Foundation of Computational Visualistics

ISBN-13: 9783835060159 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 294 str.

Opis

Time and again over the last few decades, we have read that the world is full of pic tures and that, in fact, pictures are filling up the world at such a tremendously accel erating rate that our environment is about to become a picture itself, and of itself. However, when a phenomenon gradually occupies and transplants almost everything else, then it starts disappearing as a particular phenomenon. In order to be noticeable, something must stand out against others. Otherwise it transforms into a true medium. In saying so, we assume that media are characterized as more or less ubiquitous and inconspicuous. The less we take notice of something, the more it attains the typical property of a medium. Each individual picture is a medium in a rather shallow sense of the word. The realm of pictures is a medium in a deeper sense, much in the same way as the individual morning paper, as a medium, relates to the institution of the printing press. It seems safe to say that the iconic (or pictorial) turn that many talk about is strongly tied to the proliferation and almost ubiquity of digital media, which, in turn, is a consequence of the spreading of computers at the work place."

Spis treści

Table of Content.- 1 Images in Computer Science: Clarifications Required.- 1.1 The Age of the Images.- 1.2 Toward Information Society.- 1.3 Images and Computers: The Digital Picture.- 1.4 Requirements for a Modem Computer Scientist.- 1.5 Determining the Goal.- 2 Computational Visualistics: Seen from its Roots.- 2.1 Computer Science: Subject and Methodology.- 2.2 Visualistics and the Many Sciences of Pictures / Images.- 2.3 Computational Visualistics and the Data Type »Image«.- 3 Preliminary Clarifications from Visualistics.- 3.1 Pictures on the Border: Overlooking a Wide Kingdom.- 3.2 A Synthetic Proposal: Images as “Perceptoid” Signs.- 3.2.1 »Sign« as Genus Proximum for Pictures.- 3.2.2 »Perceptoid« as Differentia Specifica for Pictorial Signs.- 3.2.3 A Note on “NaturalImages”, “Indices”, and “Icons”.- 3.3 Image and Object.- 3.3.1 The Naïve Approach to Resemblance.- 3.3.2 The Act-Theoretic Basis of the Concept »Resemblance«.- 3.3.3 Perception, Deception, and Primary Object Constitution.- 3.4 Image and Language.- 3.4.1 Assertions, Identity, and Contexts.- 3.4.2 Communication Among Pre-Object Creatures.- 3.4.3 Context Builders and Referential Anchoring.- 3.4.4 Secondary Object Constitution: Sortal Concepts & Geometry.- 3.4.5 Pictures as Context Builders: Resemblance Once More.- 3.5 Image and Image User.- 3.5.1 Reflection Modes of Dealing with Pictures.- 3.5.2 The Game of Picture Making.- 3.5.3 Who Is Communicating with Whom?.- 3.5.4 Indirect Resemblances & Rhetoric Derivations.- 3.5.5 Reflective Communication & Pictures of Art.- 3.6 Conclusions for Computational Visualistics.- 4 The Generic Data Type »Image«: General Aspects.- 4.1 The Organizational Principle of the Discussion.- 4.2 Syntactic Aspects.- 4.2.1 Pictorial Resolution and the Identity of Images.- 4.2.1.1 Density, Continuity, and Decidability.- 4.2.1.2 Syntactic Types of Pictures in Computers.- 4.2.2 Remarks on Compositionality.- 4.2.2.1 Composition of One Picture: Pictorial “Morphology”.- 4.2.2.2 Compositions With Pictures: Pictorial “Text Grammars”.- 4.2.3 Some Notes on Formalizing Color.- 4.2.4 Syntactic Transformations and Image Processing.- 4.2.5 The Limitations of Pictorial Syntax.- 4.3 Semantic Aspects.- 4.3.1 Computer Graphics, Spatial Objects, and Perspective.- 4.3.1.1 Sortal Objects and Geometric Models.- 4.3.1.2 Excursion into the Theory of Rational Argumentation.- 4.3.1.3 Reasoning with Spatial Objects.- 4.3.1.4 A Perspective on Perspectives.- 4.3.2 Two Levels of Computer Vision: An Example.- 4.3.2.1 Constructing Visual Gestalts - Or Finding Pixemes.- 4.3.2.2 Instantiating Object Schemata.- 4.3.2.3 Determining Configurations.- 4.3.2.4 Computer Vision and “Picture Understanding”.- 4.3.2.5 Reference Semantics and Pictorial Reference.- 4.3.3 Embedding Semantics in Pragmatics.- 4.4 Pragmatic Aspects.- 4.4.1 Interactive Systems as a New Type of Media.- 4.4.1.1 Media of Class IV.- 4.4.1.2 The Selection Problems: Content.- 4.4.1.3 The Selection Problems: Form.- 4.4.1.4 Combined Selection Problems for Choosing a Picture.- 4.4.2 Anticipating the Unknown Beholders.- 4.4.2.1 Remarks on the Purposes of Picture Uses.- 4.4.2.2 User Modeling for Pictures.- 4.4.2.3 Adaptation to the Pragmatics of Context-Building.- 4.4.3 Authenticity and Media of Class IV.- 4.4.3.1 Beholder Models and Authenticity.- 4.4.3.2 Authenticity as a Technical Problem: Syntactic Approaches.- 4.4.4 Information Visualization and the Rhetorics of Structural Pictures.- 4.4.4.1 On Source Domains and Target Domains.- 4.4.4.2 Finding Appropriate Visualization Parameters: An Overview.- 4.4.4.3 Interactive Visualizations.- 4.4.5 Remarks on the Pragmatics of Computer Art.- 4.4.5.1 Reflective Pictures and the Reflective Mode of Reception.- 4.4.5.2 Computer Art - Art with the Computer.- 4.4.5.3 Interactivity in Computer Art.- 5 Case Studies: Using the Data Type »Image«.- 5.1 Semantic Requests to Image Databases in IRIS.- 5.1.1 Image Retrieval for Information Systems.- 5.1.2 Results and Queries.- 5.2 Rhetorically Enriched Pictures.- 5.2.1 Descibing Style Parameters.- 5.2.2 The Heuristics of Predicative Naturalism.- 5.2.3 Example Application of the Heuristics.- 5.3 A Border Line Case: Immersion.- 5.3.1 Virtual Architectur: The Atmosphere Projekt.- 5.3.2 Types of Use of Virtual Architecture.- 5.3.3 The Virtual Institute of Image Science.- 5.3.4 Conclusions.- 5.4 Another Border Line Case: Mental Images.- 5.4.1 An Example Task: Understanding Reports From Absent Spatial Events.- 5.4.2 On the Cognitive Function of Mental Images.- 5.4.3 Building a Computer Model.- 5.4.4 Conclusions: The Data Type »Image« and Explaining Mental Images.- 6 Conclusions - Perspectives.- 6.1 The Foundation of Computational Visualistics.- 6.2 The Components of the Data Structure »Image«.- 6.3 The Future of an Institutional Computational Visualistics.- Appendices.- A Notes.- B References.- C List of Figures.- D List of Table.- E Name Index.- F Subject Index.

O autorze

PD Dr. Jörg R. J. Schirra studierte Informatik, Physik, Philosophie und Psychologie an der Universität des Saarlandes. Nach einem längeren Forschungsaufenthalt in Berkeley habilitierte er sich an der Fakultät für Informatik der Universität Magdeburg.

Blurb

A few years ago, the department of computer science of the University of Magdeburg developed a completely new diploma programme called 'computational visualistics', a curriculum dealing with all aspects of computational pictures. So far, only isolated aspects had been studied in computer science, particularly in the independent domains of computer graphics, image processing, information visualization, and computer vision. Is there indeed a coherent domain of research behind such a curriculum? The answer depends on a data structure that acts as a mediator between general visualistics and computer science: the data structure "image".

Jörg R. J. Schirra investigates that data structure, its components, and its application conditions, and elaborates the very foundations of computational visualistics as a unique and homogeneous field of research. Before concentrating on the data structure, the author closely examines the theory of pictures in general and the definition of pictures as perceptoid signs in particular. He includes an act-theoretic consideration of resemblance as the crucial link between image and object, the communicative function of context building as the central concept for comparing pictures and language, and several modes of reflection underlying the relation between image and image user.