Center For Visualization & Virtual Environments

Touching Antiquities: Undergraduate Research puts ancient manuscripts in the hands of the public

viscenter — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:24:43 +0000

Homer’s Iliad is back at the publishing house, but turning these pages involves only a light tap on an iPad screen. With each digital page turn, the Imaging the Iliad iPad app transports the revered, but fragile, Venetus A Iliad manuscript from an inaccessible Venetian library into the hands of students, researchers, and classical enthusiasts around the world.

A screen shot of the Imaging the Iliad iPad app released March 10, 2011.

A page from the 1901 Comparetti images of the Venetus A

During the summer of 2007 researchers from the University Of Kentucky Center for Visualization, University of Houston, College of the Holy Cross, Furman University, and Brandeis University gathered in Venice, Italy at the Marciana Library to digitally preserve the Venetus A. Considered by some to be the most important manuscript of the Homeric stories, the Venetus A also contains layers of commentary and annotations, usually attributed to scholars at the Royal Library of Alexandria.

The only previous images had been made in the 1901 by Domenico Comparreti, but the process was highly destructive since the manuscript was sliced apart, placed on glass and photographed, and then rebound. In contrast, the modern process allowed the intact manuscript to be gently placed in a Meyer Conservation Copystand. Page by page, they carefully scanned the ancient manuscript, capturing both high quality digital photos and structured light data to create a 3D model of the surface, which can then be used to digitally “flatten” the manuscript and remove distortions from the text. (Click here to read the 2008 Odyssey article about the project)

The Venetus A being prepared for a scan at the Marciana Library in 2007.

The photos were then made publicly available through the University of Houston’s Homer Multitext data archive. But the Vis Center team had plans to use an undergraduate research team to make the Iliad accessible to a much broader audience.

Undergraduate students, Zach Whelchel and Carla Lopez Narvaez did research the summer of 2010 at the UK Center for Visualization. Their assignment was to create an iPad app that would allow the reader to interact with the Venetus A Iliad as well as an English translation. “The project was an ambitious one that was just concrete enough to be possible,” said Whelchel. “Our team was given a lot of space to envision how to best display the folio images.”

Whelchel and Narvaez present their work on the Iliad app.

The team was given the 3D Iliad images, the corresponding Greek text, and the English text of the Iliad. “The images had already been matched up with corresponding Greek text, but making that correspond with the English transcription was quite difficult, conceptually,” said Ryan Baumann, Vis Center staff who oversaw the student work. Over the course of the summer they worked to create an iPad app that would allow the reader to read the English text side by side with the corresponding folio of the Venetus A. Whelchel said that “to do this we compared two XML documents. The first had the line found on each folio (Ex: Book 1, Lines 32-56) and the second had the entire Iliad (in English) tagged by books and lines.”

“We wanted to build the app as a template that could eventually encompass other texts. Because of this, we took the long route on parsing through the folios to match the lines properly,” said Whelchel, a sophomore Media Communications and Math double-major at Asbury University in Wilmore, KY. “We had to build an intuitive way to ‘page through’ the book. We wanted it to feel like you were actually turning a page so the user could better interact.” Most surprising was “the level of complexity that goes into every page turn.”

Narvaez, a Computer Science student at the University of Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras, said their problem was “how to bring ‘The Iliad’ from the oldest form of print to the newest form of print on the iPad.” Narvaez interned at the Vis Center through the Vis U program, which brings Computer Science undergraduates from the University of Puerto Rico for summer research opportunities in visualization and virtual environments. “This new experience helped me…to work with new people and combine all our ideas…to manage and resolve the problems we found each day during the process of our research and…to keep learning new things,” said Narvaez.

Narvaez working on the 'Imaging the Iliad" iPad app as a part of Vis U 2010.

Dr. Chris Blackwell, Classics professor at Furman University was part of the Venetus A imaging team in 2007. As a member of the Homer Multitext project through the Center of Hellenic Studies at Harvard, Dr. Blackwell has worked for over a decade bringing the words of Homer to new life in electronic media. He has found the Imaging the Iliad app to be an exciting means to do just this. “This iPad app is a beautiful example of where all such projects are going, and the pleasant surprises that lie in store. When we started thinking about giving these manuscripts life electronically, no one dreamed of a touch-based, lightweight, vastly capable and delightfully simple device like the iPad. To see images and text brought together–so quickly!–by the researchers in Kentucky is truly inspiring. The current application is all the proof anyone needs that the work of digitization will serve not only high-end scientific research, but will invite a very wide audience to share in these cultural treasures. As a Classicist, I find this thrilling!”

Few people have the privilege of traveling to the Marciana Library in Venice and studying the actual Iliad folios. But only a month after its March release, the Imaging the Iliad app has already sold more than 800 copies. It is available for free download in the Apple iTunes App store.

'Imaging the Iliad" app allows users to search and bookmark the text, as well as closely examine the high-res folio images.

“The Iliad app brings one of the oldest mediums of communication to one of the newest. This readily accessible preservation of history and culture will hopefully set the standard of how scholarly research should be published,” said Whelchel. Next, the team is “currently working on a 3D viewer that shows off the models we have of each folio. It really brings the ancient book to life when you can spin it around and see the fine creases.”

Puerto Rican Undergraduates Experience Research At UK

viscenter — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:01:59 +0000

Dr. Seales presents to a group of students at the University of Puerto Rico

While the days are still winter gray in Kentucky during February, in Puerto Rico the sun is shining and a soft wind blows off the Atlantic over the capital city of San Juan. On the campus of the University of Puerto Rico near the center of the city, a group of computer science students are meeting with two members of the Vis Center to learn about internship opportunities at the University of Kentucky.

For the past ten years, computer science students from the University of Puerto Rico have spent summers on the campus of the University of Kentucky gaining valuable research skills as well as cross-cultural experience. Vis Center Director and Computer Science Professor, Dr. Brent Seales first visited the island of Puerto Rico in 2000 to begin recruiting students for summer undergraduate research opportunities. Since then about thirty computer science students from the University of Puerto Rico have done research in visualization, networking and other computer science research areas at UK.

In the summer of 2010, the Vis Center launched its VisU program, a summer undergraduate research opportunity for Kentucky and Puerto Rico students. Six students participated in the program completing research projects that ranged from medical imaging and digital humanities applications to iPad app development.

Students at the University of Puerto Rico

This summer, the VisU program is expected to have between six and eight students working on summer research projects. These students will gain both valuable experiences for themselves as well as contributing meaningful work to the research team. Carla Lopez Narváez, one of the University of Puerto Rico students involved in the 2010 VisU program explained her experience this way: “This experience helped me learn how to work together with new people in order to manage and solve the problems we found during the process of our research. We learned how to apply the things we learned to our lives as well as to keep learning new things in order to accomplish our research and become more professional. I would love to do more research in the future!”

For more information on the VisU program please visit www.vis.uky.edu/visu

Innovative Technology Goes on Stage with UK Opera

viscenter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:11:27 +0000

The Vis Center’s new innovative high-definition projection technology, originally developed for non-theatrical use, will be used for the first time in a theatrical setting for the UK production, followed by the Atlanta Opera production.

The technology was originally developed at the Vis Center through a partnership with Fort Knox. Its initial application was for the military with the goal of building rapidly deployable, high resolution screens to be used in training or battle. Other potential uses include any environment that needs the mobility and convenience of a display from schools to museums and medical applications.

The projectors are mounted to the scaffolding in a system that also frames the screen.

While front and rear projected backdrops are nothing new to theatre, they can cause problems for the set design and for the performers. Normal front projectors can cast shadows and images onto the performers, and most rear projectors must be placed very far distances behind the screens to create a large enough image of scenery, which can limit the stage space. With the Vis Center’s new rear projection system, only four and a half feet separate the 54 projector units from their attached movable fabric screen units, which are an impressive 24×30′ and 24×15′.

The technology, coined by the Vis Center as SCRIBE (self-contained rapidly integratable background environment), utilizes a software system that blends the projections into one image, which will include still images and video related to the various scenes in the production.

This project grew out of the synergy that is possible through multi-disciplinary research collaboration. The Director of the Vis Center, Dr. Brent Seales came into contact with UK Opera Director, Everett McCorvey, through a chance meeting when they were both speaking at a luncheon hosted by Mrs. Patsy Todd. Both quickly grasped the possibilities of collaboration and over the next year the idea of using this technology as part of the opera production emerged.

A model for the screen stage design.

Dr. Seales states that this type of multi-disciplinary research is the goal of the Vis Center. “We plan to see more of these type of real applications of our technology continue to take place as we work with other researchers across the University in the future. The possibilities are amazing if you consider what research can do when people step outside of their regular environments to interact with those with a distinctly different background.”

Bill Gregory, lead engineer for the Vis Center, reflected on the value of applying his technical ability to the theatre production, “It’s been fascinating to work with the theatre crew. Being an engineer I am focused on the practical results and never look at the artistic aspect while they didn’t realize the technology that could be used to achieve their artistic ends. We didn’t know what problems existed for them and they didn’t know what to ask for until we collaborated.”

The footprint for the giant screens is about four feet in depth. This opens many new options for theatres with limited space backstage.

The images will depict real locations in Charleston, SC and the islands off the coast of North Carolina that were taken and edited by the Vis Center team. Actual hurricane footage from The Weather Channel will be used as well. Combining these projected images with a minimal amount of three-dimensional pieces of scenery will create a vibrant and exciting production.

A scene from the UK production of "Porgy and Bess"

The use of this projection system has already been drawing interest from other opera and theatre companies from around the country.

Taking Google Street View Technology to the Next Level

viscenter — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:30:27 +0000

For several years now, Google Street View has brought 360° photo “maps” into the homes of average citizens. With a few mouse clicks, internet users can drag “peg man” through the cities of the world, exploring a virtual world of photographs that have been sewn together. Google’s system is optimized to rapidly capture and provide a high-volume of 2D images.

But professionals such as emergency responders, military technicians, or urban planners need a higher-quality image augmented by three dimensional data. Researchers at the Vis Center believe that the synthesis of 3D point clouds and 2D photo imaging will provide the answers to that problem.

Currently there are two types of 3D mapping systems: aerial and stationary. Aerial systems are high speed, but their 3D point clouds tend to be very sparse (1 to 2 points per meter). Stationary systems capture more dense point clouds but work more slowly to gather that information.

The Vis Center's LIDAR Truck

Led by Dr. Ruigang Yang, the Vis Center research team has assembled a mobile scanning system that overcomes both the speed and quality issues of previous methods. Dr. Yang’s system consists of two LIDAR (laser ranging) sensor heads, a GPS and inertial measurement unit, a spherical digital camera, and processing software. Currently, they are able to gather scans that are twenty times more dense than aerial systems while moving much faster than current stationary systems.

The LIDAR sensors mounted on top of the vehicle.

The Ladybug spherical digital camera.

The process begins when a laptop inside the vehicle tells the Ladybug camera to take a picture. The Ladybug sends a “time stamp” trigger to the PCS computer that controls the Optech GPS/LIDAR system. The computer retrieves the time stamp from the Optech system and sends it to the laptop providing the time stamp for the Ladybug.

The LIDAR system gathers time, location, angle, intensity, and distance information for 200 points per second, while the camera is gathering photographic images. The photograph is then used to colorize the dense 3D point cloud generated by the LIDAR. This unique fusion of active scanning (LIDAR) with high-quality, high-volume passive scanning (photography) provides the rapid, high-quality scan that could be useful in many emergency situations. This technology also has potential application for geological and archaeological studies, construction, city planning, law enforcement, survey mapping, and 3D imaging.

But challenges still remain. In dense urban areas, the large buildings often interfere with the GPS signal, allowing for errors in the point cloud. The team is also working to stretch a photographic “skin” over the 3D point cloud, filling in the holes inherent to a 3D point cloud. Eventually, the hope is to create a system where users could even apply photos onto a 3D background.

The LIDAR truck in downtown Lexington, KY.

Currently, they are working to create a cityscape database of scans for the city of Lexington, KY with scans gathered for a full twenty-four hour period. With this additional element of time, the scans become four dimensional, allowing for the simulation of day and night in the 3D colorized images. Once completed, the database will be shared to enable research beyond the fields of graphics and imaging. There will be possible applications for data compression, transmission, visualization, index and retrieval and computational geometry.

Dr. Ruigang Yang, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Kentucky

But for now, “we just focus on getting high quality models,” says Dr. Yang. “Getting the geometry correct is the first step to getting realistic 3D visualization.”

Multidisciplinary research at the Vis Center featured in the Chronicle for Higher Education

viscenter — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:16:59 +0000

Dr. Brent Seales and Dr. Bill Endres are leading the effort to use 21st century imaging technology to preserve and learn more about an 8th century manuscript.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is featuring this month research conducted by faculty in the Vis Center. Bill Endres, a literary scholar, and Brent Seales, a computer scientist, from the University of Kentucky have brought 21st-century digital imaging to Lichfield, to study and help preserve one of its most ancient treasures: the eighth-century illustrated Latin manuscript known as the St. Chad Gospels. Read the article

Documentary produced by Vis Center begins airing on KET

viscenter — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:57:29 +0000

The Media for Research Lab within the Vis Center and the Department of Mining Engineering in the UK College of Engineering worked together for over a year on a documentary to present a balanced picture of coal in Kentucky. They worked with the Cabinet for Energy and Environment, coal industry professions, the Sierra Club, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED) and others to pull together the content for the film, shooting video all over the state.

The goal of the film is to examine the significance of this history, what it means today and how Kentucky can move forward to responsibly mine coal while protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens, the environment, and the economy for the future.

The film will air several times on the KET network:
11/23 9:00PM KET
11/24 10:00PM KET KY
11/25 3:00AM KET
11/26 9:00AM KET KY
11/29 5:00AM KET KY

Visit the Coal in Kentucky website for more information.

Vis Center Team scans artifacts in Missouri Cave

viscenter — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:31:27 +0000

Archaeologists have used digital photography to document ancient findings for many years now. But a group from the University of Kentucky Vis Center (Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments) is using Structured Light Illumination (SLI) to gather 3-dimensional data on such artifacts, allowing for scientific measurement.

Dr. Larry Hassebrook examines the SLI mobile scanner as the team prepares for the expedition.

In September 2010, Blazie Professor Dr. Larry Hassebrook, Bill Gregory and graduate student Eli Crane joined cave specialists and Transylvania University professor Dr. Christopher Begley in exploring a Missouri cave to capture 3D scans of human footprints, bear paw prints, and cave art, all believed to be from the mid-1400′s.

Carbon dating indicates that the cave was sealed off around 1435 A.D., perhaps by a cave-in. In 1985, the cave reopened by a natural sink hole. In order to insure the protection of the cave’s rare artifacts, the landowners granted generous access for scientific exploration and study on the condition that the cave’s location be kept secret.

The team at the entry site.

The group entered the cave by rappelling in and then lowering equipment by rope. Dr. Hassebrook’s Vis Center team brought their extensive experience with SLI research and development, as well as their mobile SLI scanner which is battery operated for remote mixed resolution scanning without need for a generator. The team worked on two sites in the cave, one with human and bear prints, as well as in the ‘art gallery’ with the cave art.

Targeting a set of human climbing toe prints.

Bear paw prints to be scanned.

The expedition was a complete success, collecting more than a dozen 3D scans of the prints and artwork. The scans produce a 3D point cloud with more than 2 million 3-Dimensional points as well as a 18 million pixel color image. These can be combined into one color 3-Dimensional scan. Adding the 3-Dimensional coordinates to every pixel allows for scientific measurement of the data.

UK Vis Center/Transy team, Eli Crane, Dr. Larry Hassebrook, Dr. Chris Begley and Bill Gregory, targeting the cave art to be scanned.

Dr. Hassebrook has already used the SLI scanning technology in Honduras, Kentucky and Spain, as well as various laboratory scans. The mobile mixed resolution SLI scanner shows great potential for further data acquisition of in situ archaeological artifacts in remote or sensitive areas.

VisU students gain invaluable experience

viscenter — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:39:21 +0000

Like many computer-engineering students, Juan Carlos Roman was bright, motivated and had a wealth of head knowledge. But he had limited practical experience or exposure to research. After only one day at the Vis Center he was presented with his challenge: to rewrite the software for a multi projector display system used for laparoscopic surgery so it could process HD video.

Juan Carlos Roman at a student gathering in Kentucky

“There was already code done from a few years ago which was not working anymore due to changes in hardware, Operating System, compilers, etc. To make the programs work again I needed to update or redo lines of code.” Roman wrote in his blog. It would be a huge undertaking.

Along with five other undergraduate students, Roman spent 8 weeks this summer in the Vis U program, doing research at the University of Kentucky Vis Center. The program seeks to attract motivated students from traditionally underrepresented demographics to the computer science profession, and to give them practical research experience and professional skills. Toward that goal, half of the students come from the University of Puerto Rico, as did Roman.

VisU students: Juan Carlos Roman, Shaden Smith, Kyle Kolpeck, Juan de Dios Santos, Carla López Narváez, and Zach Whelchel

“He was overwhelmed, like many of the students,” remembered Matt Field, Vis Center software engineer and Roman’s project supervisor. “They were given projects and told to go and get started. It’s a unique kind of problem solving – very independent.” The Vis U program allows students with limited computer science background or experience to have a legitimate research experience. “They come in not sure what’s expected for technical skills, not knowing what a research environment will be like, not sure how to work on a research team,” explained Julie Martinez, Vis U Coordinator. The goal of the program is that these students would leave feeling comfortable and confident in all of these areas.

Carla López Narváez and Zach Whelchel work on an iPad reader for Homer's Iliad.

“They must learn to work in a team environment. And it challenging to be given an ambiguous project and learn how to flesh it out, develop requirements independently and then build something useful,” said Field. Students also get career direction, doing this work for several months and discovering if this really is a direction they want to continue to pursue.

Throughout the summer, students participated in weekly project review meetings to evaluate their progress. The final element was a project presentation to Vis Center researchers, faculty and staff, a great opportunity for students to practice their professional communication and presentation skills.

This undergraduate involvement brings significant benefit for the research of the Vis Center. “The big ideas always come from higher up, from the faculty, but the ones in the trenches are always students,” said Field. Students are able to give focused attention to a specific aspect of a research project and help push forward the research initiatives.

For the Vis U students, the impact on their academic and professional career was profound. Not only did they mature in their independent problem-solving skills, but they also learned to see their work as part of something bigger. Juan de Dios Santos worked on another part of the STITCH project and was struck by the experience working as a team. “I’ve learned to work in a group, with people who share the same interests I have. I’ve learned how to approach a problem in a very different way.”

Santos also noted that “in these two months I’ve learned the meaning of the word ‘research’, I’ve learned how to dig for information, how to study it and finally how to apply it and use it.”

Bill Gregory, Vis Center staff, explains engineering research to VisU 2010 students.

For Roman, the experience made possible a significant career opportunity. “I interviewed last week for a research position at the Arecibo Observatory and I got it! Half of the interview was questions of what I did at the Vis Center.” The Vis Center plans to continue providing this kind of hands-on practical experience for undergraduate students in coming years, as a complement to the classroom and preparation for their future careers.

Vis Center Research To Be Used in Opera

viscenter — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:45:59 +0000

Director and designer Richard Kagey shows a model of the set for the UK Opera Theatre and Atlanta Opera's 2011 production of "Porgy & Bess."

Vis Center research has developed new technology that will allow screens with projected video to be used as part of the set design for upcoming opera productions at the University of Kentucky and the Atlanta Opera. With a footprint of only four and a half feet, the screens create a new opportunity to use projection as a part of the staging. Using multiple rear-project units, software blends the projections into one image. Read the Lexington Herald Leader article for more information about the project.

New Faculty Member Joins the Vis Center

viscenter — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:49:04 +0000

The Vis Center is happy to welcome new faculty member, Dr. Nathan Jacobs to the University of Kentucky. Dr. Jacobs recently moved to Lexington from St. Louis to accept his new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science.

Dr. Jacobs’ found the strong history at UK in computer vision to be a real benefit in coming to the University of Kentucky. He is looking forward to his affiliation with Vis Center and the possibilities the center provides for internal collaborations.

This fall semester, Dr. Jacobs will be teaching Computational Photography and pursuing research. Dr. Jacobs’ research interest is to understand the relationship between images, the time and place they were captured, and the weather, activities, people, and objects that shared that time and place.

Read Dr. Jacobs’ faculty profile for more information.