Early Background. - 1 Bernstein Polynomial and B?zier-Bernstein Spline. - Significance of Bernstein Polynomial in Splines. - 2 Image Segmentation. - Two Different Concepts of Segmentation. - Contour Based Segmentation. - Region Based Segmentation. - 3 1-d B-B Spline Polynomial and Hilbert Scan for Graylevel Image Coding. - Hilbert Scanned Image. - Shortcomings of Bernstein Polynomial and Error of Approximation. - 4 Image Compression. - SLIC: Sub-image Based Lossy Image Compression. - Part II Intermediate Steps. - 5 B-Splines and its Applications. - B-Spline Function. - 6 Beta-Splines: A Flexible Model. - Beta-Spline Curve. - 7 Discrete Spline and Vision. - Smoothing Discrete Spline and Vision. - Cardinal B-spline Basis and Riesz Basis. - 8 Spline Wavelets: Construction, Implication and Uses. - Cardinal B-spline Basis and Riesz Basis. - 9 Snakes and Active Contours. - Splines and Energy Minimisation Techniques. - Part III Advanced Methodologies. - 10 Globally Optimal Energy Minimisation Techinques. - Globally Minimal Surfaces (GMS).

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Robot Vision
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Robot Vision, RobVis 2008, held in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2008. The 21 revised full papers presented together with 15 posters papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 59 submissions. The papers and posters are organized in topical sections on motion analysis, stereo vision, robot vision, computer vision, visual inspection, urban vision, and the poster section.

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Active Sensor Planning for Multiview Vision Tasks
"An active robot system can change its visual parameters in an intentional manner and perform its sensing actions purposefully. A general vision task thus can be performed in an efficient way by means of strategic control of the perception process. The controllable processes include 3D active sensing, sensor configuration and recalibration, automatic sensor placement, and 3D sensing. This book explores these important issues in studying for active visual perception. Vision sensors have limited fields of views and can only "see" a portion of a scene from a single viewpoint. To make the entire object visible, the sensor has to be moved from one place to another around the object to observe all features of interest. The sensor planning presented in this book describes an effective strategy to generate a sequence of viewing poses and sensor settings for optimally completing a perception task. Several methods are proposed to solve the problems in both model-based and nonmodel-based vision tasks. For model-based applications, the method involves determination of the optimal sensor placements and a shortest path through these viewpoints for automatic generation of a perception plan. A topology of viewpoints is achieved by a genetic algorithm in which a min-max criterion is used for evaluation. A shortest path is also determined by graph algorithms. For nonmodel-based applications, the method involves determination of the best next view and sensor settings. The trend surface is proposed as the cue to predict the unknown portion of an object or environment. The 11 chapters in Active Vision Planning draw on recent work in robot vision over ten years, particularly in the use of new concepts of active sensing, reconfiguration, recalibration, sensor model, sensing constraints, sensing evaluation, viewpoint decision, sensor placement graph, model based planning, path planning, planning for robot in unknown environment, dynamic 3D construction, surface prediction, etc. Implementation examples are also provided with theoretical methods for testing in a real robot system. With these optimal sensor planning strategies, this book will give the robot vision system the adaptability needed in many practical applications. TOC:Introduction. - Active Vision Sensors. - Active Sensor Planning. - Sensing Constraints and Evaluation. - Model-Based Sensor Planning. - Planning for Freeform Surface Measurement. - Sensor Planning for Object Modeling. - Information Entropy-Based Planning. - Model Prediction and Sensor Planning. - Integrating Planning with Active Illumination. "

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Semantic Service Provisioning
Service-oriented computing has recently gained extensive momentum in both industry and academia, and major software vendors hook on to the service paradigm and tailor their software systems towards services in order to accommodate ever-changing process and product requirements in today´s dynamic market environments. While dynamic binding of services at runtime was identified as a core functionality of service-based environments as far back as 2000, its industrial-strength implementation has yet to be achieved. The main reason for this is the lack of rich service specifications, concepts, and tools to process them. This book introduces advanced concepts in service provisioning and service engineering, including semantic concepts, dynamic discovery and composition, and illustrates them in a concrete business use case scenario. To prove the validity of the concepts and technologies, a semantic service provisioning reference architecture framework as well as a prototypical implementation of its subsystems and a prototypical realization of a proper business scenario are presented. Thus the book goes way beyond current service-based software technologies by providing a coherent and consistent set of technologies and systems functionality that realizes advanced concepts in service provisioning. Both the use case scenario and the provisioning platform have already been substantiated and implemented by the EU-funded Adaptive Services Grid project. The book therefore presents state-of-the-art research results that have already passed a real industrial implementation evaluation which is based on the work of over 20 European partners cooperating in the field of semantic service provisioning. TOC:Introduction (M. Weske) - Core Concepts and Use Case Scenario (D. Kuropka et al. ) - Ontologies and Matchmaking (E. Cimpian et al. ) - Service Enabling (S. Donath et al. ) - Service Composition and Binding (M. Kowalkiewicz et al. ) - Service Composition Enactment (M. Kowalkiewicz et al. ) - Service Infrastructure (A. Polze, P. Tröger) - Service Engineering Methodology (J. Bayer et al. ) - Application and Outlook (D. Kuropka et al. )

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Transdisciplinary Digital Art
This volume collects selected papers from the past two instances of Digital Art Weeks (Zurich, Switzerland) and Interactive Futures (Victoria, BC, Canada), two parallel festivals of digital media art. The work represented in Transdisciplinary Digital Art is a confirmation of the vitality and breadth of the digital arts. Collecting essays that broadly encompass the digital arts, Transdisciplinary Digital Art gives a clear overview of the on-going strength of scientific, philosophical, aesthetic and artistic research that makes digital art perhaps the defining medium of the 21st Century.

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