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Bruce Gooch

Blinn College, Computer Science, Adjunct

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Dr. Bruce Gooch is an expert in Computer Graphics and Image Processing. He has 14 years of experience in commercial software development. Dr. Gooch's algorithms and software have millions of daily users worldwide. His current interest is high throughput Phenoptyping for crops and livestock.

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Md. Baharul Islam

Multimedia University

Shadrokh Samavi

McMaster University

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Papers by Bruce Gooch

Automatic image retargeting

We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for automatically retargeting images for a variety of d... more We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for automatically retargeting images for a variety of display devices, while preserving the images' important features and qualities. Image manipulation techniques such as linear resizing and cropping work well for images containing a single important object. However, problems such as degradation of image quality and important information loss occur when these techniques have been automatically applied to images with multiple objects. Our algorithm addresses the case of multiple important objects in an image. We first segment the image, and generate an importance map based on both saliency and face detection. Regions are then resized and repositioned to fit within a specified size based on the importance map.

Visualization of Uncertainty without a Mean

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2013

Reconstructing three-dimensional models from line drawings

Constructing 3D objects from 2D images has been an active research area for decades. Given captur... more Constructing 3D objects from 2D images has been an active research area for decades. Given captured 2D information from various devices, different techniques were developed to assign 3D positions to the target object. However, methods for reconstructing a 3D model from a single 2D image remain largely manual and labor-intensive. Considering the capability of the human visual system to interpret 3D model structure based on a single 2D drawing, the algorithms for reconstructing a 3D model from a single 2D line drawing have significant room for improvement in the context of enhancing the level of automation. This thesis presents a semi-automatic framework for the construction of curved and polygonal 3D models from 2D line drawings. By combining a novel line detection algorithm with a plane hinging approach, I only require the user to annotate the source image with a drawn cube for calibrating the camera. The completely automatic 3D modeling process has five general steps: (1) camera ca...

7th International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering, NPAR 2009, New Orleans, LA, USA, August 1-2, 2009, Proceedings

CGEMS: computer graphics educational material

ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Panels, 2017

The panel proposes a town hall discussion to establish desiderata for submission of nifty assignm... more The panel proposes a town hall discussion to establish desiderata for submission of nifty assignments to CGEMS, the Computer Graphics Educational Materials Source (EG Digital Library with access through the ACM Digital Library). In a nutshell, CGEMS is looking for computer graphics assignments (curricular material) that (a) are of high quality, (b) are straightforward to use and incorporate in class by educators, and (c) fit easily into the computer graphics curricular framework, e.g., that of the ACM. Among topics to discuss is the expected CGEMS paper submission format and accompanying practical material (e.g., code).

Optimizing computer imagery for more effective visual communication

Computers are becoming faster, smaller and more interconnected, creating a shift in their primary... more

Automatic Painting with Economized Strokes

We present a method that takes a raster image as input and produces a painting-like image compose... more We present a method that takes a raster image as input and produces a painting-like image composed of strokes rather than pixels. Unlike previous automatic painting methods, we attempt to use very few brush-strokes. This is accomplished by first segmenting the image into features, finding the medial axes points of these features, converting the medial axes points into ordered lists of image tokens, and finally rendering these lists as brush strokes. Our process creates images reminiscent of modern realist painters who often want an abstract or sketchy quality in their work. CR Categories: I.3.7 [Computing Methodologies ]: Computer Graphics-2D Graphics

Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications

Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications Pin Ren We can represent... more Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications Pin Ren We can represent many real-world data sets as data streams and/or high-dimensional data. Major stock market such as New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) trades more than 8000 financial products daily, which generates massive trading time series in the form of data streams. NetFlow and DNS querying data generated by real-time computer network monitoring tools are usually large volume data streams or high-dimensional data sets. Computational manipulation of such data set is common. However, existing tools have been limited to their exploratory and analytical functionalities. Visual depictions of graphs are external representations that exploit human visual processing to reduce the cognitive load of many tasks that require understanding of global or local structures. I argue that by using visual summarization and abstraction in display space and taking the characteristics of the user tasks into account, we can build visualization systems that are both effective and scalable. This dissertation presents novel algorithms for visualizing data streams and highdimensional data sets using image space compositing and supporting visual metaphors. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I am deeply indebted to my advisors Dr. Bruce Gooch and Dr. Benjamin Watson, whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis. I am also greatly thankful to other members in my dissertation committee: Dr. Jack Tumblin and Dr. Yan Chen, whose invaluable comments and discussions helped me a lot in my research. My former colleagues from Northwestern supported me in my research work. I want to thank them for all their help, support, interest and valuable hints. Especially I am obliged to Dr.

M.: Retargeting images and video for preserving information saliency

Figure 1: Preserving functional realism rather than photo-realism by image retargeting. (a) The s... more Figure 1: Preserving functional realism rather than photo-realism by image retargeting. (a) The source image containing three areas of higher importance, the two boys, and the ball. (b) The source image retargeted to fit a PDA display. (c) The source image retargeted to fit a cell phone display. In the retargeted images, our algorithm is able to keep both boys in the image and maintain the relative positions of all shadows. We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for retargeting large images to limited display areas. This method adapts large images so that important objects in the image are still recognizable when displayed at a lower target resolution. Existing image manipulation techniques such as cropping works well for images containing a single important object, and down-sampling works well for images containing low frequency information. However, when these techniques are automatically applied to images with multiple objects, the image quality degrades and important informat...

Pin Ren ∗ Northwestern University

The scalability problem in high-dimensional dataset visualization has been a difficult problem. I... more The scalability problem in high-dimensional dataset visualization has been a difficult problem. In this sketch we propose a novel visualization technique which utilizes image compositing to solve this scalability problem, and a cube-like visual metaphor to integrate the new dimensional compositing and traditional parallel coordinate visualization. In order to effectively visualize the complex high-dimensional datasets, we also developed supporting interaction and navigation functionalities. Keywords: Multi-dimensional visualization, Compositing, High Dimensional datasets

We use a simple statistical analysis to impose one image ’ s color characteristics on another . We can achieve color correction by choosing an appropriate source image and apply its characteristic to another image

Non-Photorealistic Rendering

Retargeting images for small displays

A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Select... more A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Selected regions are cut from the input image to construct a background image. The background image is scaled to a predetermined size, and the selected regions are pasted back into the scaled background image to produce an output image.

Humanizing the Machine

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2017

This paper discusses the problem associated with sophisticated computer controlled machines that ... more This paper discusses the problem associated with sophisticated computer controlled machines that achieve 100% accuracy in the lab and far less accuracy in the field because they are typically operated by unskilled, illiterate, or a non-native speaking person. A particular case study is described, in which the typical LCD screen with cryptic messages showing the status of the machine or the steps necessary to complete the task at hand often left the operators guessing the next step, which led to incorrect inputs, resulting in incorrect outputs. These machines are capable of doing the work of several people with high levels of accuracy if the machine is operated by someone of sufficient skill in reading and understand the machine's interface. The typical operator often lacks the skill in reading or understanding to produce the accuracy or output desired by the machine's owner. Adding languages or making less cryptic messages appear on the machine's interface is not solving the inaccuracies seen when the machine is operated by the unskilled worker. This problem can be solved with simple visual cues that quickly inform the operator the status of the machine and then the machine's expectation of the operator's input. With these simple changes to the Human Computer Interface (HCI), the operator quickly, without guessing, knows if the machine is operating correctly and if their inputs are correct. To improve the accuracy, two sets of lights were added; the first set of lights showed the status of the machine itself, quickly informing the operator if the control circuits of the machine were operational and if the additional physical requirements of the machine were met, e.g. compressed air, three phase power, chilled water, etc. The second set of lights communicated to the operator the status of their operations, i.e. scan accepted, load item, item accepted, or operation stopped due to error. With the addition of two sets of status lights and two audio signals, our change to the HCI allowed the same accuracy in the field that were produced in the design and testing labs. Users of any skill level were now able to know immediately if the machine was up, ready, and if their inputs were accepted and correct.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs

Current blending methods in image-based rendering use local information such as “deviations from ... more Current blending methods in image-based rendering use local information such as “deviations from the closest views ” to find blending weights. They include approaches such as view-dependent texture mapping and blending fields used in unstructured lumigraph rendering. However, in the presence of depth discontinuities, these techniques do not provide smooth transitions in the target image if the intensities of corresponding pixels in the source images are significantly different (e.g. due to specular highlights). In this paper, we present an image blending technique that allows the use of global visibility and occlusion constraints. Each blending weight now has a global component and a local component, which, respectively, are due to the view-independent and the view-dependent contributions of the source images. Being view-independent, the global components can be computed in a pre-processing stage. Traditional graphics hardware is exploited to accelerate the computation of the global...

Perceptually-motivated non-photorealistic graphics

At a high level, computer graphics deals with conveying information to an observer by visual mean... more At a high level, computer graphics deals with conveying information to an observer by visual means. Generating realistic images for this task requires considerable time and computing resources. Human vision faces the opposite challenge: to distill knowledge of the world from a massive influx of visual information. It is reasonable to assume that synthetic images based on human perception and tailored for a given task can (1) decrease image synthesis costs by obviating a physically realistic lighting simulation, and (2) increase human task performance by omitting superfluous detail and enhancing visually important features. This dissertation argues that the connection between non-realistic depiction and human perception is a valuable tool to improve the effectiveness of computer-generated images to support visual communication tasks, and conversely, to learn more about human perception of such images. Artists have capitalized on non-realistic imagery to great effect, and have become masters of conveying complex and even abstract messages by visual means. The relatively new field of non-photorealistic computer graphics attempts to harness artists' implicit expertise by imitating their visual styles, media, and tools, but only few works move beyond such simulations to verify

NPR Techniques for Scientific Visualization

Visualization research is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of novel metho... more Visualization research is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of novel methods for effectively communicating information through images. For example: How do we determine how to portray a complicated set of data so that its essential information can be easily and accurately perceived and understood? How can we measure the success of our efforts? Where should we look for insight into the science behind the art of effective visual representation?

Visualizing DNS Traffic Pin Ren Department of EECS, Northwestern University

This paper proposes a visualization approach to address Domain Name System (DNS) security challen... more This paper proposes a visualization approach to address Domain Name System (DNS) security challenges, such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) and cache poisoning attacks. We present Flying Term, a new perceptually motivated visual metaphor for visualizing the dynamic nature of DNS queries. The addition of visual metaphors such as Stacking Graphs, Two Tone Pseudo Color, and Chernoff Face Glyph within the same application framework provide enhanced monitoring capability and situational awareness for visualizing DNS queries. We demonstrate our visualization’s capability to help administrators identify and understand DNS querying behavior due to anomalies such as misconfiguration and security events with DNS query data acquired from a diverse set of caching servers on the Internet. Categories and Subject Descriptors

Forward Lean – Deriving Motion Illustrations from Video

Forward lean, aka affine shear, is a depiction technique that illustrates a moving object by shea... more

Interweaving game design into core cs curriculum

Computer Science departments across the country have embraced computer gaming classes as part of ... more Computer Science departments across the country have embraced computer gaming classes as part of the core curriculum. However, instructors need to define guidelines that accommodate students ’ proficiency in game development and consequently address the growing needs of industry. We develop and evaluate a Game Authoring Class in an attempt to begin to close the gap between industry and academia. Learning objectives include students applying game development concepts to implementation of 2D and 3D games for multiple platforms. Subsequently, we evaluate the course based on two factors: formal assessment of students ’ understanding of game design principles and students ’ perceived learning. The results of our evaluation serve as the basis for establishing effective pedagogical strategies for game development curriculum.

Automatic image retargeting

We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for automatically retargeting images for a variety of d... more We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for automatically retargeting images for a variety of display devices, while preserving the images' important features and qualities. Image manipulation techniques such as linear resizing and cropping work well for images containing a single important object. However, problems such as degradation of image quality and important information loss occur when these techniques have been automatically applied to images with multiple objects. Our algorithm addresses the case of multiple important objects in an image. We first segment the image, and generate an importance map based on both saliency and face detection. Regions are then resized and repositioned to fit within a specified size based on the importance map.

Visualization of Uncertainty without a Mean

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2013

Reconstructing three-dimensional models from line drawings

Constructing 3D objects from 2D images has been an active research area for decades. Given captur... more Constructing 3D objects from 2D images has been an active research area for decades. Given captured 2D information from various devices, different techniques were developed to assign 3D positions to the target object. However, methods for reconstructing a 3D model from a single 2D image remain largely manual and labor-intensive. Considering the capability of the human visual system to interpret 3D model structure based on a single 2D drawing, the algorithms for reconstructing a 3D model from a single 2D line drawing have significant room for improvement in the context of enhancing the level of automation. This thesis presents a semi-automatic framework for the construction of curved and polygonal 3D models from 2D line drawings. By combining a novel line detection algorithm with a plane hinging approach, I only require the user to annotate the source image with a drawn cube for calibrating the camera. The completely automatic 3D modeling process has five general steps: (1) camera ca...

7th International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering, NPAR 2009, New Orleans, LA, USA, August 1-2, 2009, Proceedings

CGEMS: computer graphics educational material

ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Panels, 2017

The panel proposes a town hall discussion to establish desiderata for submission of nifty assignm... more The panel proposes a town hall discussion to establish desiderata for submission of nifty assignments to CGEMS, the Computer Graphics Educational Materials Source (EG Digital Library with access through the ACM Digital Library). In a nutshell, CGEMS is looking for computer graphics assignments (curricular material) that (a) are of high quality, (b) are straightforward to use and incorporate in class by educators, and (c) fit easily into the computer graphics curricular framework, e.g., that of the ACM. Among topics to discuss is the expected CGEMS paper submission format and accompanying practical material (e.g., code).

Optimizing computer imagery for more effective visual communication

Computers are becoming faster, smaller and more interconnected, creating a shift in their primary... more

Automatic Painting with Economized Strokes

We present a method that takes a raster image as input and produces a painting-like image compose... more We present a method that takes a raster image as input and produces a painting-like image composed of strokes rather than pixels. Unlike previous automatic painting methods, we attempt to use very few brush-strokes. This is accomplished by first segmenting the image into features, finding the medial axes points of these features, converting the medial axes points into ordered lists of image tokens, and finally rendering these lists as brush strokes. Our process creates images reminiscent of modern realist painters who often want an abstract or sketchy quality in their work. CR Categories: I.3.7 [Computing Methodologies ]: Computer Graphics-2D Graphics

Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications

Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications Pin Ren We can represent... more Data Stream and High-Dimensional Data Visualization and the Applications Pin Ren We can represent many real-world data sets as data streams and/or high-dimensional data. Major stock market such as New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) trades more than 8000 financial products daily, which generates massive trading time series in the form of data streams. NetFlow and DNS querying data generated by real-time computer network monitoring tools are usually large volume data streams or high-dimensional data sets. Computational manipulation of such data set is common. However, existing tools have been limited to their exploratory and analytical functionalities. Visual depictions of graphs are external representations that exploit human visual processing to reduce the cognitive load of many tasks that require understanding of global or local structures. I argue that by using visual summarization and abstraction in display space and taking the characteristics of the user tasks into account, we can build visualization systems that are both effective and scalable. This dissertation presents novel algorithms for visualizing data streams and highdimensional data sets using image space compositing and supporting visual metaphors. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I am deeply indebted to my advisors Dr. Bruce Gooch and Dr. Benjamin Watson, whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis. I am also greatly thankful to other members in my dissertation committee: Dr. Jack Tumblin and Dr. Yan Chen, whose invaluable comments and discussions helped me a lot in my research. My former colleagues from Northwestern supported me in my research work. I want to thank them for all their help, support, interest and valuable hints. Especially I am obliged to Dr.

M.: Retargeting images and video for preserving information saliency

Figure 1: Preserving functional realism rather than photo-realism by image retargeting. (a) The s... more Figure 1: Preserving functional realism rather than photo-realism by image retargeting. (a) The source image containing three areas of higher importance, the two boys, and the ball. (b) The source image retargeted to fit a PDA display. (c) The source image retargeted to fit a cell phone display. In the retargeted images, our algorithm is able to keep both boys in the image and maintain the relative positions of all shadows. We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for retargeting large images to limited display areas. This method adapts large images so that important objects in the image are still recognizable when displayed at a lower target resolution. Existing image manipulation techniques such as cropping works well for images containing a single important object, and down-sampling works well for images containing low frequency information. However, when these techniques are automatically applied to images with multiple objects, the image quality degrades and important informat...

Pin Ren ∗ Northwestern University

The scalability problem in high-dimensional dataset visualization has been a difficult problem. I... more The scalability problem in high-dimensional dataset visualization has been a difficult problem. In this sketch we propose a novel visualization technique which utilizes image compositing to solve this scalability problem, and a cube-like visual metaphor to integrate the new dimensional compositing and traditional parallel coordinate visualization. In order to effectively visualize the complex high-dimensional datasets, we also developed supporting interaction and navigation functionalities. Keywords: Multi-dimensional visualization, Compositing, High Dimensional datasets

We use a simple statistical analysis to impose one image ’ s color characteristics on another . We can achieve color correction by choosing an appropriate source image and apply its characteristic to another image

Non-Photorealistic Rendering

Retargeting images for small displays

A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Select... more A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Selected regions are cut from the input image to construct a background image. The background image is scaled to a predetermined size, and the selected regions are pasted back into the scaled background image to produce an output image.

Humanizing the Machine

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2017

This paper discusses the problem associated with sophisticated computer controlled machines that ... more This paper discusses the problem associated with sophisticated computer controlled machines that achieve 100% accuracy in the lab and far less accuracy in the field because they are typically operated by unskilled, illiterate, or a non-native speaking person. A particular case study is described, in which the typical LCD screen with cryptic messages showing the status of the machine or the steps necessary to complete the task at hand often left the operators guessing the next step, which led to incorrect inputs, resulting in incorrect outputs. These machines are capable of doing the work of several people with high levels of accuracy if the machine is operated by someone of sufficient skill in reading and understand the machine's interface. The typical operator often lacks the skill in reading or understanding to produce the accuracy or output desired by the machine's owner. Adding languages or making less cryptic messages appear on the machine's interface is not solving the inaccuracies seen when the machine is operated by the unskilled worker. This problem can be solved with simple visual cues that quickly inform the operator the status of the machine and then the machine's expectation of the operator's input. With these simple changes to the Human Computer Interface (HCI), the operator quickly, without guessing, knows if the machine is operating correctly and if their inputs are correct. To improve the accuracy, two sets of lights were added; the first set of lights showed the status of the machine itself, quickly informing the operator if the control circuits of the machine were operational and if the additional physical requirements of the machine were met, e.g. compressed air, three phase power, chilled water, etc. The second set of lights communicated to the operator the status of their operations, i.e. scan accepted, load item, item accepted, or operation stopped due to error. With the addition of two sets of status lights and two audio signals, our change to the HCI allowed the same accuracy in the field that were produced in the design and testing labs. Users of any skill level were now able to know immediately if the machine was up, ready, and if their inputs were accepted and correct.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs

Current blending methods in image-based rendering use local information such as “deviations from ... more Current blending methods in image-based rendering use local information such as “deviations from the closest views ” to find blending weights. They include approaches such as view-dependent texture mapping and blending fields used in unstructured lumigraph rendering. However, in the presence of depth discontinuities, these techniques do not provide smooth transitions in the target image if the intensities of corresponding pixels in the source images are significantly different (e.g. due to specular highlights). In this paper, we present an image blending technique that allows the use of global visibility and occlusion constraints. Each blending weight now has a global component and a local component, which, respectively, are due to the view-independent and the view-dependent contributions of the source images. Being view-independent, the global components can be computed in a pre-processing stage. Traditional graphics hardware is exploited to accelerate the computation of the global...

Perceptually-motivated non-photorealistic graphics

At a high level, computer graphics deals with conveying information to an observer by visual mean... more At a high level, computer graphics deals with conveying information to an observer by visual means. Generating realistic images for this task requires considerable time and computing resources. Human vision faces the opposite challenge: to distill knowledge of the world from a massive influx of visual information. It is reasonable to assume that synthetic images based on human perception and tailored for a given task can (1) decrease image synthesis costs by obviating a physically realistic lighting simulation, and (2) increase human task performance by omitting superfluous detail and enhancing visually important features. This dissertation argues that the connection between non-realistic depiction and human perception is a valuable tool to improve the effectiveness of computer-generated images to support visual communication tasks, and conversely, to learn more about human perception of such images. Artists have capitalized on non-realistic imagery to great effect, and have become masters of conveying complex and even abstract messages by visual means. The relatively new field of non-photorealistic computer graphics attempts to harness artists' implicit expertise by imitating their visual styles, media, and tools, but only few works move beyond such simulations to verify

NPR Techniques for Scientific Visualization

Visualization research is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of novel metho... more Visualization research is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of novel methods for effectively communicating information through images. For example: How do we determine how to portray a complicated set of data so that its essential information can be easily and accurately perceived and understood? How can we measure the success of our efforts? Where should we look for insight into the science behind the art of effective visual representation?

Visualizing DNS Traffic Pin Ren Department of EECS, Northwestern University

This paper proposes a visualization approach to address Domain Name System (DNS) security challen... more This paper proposes a visualization approach to address Domain Name System (DNS) security challenges, such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) and cache poisoning attacks. We present Flying Term, a new perceptually motivated visual metaphor for visualizing the dynamic nature of DNS queries. The addition of visual metaphors such as Stacking Graphs, Two Tone Pseudo Color, and Chernoff Face Glyph within the same application framework provide enhanced monitoring capability and situational awareness for visualizing DNS queries. We demonstrate our visualization’s capability to help administrators identify and understand DNS querying behavior due to anomalies such as misconfiguration and security events with DNS query data acquired from a diverse set of caching servers on the Internet. Categories and Subject Descriptors

Forward Lean – Deriving Motion Illustrations from Video

Forward lean, aka affine shear, is a depiction technique that illustrates a moving object by shea... more

Interweaving game design into core cs curriculum

Computer Science departments across the country have embraced computer gaming classes as part of ... more Computer Science departments across the country have embraced computer gaming classes as part of the core curriculum. However, instructors need to define guidelines that accommodate students ’ proficiency in game development and consequently address the growing needs of industry. We develop and evaluate a Game Authoring Class in an attempt to begin to close the gap between industry and academia. Learning objectives include students applying game development concepts to implementation of 2D and 3D games for multiple platforms. Subsequently, we evaluate the course based on two factors: formal assessment of students ’ understanding of game design principles and students ’ perceived learning. The results of our evaluation serve as the basis for establishing effective pedagogical strategies for game development curriculum.