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Textureshop: Scratching a new surface in photo editing Textureshop has created a new photo editing tool that combines existing techniques for shape-from-shading and texture synthesis to enable a user to texture objects... Read More Textureshop has created a new photo editing tool that combines existing techniques for shape-from-shading and texture synthesis to enable a user to texture objects in a photograph. The Textureshop tool allows user to give an object in a photo the appearance of a different texture. Textureshop added more patch deformations than previous models. Instead of selecting patch-like areas directly from source texture, this program distorts the texture coordinate of each of the pixels in the patch with surface normal, and then samples it from texture, so that the texture fits on the underlying surface. Benefits Easier to use - Existing professional photography editing programs require a long time commitment and appreciable skill to edit a feature of a photo while keeping it on the surface of an object in a scene. Operates on a single image - Methods previously employed to texture synthesis have used a series of images from different viewpoints. This application avoids the need for reconstructing global 3-D mesh, and synthesizes the texture instead on a network of individually parameterized surface patches, designed to operate on a single image.
Antenna Selection for Wideband MIMO System This invention is method of pre-computing the optimal pairing of antennas to RF/ analog frontends in wireless MIMO systems without the need for computationally... Read More This invention is method of pre-computing the optimal pairing of antennas to RF/ analog frontends in wireless MIMO systems without the need for computationally complex and power consuming searches. Other MIMO antenna selection schemes demand an exponential computational order for an exhaustive search, and slightly less for sub-optimal selection. This new technique requires zero real-time computations and minimal memory for near-optimal anenna selection. When mathematically expressing the computation requirements for MIMO systems, the relationship of the number of antennas in the device (N) to number of RF frontends (M) is exponential (NM) for exhaustive searches and semi-linear [(N2M) or (N4M)] for iterative/ sub-optimal searches. An antenna selection algorithm that eliminates significant computational requirements, and requires memory of a linear order, defined by the product of the number of antennas and the number of frontends. Estimating the angle spread concisely encapsulates the sources of distortion and interference as clusters. The algorithm then selects the optimal frontend-antenna pair to compensate for those clusters. Applications Home/ Office networking and Wi-Fi: Wireless LANs and WANs will benefit from increased range with fewer dropped connections and faster connection speeds, while users of related technologies like wireless voice over internet protocol (VoIP) would enjoy greater mobility and signal clarity. Bluetooth and other M2M systems: MIMO antenna arrays will be the backbone of countless machine-to-machine devices that rely on intercommunication in order to function. This algorithm would decrease the size of such devices while ensuring continued reliability. Handheld devices: The market demands connectivity in handheld electronics. Portable gaming devices, for instance, require access to community forums, and pocket PCs are equipped with internet browsers and multimedia software to communicate with desktop computers and wireless routers. GPS systems: A constant signal is imperative for high-accuracy GPS devices. This suite of improved antenna technologies could provide for the incorporation of GPS systems into a range of portable devices, which are currently inhibited by size, power, or portability. Cellular communications: These technologies will boost cell phone signal and range, while simultaneously minimizing power consumption and miniaturizing device size. Large or phased arrays of smart antennas: Antennas can be constructed on a large scale to improve long distance communication in cell phone broadcast towers and government/ military base stations. Benefits Increase number of built-in antennas: Use of angle spread estimation allows wireless devices to receive more antenna elements without a corresponding increase in RF frontends. No real-time computational requirements: Wireless devices using this technology would benefit from added signal without forfeiting battery life or device size. The algorithm pre-determines the optimal frontend-antenna pair based on total angle spread, avoiding the cumbersome computational bottleneck of exhaustive or iterative searches for the strongest signal. The exponential computational complexity, present in current antenna selection technologies, quickly becomes prohibitive for moderate-to-large antenna arrays in small devices. Reduce heat load: This algorithm can increase active antenna elements without increasing heat load by eliminating the need for extra processing without increasing number of RF frontends.
Active Interactive Genetic Algorithms for Reducing User Fatigue and Boosting Evaluation Consistency in Search-Based Domain Interactive genetic algorithms (iGAs) depend on the evaluations or decisions provided by a user. The reliability of those evaluations is key for the successful... Read More Interactive genetic algorithms (iGAs) depend on the evaluations or decisions provided by a user. The reliability of those evaluations is key for the successful application of iGAs. However, even moderately-sized problems my require thousands of evaluations that are sometimes between rather similar solutions which can lead to frustration and inconsistent evaluations. This invention provides a scheme for actively combating user fatigue and inconsistency in iGAs. The efficiency gained from using an interactive procedure by requiring fewer evaluations is lost if the user is unable to provide consistent evaluations. This invention leads to the creation of active iGAs (aiGAs) which include steps of learning from human-computer interaction that actively guide the search-based interaction process. The innovation includes an evaluation-relaxation scheme that actively combats user fatigue and inconsistency by addressing two important issues: Lack of computable fitness Lack of a systematic method for modeling user-decision process Active iGAs optimize a synthetic fitness to obtain educated guesses of the user preferences and thereby reduce the number of user evaluations required. Three important components enable this invention to combat user fatigue and inconsistency. Partial Ordering: Qualitative decisions made by the user about relative solution quality are used to generate partial ordering of solutions Induced Complete Order: Concepts of non-domination and domination count from multi-objective evolutionary algorithms to induce a complete order of the solutions in the population based on their partial ordering Surrogate Function: Induced order is used to assign ranks to the solutions and use them Applications This technology provides the ability to solve difficult problems such as data management, engineering design and optimization, and time and resource allocation in large-scale businesses and organizations, more quickly, reliably, and accurately.
Assertion Generation Suite GoldMine software technology is an automated assertion generation tools to aid with the hardware design verification process. It uses data mining and static... Read More GoldMine software technology is an automated assertion generation tools to aid with the hardware design verification process. It uses data mining and static analysis to generate propositional and temporal assertions in Verilog RTL. The suite also includes: A Figure of Merit Evaluation feature - for evaluating and ranking assertions. Code Coverage Evaluations - for estimating the code covered by an assertion. Word Level Assertion Generation tool to make assertions more usable than those generated at bit level. For more information, visit the goldmine website: http://goldmine.csl.illinois.edu/
Crowdsourcing Construction Activity Analysis from Jobsite Video Streams Researchers from the University of Illinois have developed a novel way of addressing the problem of manual workface assessment by developing an intuitive web-based... Read More Researchers from the University of Illinois have developed a novel way of addressing the problem of manual workface assessment by developing an intuitive web-based platform for crowdsourcing the task through massive marketplaces such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. They found that non-expert annotators on Amazon Mechanical Turk were as reliable as construction experts for providing accurate and complete workface assessment results. This technology has the potential to minimize the time needed for workface assessment and allows onsite professionals to focus their time on more important task of root-cause analysis and performance improvements. More information about the Real-time and Automated Monitoring and Control group can be found here: http://raamac.cee.illinois.edu/
Cascade of Recurrent Neural Networks for Image Super Resolution Professor Thomas Huang and his research group have developed a new method of recovering high-resolution images from their low-resolution observations. They... Read More Professor Thomas Huang and his research group have developed a new method of recovering high-resolution images from their low-resolution observations. They developed a Recurrent Neural Network Model for image super-resolution which fully exploits sparse representations prior while keeping all the benefits of deep networks. They trained a cascade of RNNs, each with a fixed upscaling factor, enabling high resolution images upscaled by large ratios to be obtained with less training efforts and better recovery quality This technique had higher Peak Signal to Noise ratio than the best state of the art methods by up to 1dB.
Patci Dr. Vetle Torvik fhas developed a new software tool for identifying scientific articles cited by patents. Using advanced probabilistic models and machine learning... Read More Dr. Vetle Torvik fhas developed a new software tool for identifying scientific articles cited by patents. Using advanced probabilistic models and machine learning, the software tracks down the links to databases containing a particular citation. It can determine the names of articles and the authors cited by the examiner even if the citation does not adhere to any standard format with improved accuracy over existing methods. For more information please see the poster here for details: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/54885
Ripple: Communicating through Physical Vibration A novel technique for data transmission that uses vibration motors in all cell phones as transmitters and accelerometers as receivers. By carefully regulating the... Read More A novel technique for data transmission that uses vibration motors in all cell phones as transmitters and accelerometers as receivers. By carefully regulating the vibrations at the transmitter and sensing them through vibration sensors, two mobile devices can communicate. This is useful for security-sensitive applications such as mobile payments because vibrations are inherently more secure than RF broadcast in NFC or Bluetooth. The ubiquity of vibration motors in every cell phone, even in developing regions, presents an immediate market for vibratory communication
The Role of the Cochlear Processing in Human Speech Recognition This technology details five different methods of manipulating speech sounds to identify how they are processed, and measures the listener response to altered... Read More This technology details five different methods of manipulating speech sounds to identify how they are processed, and measures the listener response to altered speech sound, truncated speech sound, added noise, altered intelligibility, and morphed sounds. These methods allow for identification of the unique feature of each speech sound (e.g. time of onset and frequency).
A Joint Decoding and Equalization Algorithm for Increased Efficiency and Lowered Complexity in Digital Communication Systems Reduce signal distortion and system complexity and increase computational efficiency in digital communications systems with an algorithm that combines the... Read More Reduce signal distortion and system complexity and increase computational efficiency in digital communications systems with an algorithm that combines the equalization and decoding tasks into one process. Details The greatest challenge facing digital communications is the ability to accurately transfer information faster. When dealing with sub-optimal communication channels, digital signals are subject to significant signal degradation (through dispersion and noise) and are often laden with errors. While receiver based equalizers often compensate for dispersion errors, most systems also require additional corrective steps. The addition of a forward error correction step can often help compensate for the limits of equalization, but this requires an additional computation at the receiver which slows the flow of information. This algorithm combines the equalization and error correction coding, used in all digital communication systems, into one process with very low complexity. Combining these two steps results in greater computational efficiency and reduces overall complexity allowing for more efficient Soft-Input, Soft-Output (SISO) transfers. While the concept of joint equalization is well-known, implementations are often highly complicated. Traditional techniques require an exponential increase in complexity to recover from dispersion or signal smearing (2x complexity, where x is the number of periods of smearing). This method scales linearly with complexity (2x complexity, where x is the number of periods of smearing), leading to a drastic reduction in complexity for error prone applications. In addition to the decrease in complexity, the combination of equalization and error correction utilize computational resources more efficiently. Computational efficiency lowers the total costs associated with digital signal reconstruction in all applications. Specifically this invention uses a Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) equalizer which receives and outputs soft information, i.e. it is a soft-input soft-output (SISO) equalizer. This soft information is exchanged with a SISO decoder, opportune for error correction decoders. The nature of the equalizer permits solutions beyond one-dimensional data streams and for both channels of arbitrary length and for signal constellations of arbitrary size. A SISO MMSE-based iterative equalizer/decoder has been tested for one- and two-dimensional data recording systems, has been successfully tested on real data for wireless communications links, and can be applied to any digital communication system to enhance the speed and accuracy of information transfer. Applications Wireless Communications: Cellular Phones, Base Stations Wireline Communications: ADSL/VDSL/xDSL Modems, Backplane interconnects, Optical links with dispersion compensation Data Storage: Optical Storage, Magnetic Storage Cable Systems: Television, Broadband Digital Microwave Communications: Digital Radio-Relay Links Benefits Low Complexity: Where multi-step equalization and decoding systems tend to scale exponentially, this single step system combines the equalization and decoding tasks into one process allowing it to scale linearly, resulting in less complexity for large systems. Efficient: Offers greater performance than systems that have separate equalization and decoding steps without sacrificing cost and complexity. Cost Effective: Implementation is low-cost. Flexible: Can be used in a wide variety of digital communication systems.

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