A Study on Generating Stained Glass Animation from Video Clip

This paper presents a way to generate a stained glass animation from a given video input. We first obtain low-frequency components from input video frames to get rid of textures which cause over-segmentation in image segmentation. Then we segment input video volume by employing mean-shift video segmentation. The segmented regions are too large to be architecturally stable, subdivision is required. To sub-divide regions temporally coherent, we obtain the panoramic image from the segmented regions, and sub-divide them by using weighted Voronoi diagram. To render these sub-divided regions as stained glass pieces, we find the best match glass piece in the real stained glass piece image database and transfer its color to that region. Finally, we generate lead came at the boundary of regions, which results in a temporally coherent stained glass animation.

Fast and Precise Glass Handling Using Visual Servo With Unscented Kalman Filter Dual Estimation

In the protective glass manufacturing industry for cell phones, placing glass pieces into the slots of the grinder requires submillimeter accuracy which only can be achieved by human workers, leading to a bottle neck in the production line. To address such issue, industrial robot equipped with vision sensors is proposed to support human workers. The high placing performance is achieved by a two step approach. In the first step, an eye-to-hand camera is installed to detect the glass piece and slot with robust vision, which can put the glass piece close to the slot and ensures a primary precision. In the second step, a closed-loop controller based on visual servo is adopted to guide the glass piece into the slot with dual eye-in-hand cameras. However, vision sensor suffers from a very low frame rate and slow image processing speed resulting in a very slow placing performance. In addition, the placing performance is substantially limited by the system parameter uncertainty. To compensate for these limitations, a dual-rate unscented Kalman filter (UKF) with dual-estimation is adopted for sensor data filtering and online parameter identification without requiring any linear parameterization of the model. Experimental results are presented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Implications for culture contact history from a glass artefact on a Diingwulung earth mound in Weipa

This paper reports on a glass artefact found on an earth mound at Diingwulung in Wathayn Country, near Weipa, far north Queensland. Despite intense research efforts and cultural heritage management surveys over many years, and the fact that they have been reported commonly within the ethnographic literature, such artefacts have been found rarely outside of Aboriginal mission contexts. As well as describing the artefact, its location and the frontier contact complex of the area, this paper includes the background of knapped glass artefacts in Australia, archaeological and ethnographic descriptions of Indigenous glass use in far north Queensland and the methodology of glass artefact analysis. Although it is only a single artefact, we argue that this glass piece has much to reveal not only regarding its chronology, use, and the function of the site where it was found, but also about culture contact, persistence of traditional technology, connections to Country and the continuity and extent of post-contact Indigenous occupation of the area.

Automatic Glass Pick and Place by Industrial Robot

In glass manufacturing industry, glass grinding process has significant involvement of human workers. Human workers need to load and unload glass pieces to/from the grinder. A 6 DOF industrial robot could be used to automate the process by the “pick and place” task. In this paper, a vision system is implemented to robustly detect glass piece location and the placing destination. Two distinct detection methods are used for different glass settings. A “pick and place” trajectory is automatically generated based on the detected locations. A simulation is first performed to visualize robot motion before operating on the robot.

Stress Analysis in Glass Artwork

A simple method for determining the stress fields in transparent glass artwork pieces is presented. The proposed method is based on the principles of photoelasticity combining imaging and quantitative measures with an image processing algorithm. The main goal was to develop a methodology to help glass artists to determine the ability of their work to resist the thermal shocks by giving them a hazard map based on the stress map of the glass piece.

Note on an accurate wet combustion method for the determination of carbon in soils

In April 1938 I published a method for the determination of carbon in soils (Alper, 1938). This method consists of digesting the soil with a mixture of sulphuric acid and potassium bichromate, passing the products of combustion through a heated combustion tube and absorbing the carbon dioxide produced in barium hydroxide. Digestion and absorption take place in a closed system which allows neither the escape nor entrance of carbon dioxide. The absorption flask is evacuated and separated from the digestion flask by a glass tap. During the process of digestion, as the pressure in the system increases, this tap is manipulated, allowing the escape of gas into the absorption flask. A pressure gauge in the system indicates when the tap should be opened.The sensitivity of this mercury pressure gauge causes some difficulty in technique. It is necessary to watch the experiment throughout the digestion and to manipulate the tap constantly. In order to obviate this difficulty an improvement in the apparatus has been effected. The pressure gauge has been replaced by an elastic bladder (a child's balloon serves the purpose admirably) which is connected to the system by means of a glass ┬-piece. At the commencement of the experiment the pressure within the system is slightly less than atmospheric owing to the suction of CO2-free air through the apparatus. This causes the complete deflation of the balloon. As digestion continues the balloon becomes distended. The distension of the balloon must not be allowed to go too far as too great a pressure in the system will result in losses through leakage.