Computer Laboratory

Research Skills

Research Skills - exercise downloads

Exercise 1 - read

The paper to read: "The Virtues of Opaque Prose: How Lay Beliefs About Fluency Influence Perceptions of Quality", J. Galak and L. D. Nelson, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47(1):250-253, January 2011.
This paper is accessed through the University of Cambridge's subscription to Science Direct. If you are outside the cam.ac.uk domain you may be unable to access it. Copies will be handed out in Lecture 1.

Exercise 2 - review

The paper to review: "Extracting the essence from sets of images" (PDF).

The Review Form (PNG).

Thanks to John Woodwark for giving permission to use his review form from How to Run a Paper Mill.

Exercise 3 - summarise

You need to choose one of the following papers to summarise. Please format your summary with double-line spacing and wide margins.

  • "Balancing the expected and the surprising in geometric Op art", N. A. Dodgson, Computers & Graphics 33(4):475-483, 2009.
    Subject areas: experimentation on human subjects, art, perception, psycho-physics.
    Abstract: I investigate the trade-off between the expected and the surprising in certain geometric patterns. This work is inspired by Bridget Riley's early Op art pieces, White Discs 2 (1964) and Fragment 6/9 (1965). I analyse these two works, investigate a range of variants, and propose hypotheses about the perceptual effects in patterns like these. The key hypothesis is that there is an æsthetically interesting range where between a quarter and a half of a regular pattern is adjusted in some way. I report on a perceptual experiment that tests and supports this hypothesis, and discuss the implications.
  • "Time-sequential multi-projector autostereoscopic 3D display", N. A. Dodgson, J. R. Moore, S. R. Lang, G. Martin and P. Canepa, J. Soc. for Information Display 8(2):169–176, 2000.
    Subject areas: electrical engineering, display design.
    Abstract:We describe a new 28 view, 25 inch, autostereoscopic display which combines both time sequential and multi-projector technology. It is constructed from four time sequential subsystems, which abut behind a single ferroelectric liquid crystal shutter. The display has a resolution of 512×384 pixels in 24-bit colour. It allows multiple viewers to simultaneously view stereoscopic images without the need for special glasses or headgear.
  • "Image compression using sparse colour sampling combined with nonlinear image processing", S. Brooks, I. Saunders and N. A. Dodgson, presented at "Human Vision and Electronic Imaging XII", San Jose, California, 29 Jan–1 Feb 2007, published in Proc. SPIE 6492, 2007.
    Subject areas: image processing, human perception.
    Abstract:We apply two recent non-linear, image-processing algorithms to colour image compression. The two algorithms are colorization and joint bilateral filtering. Neither algorithm was designed for image compression. Our investigations were to ascertain whether their mechanisms could be used to improve the image compression rate for the same level of visual quality. Both show interesting behaviour, with the second showing a visible improvement in visual quality, over JPEG, at the same compression rate. In both cases, we store luminance as a standard, lossily compressed, greyscale image and store colour at a very low sampling rate. Each of the non-linear algorithms then uses the information from the luminance channel to determine how to propagate the colour information appropriately to reconstruct a full colour image.
  • "A butterfly subdivision scheme for surface interpolation with tension control", N. Dyn, D. Levin, and J. A. Gregory, ACM Transactions on Graphics 9(2):160–169, 1990.
    Subject areas: computer graphics, mathematical representation of surfaces.
    Abstract:A new interpolatory subdivision scheme for surface design is presented. The new scheme is designed for a general triangulation of control points and has a tension parameter that provides design flexibility. The resulting limit surface is C1 for a specified range of the tension parameter, with a few exceptions. Application of the butterfly scheme and the role of the tension parameter are demonstrated by several examples.

These particular papers are selected because the lecturer knows them all well. They are chosen across a range of disciplines. Engineers may prefer the display paper, mathematicians may prefer the subdivision paper, computer scientists may prefer the compression paper, those interested in experimental design and evaluation may prefer the Op art paper.

Exercise 4 - edit

Please follow these instructions carefully. Failure to edit the correct two summaries may result in loss of marks.

The following files contain the same four summaries. There is one summary of each of the four papers from exercise 3. Please download the PDF and, from that PDF, print out the two summaries that you are going to edit. Mark your changes on your print-out. Type up the result. As a courtesy, I have provided both RTF and TXT formats, which you might find helpful as a template for typing up your improved version.

You must edit the following two summaries from these files.

  1. Everyone must edit the summary that is of the same paper that they worked on for exercise 3 (i.e., edit summary A11, B32, C42, or D51 depending on which paper you summarised yourself for exercise 3).
  2. Everyone must edit summary B32 ("Balancing the expected and the surprising in geometric Op art"). If you already did this in step 1, go to step 3.
  3. If, and only if, you summarised the Op art paper for exercise 3, then you have a free choice of which of A11, C42, or D51 you wish to edit.

Hand in your two marked-up print-outs and print-outs of your two typed-up improved versions.

If these instructions are not clear then please e-mail Neil Dodgson.

Exercise 5 - reduce

This exercise has no on-line material to download.

Exercise 6 - analyse

See Prof. Robinson's exercise page.

Exercise 7 - graph

See the graphing exercise page.

Exercise 8 - present

information will be placed here in due course