Design of Compliant Mechanism Based Microgripper with Three Finger Using Topology Optimization

High precision in motion is required to manipulate the micro objects in precision industries for micro assembly, cell manipulation etc. Precision manipulation is achieved based on the appropriate mechanism design of micro devices such as microgrippers. Design of a compliant based mechanism is the better option to achieve a highly precised and controlled motion. This research article highlights the method of designing a compliant based three fingered microgripper suitable for holding asymmetric objects. Topological optimization technique, a systematic method is implemented in this research work to arrive a topologically optimized design of the mechanism needed to perform the required micro motion of the gripper. Optimization technique has a drawback of generating senseless regions such as node to node connectivity and staircase effect at the boundaries. Hence, it is required to have post processing of the design to make it manufacturable. To reduce the effect of post processing stage and to preserve the edges of the image, a cubic spline interpolation technique is introduced in the MATLAB program. Structural performance of the topologically developed mechanism design is tested using finite element method (FEM) software. Further the microgripper structure is examined to find its fatigue life and vibration characteristics.

A Stereo Vision System for Top View Book Scanners

This paper proposes a novel stereo vision technique for top view book scanners which provide us with dense 3d point clouds of page surfaces. This is a precondition to dewarp bound volumes independent of 2d information on the page. Our method is based on algorithms, which normally require the projection of pattern sequences with structured light. We use image sequences of the moving stripe lighting of the top view scanner instead of an additional light projection. Thus the stereo vision setup is simplified without losing measurement accuracy. Furthermore we improve a surface model dewarping method through introducing a difference vector based on real measurements. Although our proposed method is hardly expensive neither in calculation time nor in hardware requirements we present good dewarping results even for difficult examples.

XML Integration of Data from CloudSat Satellite and GMS-6 Water Vapor Satellite

This study aimed at developing visualization tools for integrating CloudSat images and Water Vapor Satellite images. KML was used for integrating data from CloudSat Satellite and GMS-6 Water Vapor Satellite. CloudSat 2D images were transformed into 3D polygons in order to achieve 3D images. Before overlaying the images on Google Earth, GMS-6 water vapor satellite images had to be rescaled into linear images. Web service was developed using webMathematica. Shoreline from GMS-6 images was compared with shoreline from LandSat images on Google Earth for evaluation. The results showed that shoreline from GMS-6 images was highly matched with the shoreline in LandSat images from Google Earth. For CloudSat images, the visualizations were compared with GMS-6 images on Google Earth. The results showed that CloudSat and GMS-6 images were highly correlated.

Super Resolution Blind Reconstruction of Low Resolution Images using Wavelets based Fusion

Crucial information barely visible to the human eye is often embedded in a series of low resolution images taken of the same scene. Super resolution reconstruction is the process of combining several low resolution images into a single higher resolution image. The ideal algorithm should be fast, and should add sharpness and details, both at edges and in regions without adding artifacts. In this paper we propose a super resolution blind reconstruction technique for linearly degraded images. In our proposed technique the algorithm is divided into three parts an image registration, wavelets based fusion and an image restoration. In this paper three low resolution images are considered which may sub pixels shifted, rotated, blurred or noisy, the sub pixel shifted images are registered using affine transformation model; A wavelet based fusion is performed and the noise is removed using soft thresolding. Our proposed technique reduces blocking artifacts and also smoothens the edges and it is also able to restore high frequency details in an image. Our technique is efficient and computationally fast having clear perspective of real time implementation.

Video Data Mining based on Information Fusion for Tamper Detection

In this paper, we propose novel algorithmic models based on information fusion and feature transformation in crossmodal subspace for different types of residue features extracted from several intra-frame and inter-frame pixel sub-blocks in video sequences for detecting digital video tampering or forgery. An evaluation of proposed residue features – the noise residue features and the quantization features, their transformation in cross-modal subspace, and their multimodal fusion, for emulated copy-move tamper scenario shows a significant improvement in tamper detection accuracy as compared to single mode features without transformation in cross-modal subspace.

A Self Configuring System for Object Recognition in Color Images

System MEMORI automatically detects and recognizes rotated and/or rescaled versions of the objects of a database within digital color images with cluttered background. This task is accomplished by means of a region grouping algorithm guided by heuristic rules, whose parameters concern some geometrical properties and the recognition score of the database objects. This paper focuses on the strategies implemented in MEMORI for the estimation of the heuristic rule parameters. This estimation, being automatic, makes the system a highly user-friendly tool.

FPGA Implement of a Vision Based Lane Departure Warning System

Using vision based solution in intelligent vehicle application often needs large memory to handle video stream and image process which increase complexity of hardware and software. In this paper, we present a FPGA implement of a vision based lane departure warning system. By taking frame of videos, the line gradient of line is estimated and the lane marks are found. By analysis the position of lane mark, departure of vehicle will be detected in time. This idea has been implemented in Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA. The lane departure warning system used 39% logic resources and no memory of the device. The average availability is 92.5%. The frame rate is more than 30 frames per second (fps).

Fast Codevector Search Algorithm for 3-D Vector Quantized Codebook

This paper presents a very simple and efficient algorithm for codebook search, which reduces a great deal of computation as compared to the full codebook search. The algorithm is based on sorting and centroid technique for search. The results table shows the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of computational complexity. In this paper we also introduce a new performance parameter named as Average fractional change in pixel value as we feel that it gives better understanding of the closeness of the image since it is related to the perception. This new performance parameter takes into consideration the average fractional change in each pixel value.

Diasporic Discourse and Body Codes:Transnational Identities in Three Representative Chinese-French Artists

This paper focuses upon three such painters working in France from this time and their representations both of their host country in which they found themselves displaced, and of their homeland which they represent through refracted memories from their new perspective in Europe. What is their representation of France and China´╝ÅTaiwan? Is it Otherness or an origin? This paper also attempts to explore the three artists- diasporic lives and to redefine their transnational identities. Hou Chin-lang, the significance of his multiple-split images serve to highlight the intricate relationships between his work and the surrounding family, and to reveal his identity of his Taiwan “homeland". Yin Xin takes paintings from the Western canon and subjects them to a process of transformation through Chinese imagery. In the same period, Lin Li-ling, transforms the transnational spirit of Yin Xin to symbolic codes with neutered female bodies and tatoos, thus creates images that challenge the boundaries of both gender and nationality.

IMDC: An Image-Mapped Data Clustering Technique for Large Datasets

In this paper, we present a new algorithm for clustering data in large datasets using image processing approaches. First the dataset is mapped into a binary image plane. The synthesized image is then processed utilizing efficient image processing techniques to cluster the data in the dataset. Henceforth, the algorithm avoids exhaustive search to identify clusters. The algorithm considers only a small set of the data that contains critical boundary information sufficient to identify contained clusters. Compared to available data clustering techniques, the proposed algorithm produces similar quality results and outperforms them in execution time and storage requirements.

A PSO-based End-Member Selection Method for Spectral Unmixing of Multispectral Satellite Images

An end-member selection method for spectral unmixing that is based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is developed in this paper. The algorithm uses the K-means clustering algorithm and a method of dynamic selection of end-members subsets to find the appropriate set of end-members for a given set of multispectral images. The proposed algorithm has been successfully applied to test image sets from various platforms such as LANDSAT 5 MSS and NOAA's AVHRR. The experimental results of the proposed algorithm are encouraging. The influence of different values of the algorithm control parameters on performance is studied. Furthermore, the performance of different versions of PSO is also investigated.

A GPU Based Texture Mapping Technique for 3D Models Using Multi-View Images

Previous the 3D model texture generation from multi-view images and mapping algorithms has issues in the texture chart generation which are the self-intersection and the concentration of the texture in texture space. Also we may suffer from some problems due to the occluded areas, such as inside parts of thighs. In this paper we propose a texture mapping technique for 3D models using multi-view images on the GPU. We do texture mapping directly on the GPU fragment shader per pixel without generation of the texture map. And we solve for the occluded area using the 3D model depth information. Our method needs more calculation on the GPU than previous works, but it has shown real-time performance and previously mentioned problems do not occur.

Image Compression with Back-Propagation Neural Network using Cumulative Distribution Function

Image Compression using Artificial Neural Networks is a topic where research is being carried out in various directions towards achieving a generalized and economical network. Feedforward Networks using Back propagation Algorithm adopting the method of steepest descent for error minimization is popular and widely adopted and is directly applied to image compression. Various research works are directed towards achieving quick convergence of the network without loss of quality of the restored image. In general the images used for compression are of different types like dark image, high intensity image etc. When these images are compressed using Back-propagation Network, it takes longer time to converge. The reason for this is, the given image may contain a number of distinct gray levels with narrow difference with their neighborhood pixels. If the gray levels of the pixels in an image and their neighbors are mapped in such a way that the difference in the gray levels of the neighbors with the pixel is minimum, then compression ratio as well as the convergence of the network can be improved. To achieve this, a Cumulative distribution function is estimated for the image and it is used to map the image pixels. When the mapped image pixels are used, the Back-propagation Neural Network yields high compression ratio as well as it converges quickly.

A Local Statistics Based Region Growing Segmentation Method for Ultrasound Medical Images

This paper presents the region based segmentation method for ultrasound images using local statistics. In this segmentation approach the homogeneous regions depends on the image granularity features, where the interested structures with dimensions comparable to the speckle size are to be extracted. This method uses a look up table comprising of the local statistics of every pixel, which are consisting of the homogeneity and similarity bounds according to the kernel size. The shape and size of the growing regions depend on this look up table entries. The algorithms are implemented by using connected seeded region growing procedure where each pixel is taken as seed point. The region merging after the region growing also suppresses the high frequency artifacts. The updated merged regions produce the output in formed of segmented image. This algorithm produces the results that are less sensitive to the pixel location and it also allows a segmentation of the accurate homogeneous regions.

Retrieval of Relevant Visual Data in Selected Machine Vision Tasks: Examples of Hardware-based and Software-based Solutions

To illustrate diversity of methods used to extract relevant (where the concept of relevance can be differently defined for different applications) visual data, the paper discusses three groups of such methods. They have been selected from a range of alternatives to highlight how hardware and software tools can be complementarily used in order to achieve various functionalities in case of different specifications of “relevant data". First, principles of gated imaging are presented (where relevance is determined by the range). The second methodology is intended for intelligent intrusion detection, while the last one is used for content-based image matching and retrieval. All methods have been developed within projects supervised by the author.

GPU-Based Volume Rendering for Medical Imagery

We present a method for fast volume rendering using graphics hardware (GPU). To our knowledge, it is the first implementation on the GPU. Based on the Shear-Warp algorithm, our GPU-based method provides real-time frame rates and outperforms the CPU-based implementation. When the number of slices is not sufficient, we add in-between slices computed by interpolation. This improves then the quality of the rendered images. We have also implemented the ray marching algorithm on the GPU. The results generated by the three algorithms (CPU-based and GPU-based Shear- Warp, GPU-based Ray Marching) for two test models has proved that the ray marching algorithm outperforms the shear-warp methods in terms of speed up and image quality.

Region Segmentation based on Gaussian Dirichlet Process Mixture Model and its Application to 3D Geometric Stricture Detection

In general, image-based 3D scenes can now be found in many popular vision systems, computer games and virtual reality tours. So, It is important to segment ROI (region of interest) from input scenes as a preprocessing step for geometric stricture detection in 3D scene. In this paper, we propose a method for segmenting ROI based on tensor voting and Dirichlet process mixture model. In particular, to estimate geometric structure information for 3D scene from a single outdoor image, we apply the tensor voting and Dirichlet process mixture model to a image segmentation. The tensor voting is used based on the fact that homogeneous region in an image are usually close together on a smooth region and therefore the tokens corresponding to centers of these regions have high saliency values. The proposed approach is a novel nonparametric Bayesian segmentation method using Gaussian Dirichlet process mixture model to automatically segment various natural scenes. Finally, our method can label regions of the input image into coarse categories: “ground", “sky", and “vertical" for 3D application. The experimental results show that our method successfully segments coarse regions in many complex natural scene images for 3D.

Contourlet versus Wavelet Transform for a Robust Digital Image Watermarking Technique

In this paper, a watermarking algorithm that uses the wavelet transform with Multiple Description Coding (MDC) and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) concepts is introduced. Also, the paper investigates the role of Contourlet Transform (CT) versus Wavelet Transform (WT) in providing robust image watermarking. Two measures are utilized in the comparison between the waveletbased and the contourlet-based methods; Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Cross-Correlation (NCC). Experimental results reveal that the introduced algorithm is robust against different attacks and has good results compared to the contourlet-based algorithm.

Lung Nodule Detection in CT Scans

In this paper we describe a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for automated detection of pulmonary nodules in computed-tomography (CT) images. After extracting the pulmonary parenchyma using a combination of image processing techniques, a region growing method is applied to detect nodules based on 3D geometric features. We applied the CAD system to CT scans collected in a screening program for lung cancer detection. Each scan consists of a sequence of about 300 slices stored in DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) format. All malignant nodules were detected and a low false-positive detection rate was achieved.

A Hybrid Approach for Color Image Quantization Using K-means and Firefly Algorithms

Color Image quantization (CQ) is an important problem in computer graphics, image and processing. The aim of quantization is to reduce colors in an image with minimum distortion. Clustering is a widely used technique for color quantization; all colors in an image are grouped to small clusters. In this paper, we proposed a new hybrid approach for color quantization using firefly algorithm (FA) and K-means algorithm. Firefly algorithm is a swarmbased algorithm that can be used for solving optimization problems. The proposed method can overcome the drawbacks of both algorithms such as the local optima converge problem in K-means and the early converge of firefly algorithm. Experiments on three commonly used images and the comparison results shows that the proposed algorithm surpasses both the base-line technique k-means clustering and original firefly algorithm.