University of Applied Sciences, Mainz

About: University of Applied Sciences, Mainz is a education organization based out in Mainz, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Point cloud & Ontology (information science). The organization has 171 authors who have published 299 publications receiving 3725 citations.

Fully automatic spatiotemporal segmentation of 3D LiDAR time series for the extraction of natural surface changes

Abstract: Geographic observation benefits from the increasing availability of time series of 3D geospatial data, which allow analysis of change processes at high temporal detail and over extensive periods. In this context, the demand for advanced methods to detect and extract topographic surface changes from these 4D geospatial data emerges. Changes in natural scenes occur with varying magnitude, duration, spatial extent, and change rate, and the timing of their occurrence is not known. Standard pairwise change detection requires the selection of fixed analysis periods and the specification of magnitude thresholds to determine accumulation or erosion forms. In settings with continuous surface morphology and dynamic changes to the surface due to material transport, such change forms are typically temporary and may be missed or aggregated if they occur with spatial and/or temporal overlap. This is overcome with the extraction of 4D objects-by-change (4D-OBCs). These objects are obtained by firstly detecting surface changes in the temporal domain at locations in the scene. Subsequently, they are spatially delineated by considering the full history of surface change during region growing from the seed location of a detected change. To perform this spatiotemporal segmentation systematically for entire 3D time series, we develop a fully automatic approach of seed detection and selection, combined with locally adaptive thresholding for region growing of individual objects with varying change properties. We apply our workflow to a five-months hourly time series of around 3,000 terrestrial laser scanning point clouds acquired for coastal monitoring at a sandy beach in The Netherlands. This provides 2,021 4D-OBCs as extracted accumulation or erosion forms. Results are validated through majority agreement of six expert analysts, who evaluate the segmentation performance at sample locations throughout the scene. Accordingly, our method extracts surface changes with an error of omission of 4.7% and an error of commission of 16.6%. We examine the results and provide considerations how postprocessing of segments can further improve the change analysis workflow. The developed approach thereby provides a powerful tool for automatic change analysis in 4D geospatial data, namely to detect and delineate natural surface changes across space and time.

Towards Participatory Design and Evaluation of Theremin-based Musical Interfaces

Abstract: Being one of the earliest electronic instruments the basic principles of the Theremin have often been used to design new musical interfaces. We present the structured design and evaluation of a set of 3D interfaces for a virtual Theremin, the VRemin. The variants differ in the size of the interaction space, the interface complexity, and the applied IO devices. We conducted a formal evaluation based on the well-known AttrakDiff questionnaire for evaluating the hedonic and pragmatic quality of interactive products. The presented work is a first approach towards a participatory design process for musical interfaces that includes user evaluation at early design phases.

Open courseware and open source software

Abstract: eginning as a personal project by Linus Tor-valds, the Linux operating system continuestoday as a community of volunteers and atthe same time has generated a huge commercialmarket. In April 2001 the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT)announced the Open-CourseWare project,making all of MIT’scourseware freely avail-able on the Web (seeocw.mit.edu); MIT’sintention was not todesign an e-learningenvironment. MITplans the official launchof its courseware thismonth, with 500courses online in thefirst stage. Coursewareincludes lecture notes,course outlines, readinglists, and assignments supporting traditional class-room teaching. Within 10 years, more than 2,000courses will be online. While putting individual course material online isalready a widespread practice, the systematic organi-zation of freely available course material from differ-ent academic disciplines in a standardized,searchable archive on an organizational level is aninnovative approach. The project’s name suggestssome conceptual relation to open source software,and the first press release was used in newspaperfront-page articles throughout the world. Will thisapproach now have a similar impact on universityteaching as open source had on software development?The suitability of a product for an openapproach is influenced by both the basic nature ofthe product and the motivation of the contributorson an individual and organizational level. The exis-tence of open products in turn influences commu-nities and markets.While communities aregroups of people infor-mally bound together byshared expertise and pas-sion for a joint enter-prise [4], participants inmarkets are motivatedby expected financialreturns. Existing prod-ucts and services incommunities and mar-kets are assumed to havea moderating influenceon the nature of theproduct (by providing apublicly available basis for further development), aswell as on the motivation of the contributors (byenhancing their visibility). The figure here illus-trates our framework, which also forms theroadmap for the subsequent analysis.

Dance Becoming Knowledge: Designing a Digital "Body"

Abstract: In this article the authors discuss the possibility of presenting the unique qualities of “the body” in contemporary dance practice through tailored digital choreographic objects. They reflect on some implications of abstraction in cognitive science and on “the body” as a site of exploration and knowledge in the realm of social, moral and relational being.