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At least 145 records · Page 8

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NASA NTRS1980

Neuron analysis of visual perception

The receptive fields of single cells in the visual system of cat and squirrel monkey were studied investigating the vestibular input affecting the cells, and the cell's responses during visual discrimination learning process. The receptive field characteristics of the rabbit visual system, its normal development, its abnormal development following visual deprivation, and on the structural and functional re-organization of the visual system following neo-natal and prenatal surgery were also studied. The results of each individual part of each investigation are detailed.

Chow, K. L.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Sensation of rotation about a vertical axis with a fixed visual field in different illuminations and in the dark

The effects of the oculogyro illusion of the relative motion of a spot fixed with respect to the subject during subject rotation and of a fixed striped peripheral visual field under different levels of illumination on perceptions of rotation about a vertical axis are investigated. Subjects were seated in a rotatable flight trainer cockpit with visual fields consisting of darkness, a dim peripheral field, and a bright peripheral field, all fixed with respect to the subject, and subject perceptual thresholds, frequency responses and sensations of displacement and velocity were measured during trainer rotation at constant and varying angular accelerations. The perception of angular acceleration is found to exhibit a significantly lower threshold and a reduced latency time in the illuminated visual fields which was independent of the level of illumination. Subjective frequency responses showed a higher gain in the illuminated presentations, while subjective displacements during triangular velocity stimuli exhibited no difference for the different visual cues. Finally, magnitude estimations of the after-rotation associated with deceleration from a constant velocity showed a greater rising speed, larger velocity and longer duration under illumination. Results show that, for low accelerations, the visual input enhances sensitivity to self-motion, an effect explained by the oculogyral illusion.

Huang, J.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Low-visibility visual simulation with real fog

An environmental fog simulation (EFS) attachment was developed to aid in the study of natural low-visibility visual cues and subsequently used to examine the realism effect upon the aircraft simulator visual scene. A review of the basic fog equations indicated that two major factors must be accounted for in the simulation of low visibility - one due to atmospheric attenuation and one due to veiling luminance. These factors are compared systematically by (1) comparing actual measurements to those computed from the fog equations, and (2) comparing runway-visual-range-related visual-scene contrast values with the calculated values. These values are also compared with the simulated equivalent equations and with contrast measurements obtained from a current electronic fog synthesizer to help identify areas in which improvements are needed. These differences in technique, the measured values, the features of both systems, a pilot opinion survey of the EFS fog, and improvements (by combining features of both systems) that are expected to significantly increase the potential as well as flexibility for producing a very high-fidelity low-visibility visual simulation are discussed.

Chase, W. D.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Simulator evaluation of a remotely piloted vehicle lateral landing task using a visual display

A simulator evaluation of a remotely piloted research vehicle was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center's Dryden Flight Research Facility to determine the utility of a visual display when studying the influence of changes in the lateral stick gearing gains during landing approaches. The test vehicle used in this study was a highly maneuverable aircraft technology (HiMAT) aircraft, which is a 0.44 scale version of an envisioned small, single seat fighter airplane. Handling qualities ratings and comments obtained from pilots using a simulated visual display of a runway scene and a simulated instrument landing system (ILS) display were compared with the results of actual flight tests. The visual display was found to provide an adequate representation of the test vehicle in a visual landing approach, and it improved the roll response cues provided to the pilot. The handling qualities ratings and comments for flight and simulation visual landing approaches correlated well. The ILS simulation results showed reduced correlation compared with the flight results for ILS approaches. Handling qualities criteria for remotely piloted research vehicles are also discussed in this paper.

Sarrafian, S. K.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Simulator evaluation of a remotely piloted vehicle lateral landing task using a visual display

A simulator evaluation of a remotely piloted research vehicle was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center's Dryden Flight Research Facility to determine the utility of a visual display when studying the influence of changes in the lateral-stick gearing gains during landing approaches. The test vehicle used in this study was a highly maneuverable aircraft technology (HiMAT) aircraft, which is a 0.44-scale version of an envisioned small, single-seat fighter airplane. Handling qualities ratings and comments obtained from pilots using a simulated visual display of a runway scene and a simulated instrument landing system (ILS) display were compared with the results of actual flight tests. The visual display was found to provide an adequate representation of the test vehicle in a visual landing approach, and it improved the roll response cues provided to the pilot. The handling qualities ratings and comments for flight and simulation visual landing approaches correlated well. The ILS simulation results showed reduced correlation compared with the flight results for ILS approaches. Handling qualities criteria for remotely piloted research vehicles are also discussed in this paper.

Sarrafian, S. K.↗

NASA NTRS1987

A study of the laminar separation bubble on an airfoil at low Reynolds numbers using flow visualization techniques

The use of flow visualization to study separation bubbles is evaluated. The wind tunnel, two NACA 66(3)-018 airfoil models, and kerosene vapor, titanium tetrachloride, and surface flow visualizations techniques are described. The application of the three visualization techniques to the two airfoil models reveals that the smoke and vapor techniques provide data on the location of laminar separation and the onset of transition, and the surface method produces information about the location of turbulent boundary layer separation. The data obtained with the three flow visualization techniques are compared to pressure distribution data and good correlation is detected. It is noted that flow visualization is an effective technique for examining separation bubbles.

Schmidt, Gordon S.↗

NASA NTRS1988

In-flight flow visualization using infrared imaging

A flight test investigation was conducted to evaluate infrared (IR) flow imaging techniques for boundary-layer flow visualization. The flight tests used a single-engine turboprop aircraft with a fiberglass-skinned natural laminar flow glove mounted on the left wing and an infrared imaging system to obtain flow visualization data. Data were compared to results obtained from other more conventional boundary-layer flow visualization methods and found to agree well. Test flights were conducted to determine the effect of test surface color on IR flow visualization results. In addition, flights were made during both night and daylight hours to assess the effect of solar radiation on the results. The investigation included an effort to visualize a vortex passing over the wing glove, but the tests provided only limited results.

Brandon, J. M.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Image gathering and restoration - Information and visual quality

A method is investigated for optimizing the end-to-end performance of image gathering and restoration for visual quality. To achieve this objective, one must inevitably confront the problems that the visual quality of restored images depends on perceptual rather than mathematical considerations and that these considerations vary with the target, the application, and the observer. The method adopted in this paper is to optimize image gathering informationally and to restore images interactively to obtain the visually preferred trade-off among fidelity resolution, sharpness, and clarity. The results demonstrate that this method leads to significant improvements in the visual quality obtained by the traditional digital processing methods. These traditional methods allow a significant loss of visual quality to occur because they treat the design of the image-gathering system and the formulation of the image-restoration algorithm as two separate tasks and fail to account for the transformations between the continuous and the discrete representations in image gathering and reconstruction.

Mccormick, Judith A.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Weighted feature selection criteria for visual servoing of a telerobot

Because of the continually changing environment of a space station, visual feedback is a vital element of a telerobotic system. A real time visual servoing system would allow a telerobot to track and manipulate randomly moving objects. Methodologies for the automatic selection of image features to be used to visually control the relative position between an eye-in-hand telerobot and a known object are devised. A weighted criteria function with both image recognition and control components is used to select the combination of image features which provides the best control. Simulation and experimental results of a PUMA robot arm visually tracking a randomly moving carburetor gasket with a visual update time of 70 milliseconds are discussed.

Feddema, John T.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Three-dimensional visualization and display technologies; Proceedings of the Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 18-20, 1989

Special attention was given to problems of stereoscopic display devices, such as CAD for enhancement of the design process in visual arts, stereo-TV improvement of remote manipulator performance, a voice-controlled stereographic video camera system, and head-mounted displays and their low-cost design alternatives. Also discussed was a novel approach to chromostereoscopic microscopy, computer-generated barrier-strip autostereography and lenticular stereograms, and parallax barrier three-dimensional TV. Additional topics include processing and user interface isssues and visualization applications, including automated analysis and fliud flow topology, optical tomographic measusrements of mixing fluids, visualization of complex data, visualization environments, and visualization management systems.

Robbins, Woodrow E.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Visions of visualization aids - Design philosophy and observations

Aids for the visualization of high-dimensional scientific or other data must be designed. Simply casting multidimensional data into a two-dimensional or three-dimensional spatial metaphor does not guarantee that the presentation will provide insight or a parsimonious description of phenomena implicit in the data. Useful visualization, in contrast to glitzy, high-tech, computer-graphics imagery, is generally based on preexisting theoretical beliefs concerning the underlying phenomena. These beliefs guide selection and formatting of the plotted variables. Visualization tools are useful for understanding naturally three-dimensional data bases such as those used by pilots or astronauts. Two examples of such aids for spatial maneuvering illustrate that informative geometric distortion may be introduced to assist visualization and that visualization of complex dynamics alone may not be adequate to provide the necessary insight into the underlying processes.

Ellis, Stephen R.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Visualization of boundary-layer development on turbomachine blades with liquid crystals

This report documents a study of the use of liquid crystals to visualize boundary layer development on a turbomachine blade. A turbine blade model in a linear cascade of blades was used for the tests involved. Details of the boundary layer development on the suction surface of the turbine blade model were known from previous research. Temperature sensitive and shear sensitive liquid crystals were tried as visual agents. The temperature sensitive crystals were very effective in their ability to display the location of boundary layer flow separation and reattachment. Visualization of natural transition from laminar to turbulent boundary layer flow with the temperature sensitive crystals was possible but subtle. The visualization of separated flow reattachment with the shear sensitive crystals was easily accomplished when the crystals were allowed to make a transition from the focal-conic to a Grandjean texture. Visualization of flow reattachment based on the selective reflection properties of shear sensitive crystals was achieved only marginally because of the larger surface shear stress and shear stress gradient levels required for more dramatic color differences.

Vanzante, Dale E.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Reasoning visualization in expert systems - The applicability of algorithm animation techniques

This paper presents the results of research into providing a means for users to flexibly create visualizations of the reasoning processes of forward-chaining rule-based expert systems using algorithm animation techniques. Levels of reasoning are described in order to identify the information necessary from the expert system development environment for these visualizations. A dual-process visualization environment is presented consisting of: (1) a version of CLIPS modified for the identified information access requirements; and (2) VISOR, an algorithm animation-based system for creating visualizations of arbitrary complexity which can be triggered by 'interesting event' messages from the running expert-system application. This is followed by examples from several visualizations performed during the scope of this work.

Selig, William J.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Visualization of second order tensor fields and matrix data

We present a study of the visualization of 3-D second order tensor fields and matrix data. The general problem of visualizing unsymmetric real or complex Hermitian second order tensor fields can be reduced to the simultaneous visualization of a real and symmetric second order tensor field and a real vector field. As opposed to the discrete iconic techniques commonly used in multivariate data visualization, the emphasis is on exploiting the mathematical properties of tensor fields in order to facilitate their visualization and to produce a continuous representation of the data. We focus on interactively sensing and exploring real and symmetric second order tensor data by generalizing the vector notion of streamline to the tensor concept of hyperstreamline. We stress the importance of a structural analysis of the data field analogous to the techniques of vector field topology extraction in order to obtain a unique and objective representation of second order tensor fields.

Delmarcelle, Thierry↗

NASA NTRS1995

Three-dimensional user interfaces for scientific visualization

The main goal of this project is to develop novel and productive user interface techniques for creating and managing visualizations of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) datasets. We have implemented an application framework in which we can visualize computational fluid dynamics user interfaces. This UI technology allows users to interactively place visualization probes in a dataset and modify some of their parameters. We have also implemented a time-critical scheduling system which strives to maintain a constant frame-rate regardless of the number of visualization techniques. In the past year, we have published parts of this research at two conferences, the research annotation system at Visualization 1994, and the 3D user interface at UIST 1994. The real-time scheduling system has been submitted to SIGGRAPH 1995 conference. Copies of these documents are included with this report.

Vandam, Andries↗

NASA NTRS1995

The 3D widgets for exploratory scientific visualization

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques are used to simulate flows of fluids like air or water around such objects as airplanes and automobiles. These techniques usually generate very large amounts of numerical data which are difficult to understand without using graphical scientific visualization techniques. There are a number of commercial scientific visualization applications available today which allow scientists to control visualization tools via textual and/or 2D user interfaces. However, these user interfaces are often difficult to use. We believe that 3D direct-manipulation techniques for interactively controlling visualization tools will provide opportunities for powerful and useful interfaces with which scientists can more effectively explore their datasets. A few systems have been developed which use these techniques. In this paper, we will present a variety of 3D interaction techniques for manipulating parameters of visualization tools used to explore CFD datasets, and discuss in detail various techniques for positioning tools in a 3D scene.

Herndon, Kenneth P.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Teleoperator performance with varying force and visual feedback

An experimental study was conducted to determine the effects of various forms of visual and force feedback on human performance for several 'peg-in-hole'-type telemanipulation tasks. Each of six human test subjects used a master/slave manipulator during two experimental sessions. In one session the subjects performed the tasks with direct vision, where subtended visual angle, force feedback, task difficulty, and the interaction of subtended visual angle and force feedback made signigicant differences in task completion times. During the other session the tasks were performed using a video monitor for visual feedback, and video frame rate, force feedback, task difficulty and the interaction of frame rate and force feedback were found to make significant differences in task times. An analysis between the direct and video viewing environments showed that apart from subtended visual angle and reduced frame rate, the video medium itself did not significantly affect task times relative to direct viewing.

Massimino, Michael J.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Visualizing turbulent mixing of gases and particles

A physical model and interactive computer graphics techniques have been developed for the visualization of the basic physical process of stochastic dispersion and mixing from steady-state CFD calculations. The mixing of massless particles and inertial particles is visualized by transforming the vector field from a traditionally Eulerian reference frame into a Lagrangian reference frame. Groups of particles are traced through the vector field for the mean path as well as their statistical dispersion about the mean position by using added scalar information about the root mean square value of the vector field and its Lagrangian time scale. In this way, clouds of particles in a turbulent environment are traced, not just mean paths. In combustion simulations of many industrial processes, good mixing is required to achieve a sufficient degree of combustion efficiency. The ability to visualize this multiphase mixing can not only help identify poor mixing but also explain the mechanism for poor mixing. The information gained from the visualization can be used to improve the overall combustion efficiency in utility boilers or propulsion devices. We have used this technique to visualize steady-state simulations of the combustion performance in several furnace designs.

Ma, Kwan-Liu↗