Entertainment for Education. Digital Techniques and Systems

In this study learning activities were designed with the focus on students’ English writing and speaking performance. The Virtual Pen (VPen), multimedia web annotation system were provided to help student participate at learning activities by creating annotations, sharing them and giving feedback to peers’ work. One experiment was conducted with VPen in an English class for a period of one semester and the following results were obtained. Students perceived VPen as easy to use, useful during participation at learning activities and students had positive attitude toward using VPen. Besides, students found designed activities as useful in improving their writing and speaking performance and playful. Furthermore, students’ actual VPen usage had significant correlation with speaking and writing performance. Further investigation demonstrated that students’ speaking and writing performance significantly correlated with learning achievement. Based on our finding we conclude that learning activities designed in this study with VPen system employed facilitate students’ writing and speaking skill and therefore improve their learning achievement.

Web based intelligent learning systems are coming out as one the most important research issue in the e-learning area. However, two main cognitive problems are confronted by the intelligent learning systems which are caused by the self-controlled mechanism. To solve this problem, learning path is proposed by many systems, however, learners’ learning characteristics, such as their learning styles are still omitted by the most learning systems. This paper proposed an intelligent learning system called Smap, whose learning objects are organized in a 3-dimensioned semantic map. The final goal of Smap is to provide learners with their personalized learning path according to their different learning styles.

This paper reports an empirical research on conceptual change in children. Firstly, an investigation of how 73 primary school students, aged 11 and 12 years old, build concepts of “heat” and ”temperature”. Based on Children’s typical misconceptions, we designed and implemented 4 web-based inter-school collaborative learning activities with necessary tools and systems. Thus enable children to distinguish between these two concepts and promote conceptual changes. After systematic interventions, discourse analysis and T-test analysis, we found that the planned interventions helped children in distinguish the two concepts effectively, thereby building scientific conceptions on their own. The study also shows that ICT can be important resources to promote students’ conceptual change.

In this paper, we discuss the model and strategy to improve the performance of mobile MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). For mobile games, there are lot restrictions like the JAR, Heap and Bandwidth on mobile devices. Memory optimization and network bandwidth reduction are crucial in mobile MMORPG. In this paper, we discuss our optimization experience in crafting a commercially launched game “ZhanGuo” [14], which is proven to run in more than 800 types of mobile phones owned by a million subscribers since 2005. Based on our first-hand experience, we have found out three interesting properties in mobile online game development: 1) extremely small memory factor in both storage and runtime heap memory; 2) the extensive use of graphics and background maps in game; 3) frequent and massive network communication. The idea we presented is only the very first attempt to tackle the issues in the domain of mobile online game, which has a huge opportunity for future development. In addition, we present some open problems in the domain of mobile MMORPG deserving further research and exploration.

The principle of TCP/IP protocols is hard to understand for students. In this paper, a TCP/IP protocol learning tool is present. Through the tool, TCP/IP protocols are present with multimedia in easy, effective and understandable way. On this basic, when various TCP/IP data packets are sent or received, the processes inside of the IP network are visual showed by packets capture and parse based on Winpcap. Practices showed the learning tool can help students to grasp the principle of TCP/IP protocols effectively.

In this paper, we present a framework used for creating, training, and testing SOM neural networks, which are used to recognize student learning styles under different pedagogical models. The SOMs are part of the student model of Intelligent Tutoring Systems we implemented for mobile devices and Web-based Learning Systems. The main contribution of this paper is the framework to build SOMs which can be used with any pedagogical model of learning styles. The SOM network produced with our framework has been tested with mobile devices and a system of web-based learning.

In this paper, we present a voronoi diagram based method for modelling and simulating group learning behaviors. The method follows a set of learning rules to update individuals’ behaviors during evolution, and uses voronoi diagram to compute and observe the change of each individual’s behavior as well as the visualized long-term behaviors of the group at higher group level. In addition, we also discussed how the evolvement of group is affected by qualified rate in initial condition in the sense of statistics and analyzed and explained the special phenomenons appearing in the dynamic evolvement.

The purpose of this study is to design and develop a three-in-one share platform in cooperative English reading (3-in-1 SPICEreading) to help EFL teacher effectively implement cooperative reading in EFL settings. With the attempt to make SPICEreading truly match both EFL teachers’ teaching and students’ learning requirements, a design research approach is adopted to make sure that the system is revised both at the target users’ suggestions and early English reading teaching rationale. Two versions of SPICEreading system as well as the revision reasons will be introduced in this paper. With the supports provided by the 3-in-1 SPICEreading system, it will be easy for an EFL teacher to develop reading materials, to guide students to do cooperative reading, and to assess students’ performance.

This paper analyzed the problems in the teaching of middle school physics optical experiments, and explained how to use the optical simulation experiments to solve them. On this base, it put forward the design and core algorithm of the optical simulation experiment platform, and introduced the implement method of the system and the application mode of the platform.

This paper analyzes the necessity of establishing e-learning resources and points out problems on current e-learning resources construction. To solve these problems, a method on collecting and processing structural e-learning resource based on Web is contributed. The design approach of focused crawler based on classifier and Ajax is described. Also, the Web information extraction approach based on Wrappers is shown. The developed system based on this method has been integrated into a structural e-learning resource library system. The system performance is promising.

The application of virtual experiment changes the traditional mode of education, and makes a fundamental change in the teaching and learning methods. Virtual experiments can effectively overcome a lot of difficulties of practical teaching in schools. Interaction and intelligence of virtual experiment environment is essential. This paper discusses a number of issues on intelligent guidance in virtual experiment, and presents a model for virtual experiment Intelligent Guidance System based on Multi-Agent. Finally, a running example is shown.

Currently, there are many problems of the application development of E-Learning platform such as the difficulty to use learning object from an LMS in another one, and the domain model reuse rate is low in various application systems, and hardness to ensure the consistency between designs and codes. These problems have constrained the development efficiency of E-Learning application software and its quality. In this paper, we proposed a model-driven development approach for E-Learning platform. First, establish the domain model (CIM) through the analysis of business logic, and then establish robustness diagram of the system after the robustness analysis. Then we stratified on the PIM under the J2EE framework, and proposed the method of transformation from PIM to PSM layer by layer. This approach not only effectively solves the above problems, but also improves the efficiency of software development through the automatically generated code.

In this paper, the learner’s knowledge preference ontology model is presented to process learning preference and situation in E-Learning environment. By this model, knowledge domain, learning situation and knowledge preference are described reasonably and efficiently. And, the reasoning rules for knowledge preference and learning situation are given in this model. According to these reasoning rules, the learner’s knowledge preference and situation can be concluded. Furthermore, the learning community based on the learner’s knowledge preference is constructed. By talking with and learning good ideas from the members of the community, the learner’s loneliness in E-Learning environment would be declined. We design and implement the learning community and its service support based on knowledge preference ontology model. The experiment results show that the learner’s efficiency is raised greatly and the learner’s interest is stimulated more effectively.

This research developed an online history educational System, named HES-SPATO2. It is unique in that it integrates the indispensable elements of history events such as person, space, and time for increasing the understandability of complicated history learning materials. HES-SPATO2 employed GIS concept of information layers and web-based technology to help students acquire skills for historical thinking. In HES-SPATO2, history learning objects can be formed by integrating the elements of history events to specify “who” initiated the history event, “whom” the event influenced, “what” they did, “when” the event happened, and “where” the event happened. HES-SPATO2 applied temporal logic to reason the temporal relationships between history events. It also applied spatial logic to reason the spatial relationships between regions. Combining temporal logic and spatial logic makes it possible to present not only movements of persons and explanation texts but also the progression of spatial regions along the history events in animation defined in each SPATO (Spatial, Person, Action/Attribute, and Temporal Object) and therefore makes the learning material more understandable. This system not only brings us the obvious advantage of anywhere-anytime learning but also provides ways to revitalize the teaching and learning of history.

This paper investigates the publishing trends of e-learning literature catalogued in SSCI database during 1967-2009. Our findings indicate that (1) the quantity of recent research on e-learning is expanding remarkably; (2) the frequency indexes of authors productivity do not appear to abide by Lotca’s Law; (3) most research papers on e-learning are generated by multiple authorship; and (4) applications of e-learning have most found in research areas such as Education & Educational Research, Information Science & Library Science, and Computer Science/Interdisciplinary Applications. Finally, future directions of research on e-learning are considered. Moreover, according to Bradford’s Law, the three zone ratio comparisons almost equal as 1 : 8 : 82, which means the data does match Bradford’s Law. And the seven core journals in e-learning are identified and analyzed.

Recently many educational researchers have proved that learning style is an important factor to impact on learning effect. This paper did a deep analysis on the characteristic and application of learning style models, chose FSLSM as the learning style model in our system, then drew up a plan to diagnose and revise the learning style. Based on the differences of learners’ learning style, we construct the adaptive pedagogical strategy model under the Semantic Web from sections such as the learning resources, learning paths, adaptive rules.

Design becomes more and more the art of bringing together expertise and experts from different domains in creating future products. Synthetical knowledge and hands-on skills in design, especially in industrial design, is often implicit, hardly captured and modeled for remote education. The need of transferring implicit design knowledge using computer mediated learning tools, provides not only technical challenges, but also many research opportunities. In this article the literature about training transfer and implicit design knowledge transfer is reviewed. A scenario of using such learning tools for learning and teaching physical modeling in industrial design is presented, followed by a discussion about the challenges and opportunities in developing such a system.

Compared with traditional testing, Computerized Adaptive Testing owes incomparable advantages. Such as flexibility, reduce the test length and measurement accuracy. There are some components in CAT, the most one is the item selection algorithm. To perform adaptive test, the most frequently adopted method is based on the maximum information (MI) of items to select the examination questions, with the view to draw the most accurate estimation for tester’s capacity. There exists, however, flaws of unbalanced item-exposure as well as unequalled usage of item pool in this method. In this paper, we propose a new item selection algorithm CBIS to solve those problems, and then compare our method with MI method by an experiments. The experiment results are promising.

Formative evaluation has so much impact on learning, especially the online learning. There are many researches on the formative evaluation of online learning, but most of them focus on the theory or the system development, and the empirical researches on this aspect are still very limited. We proved the formative evaluation’s impact on the online learning by studying on the attention of the formative evaluation got from the learners, the course participation, the learner autonomy, and so on. We used the case study method, chose the education master’s professional required course "Learning science and technology" and one of the learners to be the cases. In this paper, we will introduce the course, the formative evaluation, the study method and the relationship between the formative evaluation and online learning.

This paper presents results of a psychological study on social behaviors of Chinese MMORPG players. Apart from basic demographic information, four types of social behavior were selected for the study: (1) respondents have told personal secrets to their MMORPG friends which they have never told their real-life friends; (2) respondents agreed that their MMORPG friends were better than their real-life friends; (3) respondents have physically dated someone they met in an MMORPG; (4) respondents considered themselves addicted to the MMORPG. The questionnaire used in this research was served to 500 subjects (347 effective) in Shanghai, China. It is found that a typical MMORPG avatar may be a high-school student, a computer or internet engineer in his 20’s, a stay-at-home mom and dad. But unlike the classic research by Nick Yee, the differences between the gender comparison or the age comparison of the above four different types of MMORPG behaviors are not statistically significant.

As the rapid development of information technology and the social sciences, adaptive learning becomes the development trend of distance education, while the adaptive learning system is an important research area nowadays. This study finds and proves mutual adaptation relationship among adaptive learning by the use of literature reading method, and puts forward the "Mutual Adaptation" idea applied in the system design. And the idea is applied to the system’s theoretical model and adaptive strategy. This study will benefit those who would like to design adaptive learning systems.

We must pay attention and find defects, defects through the prediction to quantify the quality management and quality in order to achieve this goal, requires an estimate of the various defect detection process. Software defects are the departure of software are products’ anticipative function. This paper collecting the data of the software defects, then, using the SVM model the predictive values are gained analyzing the predictive results, software are organizations can improve software control measure software process and allocate testing resources effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to design a schema of webgame-based collaborative learning. Using the most popular webgame “Happy Farm” as a case study, this paper reviews and analyses the characteristics of the game and usability of the interface through learning theories such as behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism and interface design theories by Shneiderman and laws of gestalt psychology. It indicates that webgames can be reused to be good learning resources if designers integrate reasonable topics and tasks. They can provide a collaborative learning environment and are good for developing learners’ higher order thinking skills. Usability principles used in this case study should be provided by the teachers to choose webgames to ensure more standardized and rigorous learning environment. This learning design provides teachers with insights into the use of learning theories and usability principles for choosing webgames for designing learning activities. It also provides a gauge of current usability level of commercially developed webgames as usage of such webgames continue to proliferate.

Using simulators for training is an accepted practice in medical education and in advanced medical training. Creating simulators that perform the functionality required and respond to interventions in a realistic way is key. The first iteration in the design cycle of creating a hard- and software platform that will support the development of these kind of simulators is the topic of this paper. The design approach, the hard- and software choices, the hard- and software architectures and the first results of creating a baby simulator prototype will be discussed.

With the development of education and computer, it has become an urgent demand for scoring programming questions automatically. This paper puts forward a semantic matching based automatic scoring method for C programming questions. The said method standardizes student programs and template programs, and then calculates their semantic similarity, so as to score student programs. Main idea: Firstly, convert student programs and template programs into an intermediate representation of programs (i.e. system dependence graph); secondly, carry out semantic equivalence conversion for the generated system dependence graph according to a series of standardization rules, so as to eliminate the diversification of program expression; thirdly, calculate the matching degree of the standardized system dependence graph, and score student programs according to the matching result and scoring rule.

It is feasible to mine learners’ learning activities for the provision of personalized learning services. Learning activity is not only the mediator for the exploration of learning processes but also the source for the recognition of learners’ personalized learning needs. It is necessary to establish a reasonable analysis system for the inquiry of activity contexts involved in e-leaning. This paper proposes an analysis framework of activity context in e-learning environments, including the theoretical foundation, the connotation, the modeling strategies, and content analysis techniques of activity context.

There are a variety of cognitive forms in network games, such as the problem-based cognition construction, the cognitive training based on AI challenge, the activity-based cognitive interaction, the task-based cognition retention, and the growth-based cognitive apprenticeship, etc. Meanwhile, based on the frequent interactions and distributed cognition among the players, there is an ecological field of learning, with large amount of information symbols, biggish interaction groups and free space for activities, etc. Its main functions are reflected in the situated tasks, the negotiated process, the collaborative environments, and the real-time feedback, etc.

Computer-aided learning (CAL) has great potential in facilitating learning. In medical education, several approaches using CAL have been used. In this paper, we present a novel software platform which we designed to provide a virtual learning environment to support anatomy teaching and learning delivered on a simple desktop computer. The virtual 3D environment is particularly useful to help students identify key anatomy structures and their complex spatial relationships. Modeling and direct volume rendering (DVR) technologies are applied to anonymized actual patient CT Data. The learning platform has been designed to provide accurate, interactive models for student and instructor use. The intuitive computer graphic interface and virtual reality 3D environment make learning interesting and engaging. The platform also allows instructors to easily customize the anatomy model by adding additional digital supplementary learning material like text including hyperlinks, further images, animation, audio and video which are all supported within the learning environment. To make use of online and mobile learning function, the system provides interface to extend online and mobile learning.The chest anatomy prototype has been evaluated by medical students and teaching staff with good feedback.

The current situation of teacher education is so urgent that it’s hard to adapt to the development of informational society, therefore, the reform and innovation of teacher education is a very arduous task. The architecture of digital learning port for free normal students is built, based on the implementation of "985" Teacher Education and Innovation Platform by Central China Normal University. The function of architecture is analyzed in detail from technical support layer, learning support service layer, applicative service layer and external monitor and evaluation. Finally, this paper analyzes the impact on teacher education from the unity of university and primary & secondary schools, the unity of schools and outside and the unity of city and town.

Node localization for federate migration in simulation grid is studied. Both the load of computing node and the difference of communication delay in simulation grid are considered in locating the destination node of migrating federate. Simulation grid is divided into a number of logical node groups in each of which the communication delays are approximate between nodes. Locating processes includes intra-group processes and delay-centered inter-group processes. The average communication delay among federates is minimized.

Science process skill is important to students when they are learning sciences. We have built a story-based virtual experiment environment in Physics to train student’s science process skills. However, the teacher currently doesn’t know how the students’ science process skills are while they are using the virtual experiment environment. For this reason, this research tries to apply the graph edit distances to design the graph-based diagnosis methodology and uses the methodology to compare the student’s science process skill graph and the expected graph in order to give both the teacher and the student feedback regarding the student’s science process skills. This research also proposes the experiment design and plans to do the experiment in the end of this May (May, 2010) to prove the effectiveness of the proposed graph-based diagnosis methodology in analyzing students’ science process skills in Physics.

SAiL-M (Semi-automatic Analysis of Individual Learning Processes in Mathematics) is a joint research project with partners from several German universities and financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, targeted to develop new models to improve the quality of teaching mathematics in early semesters. The major objective of this project is to develop, apply, and evaluate activating learning scenarios and environments for learning mathematics at university level. This includes the development of novel teaching approaches and of novel ways to provide enhanced feedback to student performance on an individual bases utilizing semi-automatic, computer-based assessment tools. Successful approaches identified in the course of the project are collected and documented as best practices in terms of pedagogical design patterns.

In this paper, we will provide an overview on talhe SAiL-M project, it’s objectives and approaches. We will briefly introduce novel class concepts and teaching approaches being applied in the project. We will present and discuss the Intelligent Assessment paradigm and corresponding tools, which are currently being developed in the SAiL-M project. Here, we will focus on the Saraswati toolset designed and implemented at the University of Education at Weingarten. Finally, we will introduce the concept of pedagogical design patterns and explain, how these are being applied in the project.

At present a large number of learning platforms are the accumulation of educational resources. In the face of chaotic educational resources, learners become overwhelmed and unable to find their own resources effectively. Adaptive learning platform aims to build learning environment and provide learning objects based on learner’s individualized information usage behavior, habits, preferences and etc. It can guide learner’s learning activities as a teacher, and enhance learning efficiency. This paper presents an ontology and sequence mining based selection method for learning objects and learning tools in adaptive learning platform. It mines the learning scheme through the sequence mining method to achieve personalized learning scheme. Besides, according to the learning scheme, it integrates the existing e-learning tools to build learning environment by service composition method, and aggregation all the related learning objects into learning content by using ontology technology to describe the semantic relationship between learning objects.

Formative assessment is a systematic evaluation method that improves the professional standards continuously and gets feedback constantly during the process of education and teaching, so as to improve the teaching. It carries out in the education and teaching activities with the objective is to identify deficiencies in the work of teachers, in order to provide a basis for continuous improvement of teaching. In this paper the author constructs 17 indices including two levels and uses AHP as an indicator to complete each weight distribution and lays a foundation for establishing a scientific, reasonable and feasible evaluation index system.

Biology is a laboratory-based science. Biological experiments help to cultivate students’ comprehensive ability and the basic skills, but a classroom teaching cannot be compared. Therefore, it is more and more attention in biology teaching. However, the lacks of examining students’ experimental operational process, the quality of experiment teaching will be difficult to get ensuring. This paper discusses the overall design ideas about the design of automatic assessment system of virtual experiment in junior school biology based on the virtual simulation technology, and what’s more, designs concretely on the experiment of microscope’s usage as the example. The purpose of this paper is realizing the evaluation of the experimental operation, and to a certain extent, it will be beneficial to cultivate the students in experimental skills.

It is important for normal universities to make use of information technology for innovating the model of teacher education, which put forward higher requirements for teaching resources. IPv6 is the next generation Internet protocol that has such special advantages in resources-based e-learning as sufficient address space, higher data transmission efficiency and high-quality video applications. This thesis describes the resource organization and management of the platform for supporting teacher education innovation based on IPv6, as well as the design and implementation of resource management sub-system. The platform and resources support the integration of time and space for teacher education, and the innovation of teacher education modle.

A major advantage of educational computer games is seen in their enormous intrinsic motivational potential. However, exploiting this potential can only occur with a very strong consideration of individual states, traits, and preferences. A crucial role in this respect plays the attempt to provide individual learners/gamers with appropriate personalized interventions, either in the form personalized feedback or hinting or in the form of smooth alterations of the game (e.g., its storyline, its pace, or its difficulty). This short paper introduces the 80Days project and its ideas for gathering the necessary information from the learners in an embedded, non-invasive way. In addition, we shown our approach to adequate, highly personalized educational interventions within the virtual game worlds, making the “glissade on the learning curve” more fun and more effective.

Multi-touch technology offers us a new opportunity to develop digital educational games (DEGS) for children. Current researches are focusing on the area of cooperative learning, and the devices used are mostly horizontal. Can we develop competitive DEGS for children? How would it look like if these games are shown on vertical screens? Based on these assumptions, we did some experimental development researches. In this paper, the design and implementation of four competitive DEGS are introduced, each of which targeting a specific kind of intelligence (verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical and visual-spatial) based on the theory of multiple intelligences. Tryout was made on some preschool children and the problems encountered are analyzed. The experiences gained in the whole process are summarized in the end.

Comparing with computer game or online game, educational game is weak at attracting learners’ attention. While attention plays a key role in the learning process of educational game. This paper, therefore, investigates the influence of computer game on teenage attention by questionnaire survey, starting with three characteristics of attention, and then analyzes that how computer game acts on attention. Based on the results, the paper puts forward the strategies about exploiting the attention resource of learners in educational game, intending to provide some guidelines for designer and developer of educational game.

Games have been an important activity in human society with a meaningful impact in education. In this context, serious game joins entertainment and education for presentation, simulation or training of activities in several areas. This paper reports the importance of planning in serious games, particularly to identify the best approach to be adopted for the development. The main focus is the design of serious games for oral health education for children and adults.

This paper analyzes the educational properties of elements in Edu-game from three point including knowledge, intelligence and affection. On this basis, construct model of Edu-game’s software system with the application of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Finally, take a concrete Edu-game for example; demonstrate the process of modeling according to the steps and requirements of UML modeling with three critical diagram of the framework around the model class diagram, use case diagrams and sequence diagrams. Hope that work can be related to the education system, game software development and coding reference.

It’s well known that video games can be used for educational purpose. However, making a video game ’educational’ is not a trivial task. A lot of guidelines have been presented for designing effective educational games. This paper constructs a software architecture common to all educational games (EGA) which realize those design guidelines in a unified and formalized way. In this paper, it is shown that EGA can be (re)used as a design blueprint to improve productivity and quality of educational games. Furthermore, this paper illustrates how the EGA can be adapted into an externalized version to meet the requirements of any special genre of educational game. Finally, an example is introduced to show how the externalized version of EGA is used to develop a real educational game.

This paper describes an approach, where an O3D-based virtual environment for learning cultural heritage is combined with a game environment to provide a friendly environment that makes learning more pleasant. We describe the game flow, design approach, and the exploration-based O3D API for creating interactive learning environment first. By using interactive teaching and learning system and multimedia exhibition methods, the game can arouse the enthusiasm of players’ learning.

This paper introduces a Finite State Machine Simulator and a robot-based game associated with it for learning Automata Theory. The Finite State Machine Simulator is implemented in Java language and the automaton game based robot is build by the Lego NXT Robot set. Learners can build their own automaton graphically in the simulator interface, and then pass it to the robot, which can then simulate the automaton transitions. Learners can learn by observing the robot’s motion.

Based on previous work of the authors, this paper describes the concept and use of Narrative Game-based Learning Objects (NGLOB) for the personalization and adaptation of Story-based Digital Educational Games (DEG). In the first part of the paper, we characterize the potential of personalized, adaptive DEG and provide a brief overview of related work. Then, in section 3 and 4 we describe our concept of NGLOBs combining learner modeling, player modeling and storytelling and a prototypical realization of the concept implemented in the context of the Bat Cave scenario within the EU funded project 80Days. Finally, the main results are summarized and further research activities such as additional evaluation studies are outlined.

In e-learning, interaction with audio and video plays a key role in simulating real teaching situation and improving teaching effectiveness. Analysis of interaction solutions in existing virtual classroom show some deficiencies in a two-way synchronized interaction with audio and video. In order to support better use of e-learning in teaching interaction, we put forward a virtual classroom solution to present real teaching situations and to support a two-way interaction with audio and video. In this article we focus on choice of communication protocol, defining of system server, and requirements of hardware and bandwidth in the process of system development. We also bring forth the modeling methods of video avatar entity and its behaviors. In conclusion, a prototype of this virtual classroom is presented and its teaching functions are introduced.

An optimal bi-directional seam carving method for content-aware image resizing is proposed in this paper. It can adaptively confirm the quantity of the carving seams in both horizontal and vertical directions according to the homogeneous region distribution obtained from the significance map. The significance map is a weighted average of the gradient magnitude and saliency measure which is calculated by our multi-resolution saliency model. Comparing the previous unidirectional seam carving methods of backward and forward, our method fully utilizes the available homogeneous information in arbitrary position of the original image. Therefore, it will avoid to delete or insert seams passing through the prominent features and structure objects so as to decrease or even eliminate the artifacts of staircase effects.

In vision-based hand gesture recognition, an accurate description of gestures and a proper classifier which is chosen for classifying will bring great effect on the result of classification. In this paper, we choose Normalized Moment of Inertia (NMI) and Hu invariant moments of gesture pictures as the features of gestures, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) as the classifier. We experiment the method on eight gestures after training, and get an ideal accuracy of gesture recognition which closes to 97%.

It is very difficult for general image search to get higher retrieval accuracy and relevancy with thousands of irrelevant image results. Vertical search engine can collect web information from multiple and different resources in specific domain, and provide more professional and individualized image retrieval services for various users in their domain. A new approach is to combine textual and visual features to search content-related images from Internet. The new topic identification and hybrid segmentation are proposed to effectively improve retrieval accuracy and coverage. A new SVM-based classification with RBF kernel integrates visual and textual features to implement better classification to enhance image retrieval accuracy. The proposed methods are tested with Pet Image Search Engine (PISE) database. Numerous experiments demonstrate the superior performance of developed PISE system, which is attractive in practical applications.

Based on the discussion of traditional hand gesture recognition methods and their properties in current studies, analysis the color segmentation, density distribution feature and improved algorithm based on artificial markers in the hand gesture recognition. Then optimize and assembly this series of algorithms, and presented the hand gesture recognition method based on rotation invariance. This method overcomes the shortcomings that the single color models could not recognition complexion-liked area accurately. And this method can realize the multi-angle or posture changing hand gesture recognition in natural state. Using OpenCV which is pragmatic image processing software to design and realize the hand gesture recognition, and present the test results. The results show that the hand gesture recognition method based on rotation invariance has high veracity and real-timing.

This paper proposes a robust real-time method for hand tracking and hand posture recognition. Dealing with complex background, scale-invariance and rotation-invariance are the difficulties for hand posture recognition. To solve these difficulties, we firstly detect the specific posture using the method based on Modified Census Transform, in order to trigger hand tracking and hand posture recognition. For the complex background particularly with large skin-color alike objects, a multi-cue method, based on velocity weighted features and color cue, is proposed to deal with the hand tracking. Then we segment the hand using both Bayesian skin-color model and the hand tracking result. Finally, we use a novel method based on density distribution feature to recognize hand posture. It largely enforces the robustness of hand posture recognition because of scale-invariance and rotation-invariance. Experiment results and applications demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.

This paper presents a new spectrally-based single image relighting approach. We first compute the spectral radiance of each stimulus on the monitor when displaying the image and then approximate this radiance to the one produced by each corresponding point in the scene to compute spectral reflectance. Then we use the spectral power distribution (defined as SPD) of a new illuminant to relight the image. The key to our method is the use of the spectral radiance of the stimuli on the monitor to approximate that of the objects in the given image. Since a video can be treated as a series of images, we further extend our algorithm to nighttime effects simulation for daytime videos. Our method can also change the illuminant effects of a video.

We introduce a lossless compression and rendering technique for a multiple layer displacement map. Compressed data are handled in GPU for real-time rendering. A multiple layer displacement map is useful in representing general objects which cannot be represented by a single layer displacement map. Multiple layer displacement mapping methods can provide realistic objects in digital content such as 3D games and films for relatively low costs. For this, we have to use many layers to represent high quality object details. However, in a multiple layer displacement map, the first layer has the most data and the lower layers have less data. Therefore, lower layers waste data space, because the same space is allocated for every layer. We only store data used for rendering and make an address map to refer to the stored data. We also compress additional information such as normal vectors and diffuse colors. The main advantage is that all the compressed data share just one address map, and compression efficiency will improve when we use more layers. Since we compress the maps without any data loss, the proposed technique provides the same quality as rendering with the original maps.

Shadow map algorithms are commonly used in shadow generation due to their simplicity and independence of scene complexity. Three aspects are considered in constructing appropriate shadow maps: the number of shadow maps, parameterization of shadow maps and the content of shadow maps. Following these three aspects, this paper will study most of the shadow map algorithms currently proposed, discuss their advantages and drawbacks and their application areas.

One of the most serious issues holding back the widespread of 3D web-based animation games over the Internet is the lack of authenticity due to artificial generation. In this paper, a lightweight interactive game based on motion capture is presented, which can produce realistic animation. A virtual human model is built on the skeleton-skin structure. Driven by the data from the motion capture system, the skeleton of the virtual human accomplishes the deformation process on skin by setting the weight of relativity between the skeleton and the skin’s vertices, which avoids joint seams. Based on the human animation, an interactive game is designed and published over the Internet.

We present a system for constructing 3D models from simple hand-drawn sketches. The system exploits a priori knowledge about the type of object being sketched. In particular, we assume that the class of object being drawn is known, e.g., a rocket ship, and that the object will be drawn using a fixed number of known components. By using these assumptions, we show that we can build a sketch-based modeling system that, while object specific, is capable of quickly creating geometric models that are beyond the scope of current sketch-based modeling approaches. Key to our approach is the use of a K-means classifier for labeling each drawn stroke as being a particular component in the generic model. We demonstrate our approach by applying this classifier to face and rocket sketches.

The introduction of digital techniques in film production has revolutionized an entire technical universe and suggests new aesthetics where the image is overlapping the traditional story that is told. A new culture is based upon an emerging phenomenon driven by the dissolution of the boundaries between film captured by a video camera (live action footage) and computer-generated images (CGI), to the point of Manovich suggesting that film is a sub-genre of animation.In this work we seek to reconcile the traditional definition of animation with digital animation and film, seeking characteristics in new technologies to decode digital manipulation’s repercussions upon the animation process. Analyzing examples of Anime , cartoons, motion capture (mocap) and 3D visual effects upon film, we seek to show that animation has contours that must be defined in order to understand where animated film or performance in animation begins.

We contend that Virtual Actors will constitute a very important innovation for the edutainment industry. In this article, we will explore and deepen the concept of future Virtual Actors. We will also present novel applications that Virtual Actors will enable, and enter into user interface and interaction design issues related to the development of Virtual Actors. We expect to derive, from a deeper understanding of concepts specifically related to Virtual Actors, guidelines for future R&D.

A progressive mesh compression method based on surfacelet transform is proposed in this paper. Firstly we take spherical parameterization for the three-dimensional mesh, and then make surfacelet transform for the data that sampling from the parameterized spherical mesh. It can take full advantage of the surfacelet transform that effective capture and express high-dimensional singular surface characteristics of the signal, and can better code and reconstruct the characteristics. Surfacelet transform can carry out the direction filtering, which can effectively solve the problem that wavelet transform can not locate the edge and contour position for high-frequency signals. Experimental results show that our algorithm has achieved a good progressive reconstruction effects. Compared with wavelet compression, surfacelet can better reconstruct the original mesh geometry and surface characteristics.

He artificial potential field (APF) algorithm is widely used for virtual human path planning. Two concerned problems of this algorithm are chiefly introduced, which are the goal nonreachable problem with obstacles nearby and the local minimum problem. An improved repulsive force field function is used to solve the goal nonreachable problem. And an intermediate target point based method is proposed to solve the local minimum problem. Three possible cases of the problem are analyzed and the shortest path is obtained. VC ++ based experiment simulations show that the improved algorithm is effective.

This paper presents an algorithm based on OBB bounding box and particle swarm hybrid collision detection algorithm. Algorithm use hierarchical bounding boxes OBB Rapid exclude some objects do not intersect, only the nodes in the collision of the use of particle swarm optimization in the searching. To play a level bounding box algorithm and improved particle swarm-based collision detection algorithm Random their own advantages. Finally, Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of hybrid collision detection algorithm.

Collision detection is the key technology of virtual reality, which is an important factor to improve the sense of a virtual reality system. For Real-Time and accuracy requirements in complex interactive virtual environment, MapReduce parallel collision detection algorithm is presented based on the cloud computing model. It builds a Bounding Box Tree with divide and conquers technologies and the tightness of oriented bounding box. In order to improve the speed of collision detection, MapReduce cloud computing programming model is used for traverse hierarchical tree Multi-threaded.

Virtual trees are widely used in computer games, cartoons, and internet. In this paper, we propose a new method for tree modeling from sketches. The user draws several strokes to mark up main structures and crown silhouettes of a tree on two images as inputs, a realistic 3D tree can be constructed from sketches automatically and quickly. At first, a point cloud made up of approximate 3D skeleton points is built from sketches. Main branches are constructed by converting a 2D sketch into 3D using the point cloud as shape guidance. The whole tree is completed by adding small branches and leaves. We have demonstrate this method on a variety of examples.