Publications

The study explores a novel engineering paradigm that aims to augment the cost and carbon analysis of steel building structures. Cost and carbon functions were developed specifically for this purpose including raw material, fabrication, design, fire protection, and erection components. A customised computational model for the analysis of structural alternatives was investigated. The proposed model was tested in an actual building case where several benchmark designs were computed. The outputs from the model were compared with a small number of actual design alternatives which were developed by engineering practitioners. The proposed method can significantly increase the understanding of the design space’s boundaries as the computed solutions have exhibited improved cost and carbon performance compared to actual designs.

Authors: S. Eleftheriadis, C. Dunant, M. Drewniok and W. Rogers-Tizard

Publication: In Proceedings: 24th International Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering (EG-ICE 2017) 

Year: 2017

Properly handling occlusion between real and virtual objects is an important property for any mixed reality (MR) system. Existing methods have typically required known geometry of the real objects in the scene, either specified manually, or reconstructed using a dense mapping algorithm. This limits the situations in which they can be applied. Modern RGBD cameras are cheap and widely available, but the depth information they provide is typically too noisy and incomplete to use directly to provide quality results. In this paper, a method is proposed which makes use of both the colour and depth information provided by an RGBD camera to provide improved occlusion.

Authors: David Walton and Anthony Steed

Publication: Proceedings of VRST '17. ACM 

Year: 2017

No longer are we bound by traditional 2D physical representations; there is a steady shift towards three-dimensional (3D) data. Existing research recognises landmarks to be important navigationally but specific requirements for geometric and semantic attributes in 3D have not been identified. This study assesses the suitability of using Google Glass in real-world experiments investigating the saliency of environmental objects which facilitate pedestrian navigation. From the experiment carried out with fourteen participants, initial results show geometric and semantic detail for navigation are most pertinent between 1.65–7.5 m for buildings. Visual characteristics such as colour, shape and texture are more relevant than function and use.

Authors: Kelvin Wong and Claire Ellul

Book Title: Assessing the Suitability of Using Google Glass in Designing 3D Geographic Information for Navigation 

Year: 2017

This paper aims to explore traditional FM research and potential trends.

Authors: Lucy Campbell

Publication: Facilities, 35(5/6) | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

The UK has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. This translates into improving, among other measures, the energy efficiency of solid wall buildings, which requires the use of challenging measures such as internal wall insulation. Internal wall insulation can lead to moisture accumulation and mould growth at the interface between the insulation and the existing wall, if incorrectly designed and installed. Consequently, a thorough risk assessment is crucial for the design and specification of measures such as internal wall insulation. This paper presents the evaluation of mould growth models for the risk assessment of woodfibre internal wall insulation. The hygrothermal conditions within internally insulated solid walls were monitored and three models compared. The suitability of the models was assessed in relation to the risk of mould growth at the interface.

Authors: Marincioni, V., & Altamirano-medina, H.

Publication: In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Symposium of Building Physics. Trondheim | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

The proliferation of head-mounted displays (HMD) in the market means that cinematic virtual reality (CVR) is an increasingly popular format. We explore several metrics that may indicate advantages and disadvantages of CVR compared to traditional viewing formats such as TV. We explored the consumption of panoramic videos in three different display systems: a HMD, a SurroundVideo+ (SV+), and a standard 16:9 TV. The SV+ display features a TV with projected peripheral content. A between-groups experiment of 63 participants was conducted, in which participants watched panoramic videos in one of these three display conditions. Aspects examined in the experiment were spatial awareness, narrative engagement, enjoyment, memory, fear, attention, and a viewer's concern about missing something.

Authors: Andrew Macquarrie and Anthony Steed

Publication: Proceedings IEEE VR 2017 

Year: 2017

Occupant surveys reveal how people in buildings perceive their internal environments. The Soft Landings extended handover process, which requires project teams to focus more on operational outcomes, has led to the use of occupant surveys during a three year Soft Landings aftercare period to provide a means of checking whether the desired outcomes have been met. However, little is known of the longitudinal perceptions of occupant satisfaction in buildings, and the relationships between those perceptions and the many environmental, seasonal and functional comfort variables that act upon occupant satisfaction. This paper reports the results of time-series surveys on two office buildings.

Authors: Bunn, R and Marjanovic-Halburd, L,.

Publication: Building Services Engineering Research and Technology | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

Accurately drawing 3D objects is difficult for untrained individuals, as it requires an understanding of perspective and its effects on geometry and proportions. Step-by-step tutorials break the complex task of sketching an entire object down into easy-to-follow steps that even a novice can follow. However, creating such tutorials requires expert knowledge and is time-consuming. As a result, the availability of tutorials for a given object or viewpoint is limited. How2Sketch (H2S) addresses this problem by automatically generating easy-to-follow tutorials for arbitrary 3D objects.

Authors: James W. Hennessey, Han Liu, Holger Winnemöller, Mira Dontcheva, Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games 2017 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

In the UK, 20% of the building stock is subject to solar-driven vapour diffusion due to the un-rendered external surface of solid walls. Energy efficient interventions such as the installation of internal wall insulation can help to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and improve the thermal performance of those buildings. However, if the interventions are incorrectly designed, moisture accumulation may occur, which could be detrimental to the building and the health of its occupants. The moisture-related risk of such interventions is usually evaluated using hygrothermal simulations, however some of the input data required for the evaluation are not always suitable for the purpose; in particular, this is the case for external climate data.

Authors:Marincioni, V. and Schwartz Y.

Publication: Building Simulation (August 2017) 

Year: 2017

The estimation of the thermophysical characteristics of building elements based on in situ monitoring enables their performance to be assessed for quality assurance and successful decision making in policy making, building design, construction and refurbishment.

Authors: V. Gori, V. Marincioni, P. Biddulph and C. Elwell

Publication: Energy and Buildings, Volume 135, 15 January 2017, Pages 398–409 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

The evaluation of building performance is currently implemented through the modelling and simulation of buildings, where often a single model is built and assessed based on user-generated building design inputs. Although recently developed parametric design and optimisation applications enable researchers and practitioners to automate the iteration and evaluation of building design alternatives, the integration of automatic spatial arrangement generators into the framework of these applications is still very limited.

Authors: Y. Schwartz, R. Raslan, Ivan Korolija and D. Mumovic

Publication: International Building Performance Simulation Association, 2017

Year: 2017

The continuous developments of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry supported by the advancements in material resourcing and construction processes could offer engineers the essential decision-making procedures to leverage the raising demands for sustainable structural designs. This article brings together the theory of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the capabilities of BIM to survey the current developments in the energy efficiency of structural systems.

Authors: Eleftheriadis S, Mumovic D, Greening P.

Publication: Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2017; 67: 811-825 | full text (PDF)

Crowdsourcing platforms have become important information providers after disaster events. While they can build on some prior experiences, it is not yet well understood how contributor capacity for such activities is constituted. To what extent are initiatives building a dormant task force that springs to action when it is needed? Alternatively, do they mainly rely on the recruitment of new contributors during disaster events, possibly at the expense of contribution quality? We seek to develop a better understanding of these relationships, using the example of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.

Authors: Dittus M, Quattrone G, Capra L.

Publication: Proceedings 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Portland, OR. 28 Feb 2017 | full text (PDF)

The cost and carbon efficiency of building structures could be enhanced by the current developments in design automation and optimisation techniques. The study focuses on a common structural system seen in the majority of mid- and high-rise buildings in the UK: flat slabs with reinforced concrete columns. A multilevel optimisation approach is established combining BIM data and FEM with a genetic algorithm offering engineers new ways to systematically assess structural design alternatives based on cost and carbon parameters.

Authors: S. Eleftheriadis, P. Duffour, P. Greening, J. James, D. Mumovic

Publication: Presented at the 34th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2017) 

Year: 2017

When rendering virtual objects in a mixed reality application, it is helpful to have access to an environment map that captures the appearance of the scene from the perspective of the virtual object. It is straightforward to render virtual objects into such maps, but capturing and correctly rendering the real components of the scene into the map is much more challenging. This information is often recovered from physical light probes, such as reflective spheres or fisheye cameras, placed at the location of the virtual object in the scene.

Authors: Walton, D., Thomas, D., Steed, A., and Sugimoto, A.

Publication: International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 

Year: 2017

Texture synthesis has grown into a mature field in computer graphics, allowing the synthesis of naturalistic textures and images from photographic exemplars. Surprisingly little work, however, has been dedicated to synthesizing tileable textures, that is, textures that when laid out in a regular grid of tiles form a homogeneous appearance suitable for use in memory-sensitive real-time graphics applications. One of the key challenges in doing so is that most natural input exemplars exhibit uneven spatial variations that, when tiled, show as repetitive patterns. We propose an approach to synthesize tileable textures while enforcing stationarity properties that effectively mask repetitions while maintaining the unique characteristics of the exemplar.

Authors:Joep Moritz, Stuart James, Tom S. F. Haines, Tobias Ritschel, Tim Weyrich

Publication: Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics), to appear, 13 pages, 2017 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

A common way to generate high-quality product images is to start with a physically-based render of a 3D scene, apply image-based edits on individual render channels, and then composite the edited channels together (in some cases, on top of a background photograph). This workflow requires users to manually select the right render channels, prescribe channel-specific masks, and set appropriate edit parameters. Unfortunately, such edits cannot be easily reused for global variations of the original scene, such as a rigid-body transformation of the 3D objects or a modified viewpoint, which discourages iterative refinement of both global scene changes and image-based edits.

Authors: Hennessey, J.W., Li, W., Russell, B., Shechtman, E. and Mitra, N.

Publication: In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH-Asia 2017 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

Learning based methods have shown very promising results for the task of depth estimation in single images. However, most existing approaches treat depth prediction as a supervised regression problem and as a result, require vast quantities of corresponding ground truth depth data for training. Just recording quality depth data in a range of environments is a challenging problem. In this paper, we innovate beyond existing approaches, replacing the use of explicit depth data during training with easier-to-obtain binocular stereo footage.

Authors: Clément Godard, Oisin Mac Aodha and Gabriel J. Brostow

Publication: Proceedings CVPR 2017 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2017

CIBSE guidance on sustainability, health and wellbeing: updates
Session will provide an overview of the upcoming updates to CIBSE Guide L Sustainability and CIBSE TM40 Health and Wellbeing, covering a wide range of topics including the circular economy, carbon reduction strategies, air quality, lighting, thermal comfort, and post-occupancy evaluation.

Authors: Bunn, R., and Godefroy, J.

Publication: Presented at CIBSE Build2Perform (November 2017) 

Year: 2017

Crowd-mapping is a form of collaborative work that empowers users to share geographic knowledge. Despite geographic information being intrinsically evolving, little research has so far gone into analysing maintenance practices in these domains. In this paper, we quantitatively capture maintenance dynamics in geographic crowd-sourced datasets, in terms of: the extent to which different maintenance actions are taking place, the type of spatial information that is being maintained, who engages in these practices and where.

Authors: Quattrone G, Dittus M, Capra L.

Publication: Proceedings 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Portland, OR. 28 Feb 2017 | full text (PDF)

This paper reviews the discrepancy between predicted and measured energy use in non-domestic buildings in a UK context with outlook to global studies. It explains differences between energy performance quantification and classifies this energy performance gap as a difference between compliance and performance modeling with measured energy use.

Authors: van Dronkelaar, C., Dowson, M., Burman, E., Spataru, C., & Mumovic, D.

Publication: Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering, 1:17. | full text (PDF)

It is increasingly apparent that the traditional scene graph is not fulfilling the requirements of real-time interactive systems. The use of a single graph as a representation of the current state of the world means that display systems, that may operate at very different rates, or may need to predict ahead the state, need to be very tightly integrated with behaviour and semantics. In this position paper, we will propose a type of field called the "ambient field" which represents information proximate to the user's senses, which they could sample over short time periods.

Authors: Steed, A., Pawar, V., Friston, S., & Srinivasan, M. A.

Publication: Proceedings IEEE 9th Workshop on Software Engineering and Architectures for Realtime Interactive Systems (SEARIS), 20 March 2016 | full text (PDF)

Consumer virtual reality systems are now becoming widely available. We report on a study on presence and embodiment within virtual reality that was conducted `in the wild', in that data was collected from devices owned by consumers in uncontrolled settings, not in a traditional laboratory setting.

Authors: Steed, A; Friston, S; Lopez, M; Drummond, J; Pan, Y; Swapp, D

Publication: Proceedings IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 22(4):1406-1414 | full text (PDF)

Organisers of large-scale crowdsourcing initiatives need to consider how to produce outcomes with their projects, but also how to build volunteer capacity. The initial project experience of contributors plays an important role in this, particularly when the contribution process requires some degree of expertise. We propose three analytical dimensions to assess first-time contributor engagement based on readily available public data: cohort analysis, task analysis, and observation of contributor performance. We apply these to a large-scale study of remote mapping activities coordinated by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, a global volunteer effort with thousands of contributors.

Authors: Dittus MS, Capra L, Quattrone G.

Publication: Proceedings 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. ACM. 108-118. 22 Feb 2016 | full text (PDF)

Over the coming decades a significant number of existing solid wall dwellings, which represent a large proportion of the current UK housing stock, will have to be retrofitted to reduce fuel poverty and help the Government reach its carbon targets by 2050 (DECC, 2012). One of the most likely retrofit measure is the installation of internal wall insulation, which although it would certainly improve the thermal quality and energy performance of those dwellings, it could create, if wrongly designed and installed, thermal bridges that will increase heat loss and the likelihood of moisture related problems such as mould growth.

Authors: Valentina Marincioni, Hector Altamirano-Medina

Publication: IAQVEC 2016, 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality Ventilation & Energy Conservation In Buildings | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Since its inception in 2010, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has coordinated thousands of volunteers in the creation of maps for humanitarian purposes. Contributors have traced satellite images and digitised field data in response to Typhoon Haiyan, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the Ebola epidemic, and many other disasters. Despite these efforts, large parts of the world remain unmapped. With ambitions to fix this HOT are now trying to understand how to grow the largest crowdsourcing community on the planet.

Authors: Martin Dittus

Presented at: (1)  Data Natives 2016; a one-day event your early-stage researchers in Computational Social Science at City University in London; (2) Connected Life 2016; A student-led conference at the Oxford Internet Institute, showcasing emerging Internet research; (3) State of the Map 2016 in Brussels; the annual gathering of the global OpenStreetMap community.

Year: 2016

The National Physical Laboratory along with University College London are working towards characterising the errors associated when using X-ray computed tomography (XCT). Throughout the imaging process a difference in the quality of the images is seen leading to a change in the image background, this could in turn lead to incorrect threshold values being set and lead to errors in dimensional measurements. Figure 1 highlights the variation of the total intensity on the detector. The work presented in this poster is focused on the characterisation of the X-ray flux and concentrates on its stability throughout image acquisition and the spatial distribution across the cone beam. Experimental data was collected to quantify the variations both temporally and spatially and the results discussed.

Authors:Corcoran H, Sun W, Brown S, Robson S, Speller R, McCarthy M

Publication: International Conference on Industrial Computed Tomography, Wels, Austria

Year: 2016

In this study, we present an ultra-low latency real-time ray-casting renderer for virtual reality, implemented on an FPGA. Our renderer has a latency of ∼1 ms from ‘tracker to pixel’. Its frameless nature means that the region of the display with the lowest latency immediately follows the scan-beam. This is in contrast to frame-based systems such as those using typical GPUs, for which the latency increases as scan-out proceeds.

Authors: Friston, S., Steed, A., Tilbury, S., & Gaydadjiev, G.

Publication: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 22(4), 1377–1386 | full text (PDF) 

There is an increasingly large body of evidence that shows that there is a 'gap' between the expected, designed or desired performance of the building and how that building performs once delivered, occupied and maintained over time. All too often predictions of the whole building performance are either not accurately made or communicated.

Authors: Chris van Dronkelaar (VEIV) was a Project researcher within task group at the UKGBC in partnership with BuroHappold Engineering and UCL

Publication: UK Green Building Council | full text (PDF)

The Great Parchment Book of The Honourable The Irish Society is a major surviving historical record of the estates of the county of Londonderry (in modern day Northern Ireland). It contains key data about landholding and population in the Irish province of Ulster and the city of Londonderry and its environs in the mid-17th Century, at a time of social, religious, and political upheaval. Compiled in 1639, it was severely damaged in a fire in 1786, and due to the fragile state of the parchment its contents have been mostly inaccessible since.

Authors: Kazim Pal, Tim Weyrich, et al.

Publication: Literary and Linguistic Computing: the journal of digital scholarship in the humanities, December 2016 | full details

Internal wall insulation as a retrofit measure could help to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in many of the 6 million solid wall buildings in the UK. However during retrofit, junctions that are hard to deal with are often left uninsulated, increasing heat loss and surface mould growth risk at thermal bridges. Furthermore the effect of junctions, insulated or uninsulated is not properly taken into account in commonly used assessments of heat loss.

Authors: Marincioni, V., Altamirano-Medina, H., May, N., & Sanders, C.

Publication: Energy and Buildings, 128 | view article

Year: 2016

Crowd-mapping is a form of collaborative work that empowers users to gather and share geographic knowledge. OpenStreetMap is one of the most successful examples of such paradigm, where the goal of building a global map of the world is collectively performed by over 2M contributors. Despite geographic information being intrinsically evolving, little research has so far gone into analysing maintenance practices in these domains. In this paper, we perform a preliminary exploration to quantitatively capture maintenance dynamics in geographic crowd-sourced datasets, in terms of: the extent to which different maintenance actions are taking place, the
type of spatial information that is being maintained, and who engages in these practices.

Authors: Quattrone G, Dittus M, Capra L.

Publication: Proceedings 27th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media. 01 Jun 2016 | full text (PDF)

Time-of-Flight cameras provide high-frame-rate depth measurements within a limited range of distance. These readings can be extremely noisy and display errors not present with other scanning technologies, for instance, where scenes contain depth discontinuities or materials with low infrared reflectivity. Previous works have treated the amplitude of each Time-of-Flight sample as a measure of confidence. In this paper, we demonstrate the shortcomings of this common lone heuristic, and propose an improved per-pixel confidence measure using a Random Forest regressor trained with real-world data.

Authors: Scully, T., Friston, S., Fan, C., Doboš, J., & Steed, A.

Publication: Proceedings 21st International Conference on Web3D Technology - Web3D '16 (pp. 7-15), 21 July 2016 | full text (PDF)

Highlights: (1) We use Multi Objective Genetic Algorithms to optimise refurbishment designs. (2) We used Life Cycle Carbon Footprint and Life Cycle Cost as objective criteria. (3) MOGA chose a design with the thickest insulation and smallest available windows. (4) The utilization of MOGA has the potential to reduce LCCF and LCC. (5) Thermal bridge insulation and different fuel types can impact LCCF and LCC.

Authors: Y. Schwartz., R. Raslan., D. Mumovic.

Publication: Energy 97, 58-68 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Operators of dynamic systems often use time-series data to support their diagnostic and proactive decision-making. Those data have traditionally been displayed in the form of separate trend charts, for example, line graphs of pressure and temperature over time. Configural object displays are a widely advocated approach to the visual integration of information yet have been applied only rarely to time-series data. One example was the 'time tunnel' format but its benefits were equivocal, seemingly compromised by its graphical complexity. There is then the need to investigate other graphical forms for object displays of time series data.

Authors: Alex Eftychiou and John Dowell

Publication: Proceedings of ECCE '16: the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, Article No. 19 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Organisers of large crowdsourcing initiatives need to consider how to produce outcomes with their projects, but also how to build volunteer capacity. The initial contributor experience plays an important role in this, particularly when contributions require some expertise: not all contributors who start to learn the practice are likely to be retained.

Authors: Dittus MS.

Publication: Proceedings 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Companion. ACM. 139-142. 27 Feb 2016 | full text (PDF)

In contrast to scientific research focussing on European paper, there is a significant gap in our knowledge of Islamic papermaking. This research surveys the evidence of techniques and materials typically used in Islamic papermaking, to deduce what might be considered as the most significant characteristics. A substantial collection of 228 Islamic papers (~18th–20th century) was characterized using chemical analytical methods: surface profilometry, gloss measurements, specular vs. diffuse reflectance ratio at 457 nm, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy for identification of polishing, iodine test for identification of starch, Raspail test for identification of rosin, and fibre furnish analysis. Morphological analysis was performed to examine the presence of watermarks and sieve patterns.

Authors: Hend Mahgoub, Tiphaine Bardon, Dirk Lichtblau, Tom Fearn and Matija Strlič

Publication: Heritage Science 2016 4:34 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

In recent years, the increasing demand for innovative sustainable policies in building engineering has shifted the decision rationale from traditional performance-based systems towards systems augmented by life-cycle sustainability notions. This paper investigates a novel optimisation framework, which supports the selection of buildings’ structural alternatives at concept stage by applying multiple performance, sustainable requirements. The established model explores ways to effectively compute and process expert knowledge across different stakeholders groups into a consolidated decision-making platform supported by Lean Theory.

Authors: Eleftheriadis S, Mumovic D, Duffour P, and Greening P.

Publication: Proceedings of the SEMC. Cape Town, South Africa; 2016 

In recent years, the increasing demand for innovative sustainable policies in building engineering has shifted the decision rationale from traditional performance-based systems towards systems augmented by life-cycle sustainability notions. This paper investigates a novel optimisation framework, which supports the selection of buildings’ structural alternatives at concept stage by applying multiple performance, sustainable requirements.

Authors: S Eleftheriadis, D Mumovic, P Duffour, PD Greening

Publication: Proceedings of 6th International Conference on structural engineering, mechanics and computation (Cape Town, South Africa) September 2016 | full text (PDF)

X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is a rising technology within many industries and sectors with a demand for dimensional metrology, defect, void analysis and reverse engineering. There are many variables that can affect the dimensional metrology of objects imaged using XCT, this paper focusses on the effects of beam hardening due to the orientation of the workpiece, in this case a holeplate, and the volume of material the X-rays travel through. Measurements discussed include unidirectional and bidirectional dimensions, radii of cylinders, fit point deviations of the fitted shapes and cylindricity. Results indicate that accuracy and precision of these dimensional measurements are affected in varying amounts, both by the amount of material the X-rays have travelled through and the orientation of the object.

Authors: Corcoran, H. C., Brown, S. B., Robson, S., Speller, R. D., & McCarthy, M. B.

Publication: ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLI-B5, 25-31 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Andrew Braye, Jo Wilkin and I spoke at the Oxford Internet Institute earlier this month as part of their ICT4D seminar series. Andrew gave a high-level overview of HOT and Missing Maps, Jo spoke about data collection in the field, and I spoke about my HOT community research. We had a great time! The video is now on YouTube and is about 1h long.

Authors: Martin Dittus

Presented at: Part of their ICT4D seminar series at the Oxford Internet Institute 

Year: 2016

The often opportunistic nature of biological recording via citizen science leads to taxonomic, spatial and temporal biases which add uncertainty to biodiversity estimates. However, such biases may also give valuable insight into volunteers’ recording behaviour. Using Greater London as a case-study we examined the composition of three citizen science datasets – from Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC, iSpot and iRecord - with respect to recorder contribution and spatial and taxonomic biases, i.e. when, where and what volunteers record. We found most volunteers contributed few records and were active for just one day. Each dataset had its own taxonomic and spatial signature suggesting that volunteers’ personal recording preferences may attract them towards particular schemes.

Authors: Elizabeth H. Boakes, Gianfranco Gliozzo, Valentine Seymour, Martin Harvey, Chloë Smith, David B. Roy and Muki Haklay

Publication: Scientific Reports, 6(April), 33051 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

The reduction of carbon emissions has become a priority for the building industry, in particular due to recent sustainability-driven building regulations and policies. Recent studies have examined how new computational technologies that utilise Building Information Modelling (BIM) can address a range of sustainability-related issues. Amongst those, the assessment of building environmental impact has been highlighted as being of particular importance as it can offer valuable guidance to design teams and policy makers.

Authors: Schwartz Y, Eleftheriadis S, Raslan R, and Mumovic D.

Publication: Proceedings of the CIBSE Technical Symposium. Edinburgh, UK; 2016 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2011

Organisers of crowd mapping initiatives seek to identify practices that foster an active contributor community. Theory suggests that social contribution settings can provide important support functions for newcomers, yet to date there are no empirical studies of such an effect. We present the first study that evaluates the relationship between colocated practice and newcomer retention in a crowd mapping community, involving hundreds of first-time participants.

Authors: Dittus M, Quattrone G, Capra L.

Publication: Proceedings 8th International Conference on Social Informatics, Bellevue, WA. 30 Nov 2016 | full text (PDF)

Presentation given at Khronos UK Virtual Realities 2016

Authors: Sebastian Friston

Publication: Presentation given at Khronos UK Virtual Realities 2016 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Learning based methods have shown very promising results for the task of depth estimation in single images. However, most existing approaches treat depth prediction as a supervised regression problem and as a result, require vast quantities of corresponding ground truth depth data for training. Just recording quality depth data in a range of environments is a challenging problem. In this paper, we innovate beyond existing approaches, replacing the use of explicit depth data during training with easier-to-obtain binocular stereo footage.

Authors: C Godard, O Mac Aodha, GJ Brostow

Publication: arXiv preprint 2016 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Within ecological research and environmental management, there is currently a focus on demonstrating the links between human well-being and wildlife conservation. Within this framework, there is a clear interest in better understanding how and why people value certain places over others. We introduce a new method that measures cultural preferences by exploring the potential of multiple online georeferenced digital photograph collections.

Authors: Gliozzo, G., Pettorelli, N., & Haklay, M.

Publication:Ecology and Society, 21(3), art6 | full text

Three-dimensional geospatial information is being increasingly used in a range of tasks beyond visualisation. 3D datasets, however, are often being produced without exact specifications and at mixed levels of geometric complexity. This leads to variations within the models’ geometric and semantic complexity as well as the degree of deviation from the corresponding real world objects. Existing descriptors and measures of 3D data such as CityGML’s level of detail are perhaps only partially sufficient in communicating data.

Authors: K. Wong and C. Ellul.

Publication: (1) 11th 3D Geoinfo Conference, Athens, Greece. 20-21 October 2016 | Publication link ; (2) ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., IV-2/W1, 129-136, 2016 | full text (pdf)

Year: 2016

Film and television content is moving out of the living room and onto mobile devices - viewers are now watching when and where it suits them, on devices of differing sizes. This freedom is convenient, but could lead to differing experiences across devices. Larger screens are often believed to be favourable, e.g. to watch films or sporting events. This is partially supported in the literature, which shows that larger screens lead to greater presence and more intense physiological responses. However, a more broadly-defined measure of experience, such as that of immersion from computer games research, has not been studied.

Authors: Jacob Rigby, Duncan Brumby, Anna Cox, Sandy Gould

Publication: Proceeding; MobileHCI '16 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2016

Images remain the most popular medium to capture our surroundings. Although significant advances have been made in developing image editing tools, the key challenge is to intelligently account for missing depth information. The growing popularity of depth images offers a new avenue to revisit image editing tasks. In this work, we investigate how even coarse depth information can be exploited to address some of the fundamental challenges in image editing namely producing correct perspective, handling occlusion, and obtaining segmentation.

Authors: Hennessey, J. W. & Mitra, N. J.

Publication: Comput. Graph. Forum 34 (5), 191-199 | presentation (PDF)

Within the building industry, approximately 45% of the total material usage arises from the consumption of steel and concrete in construction. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the flow of interactions between materials, processes and activities within buildings’ lifecycle in order to meet national and global environmental emissions’ targets (IbnMohammed et al, 2013). The present research investigates the potential to reduce the environmental impacts of structural systems though a more efficient use of materials.

Authors: Eleftheriadis S, Mumovic D and Greening P.

Publication: Proceedings of the 17th Young Researchers' Conference, The Institution of Structural Engineers, London, UK; 2015 | full text (PDF)

Co-aligning a collection of shapes to a consistent pose is a common problem in shape analysis with applications in shape matching, retrieval and visualization. We observe that resolving among some orientations is easier than others, for example, a common mistake for bicycles is to align front-to-back, while even the simplest algorithm would not erroneously pick orthogonal alignment. The key idea of our work is to analyse rotational autocorrelations of shapes to facilitate shape co-alignment.

Authors: Melinos Averkiou, Vladimir G. Kim, Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: Computer Graphics Forum 2015 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

Although 3D visualisation is becoming more common in GIS, as of yet, there has been relatively little in the way of 3D editing and analysis functionality especially in the web. This research describes a first attempt at addressing this deficit, documenting a 3D Web GIS with the ability to select, edit, 3D buffer, measure and retrieve attributes. A small user evaluation was undertaken to assess aspects such as usability, consistency and responsiveness. The system developed was implemented using Three.js as a frontend 3D framework and PostGIS as a backend database. The GIS was successful in its execution but detected some issues in requirement of addressing in order to progress. It concludes with recommendations to improve performance and go further with 3D editing.

Authors: J. Milner, K. Wong, C. Ellul

Publication: Proceedings of the GISRUK Conference, Leeds 2015 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

A parametric optimisation framework has been explored and established to perform and analyse both a structure’s efficiency and its environmental performance as part of a holistic BIM approach. Normally, this methodology is achieved through coupling various simulation tools. However, in the current study it is integrated into a single platform, in which all design variables can be manually controlled. 

Authors: Eleftheriadis S, Mumovic D, Greening P, and Chronis A.

Publication: Proceedings of the ISARC. Oulu, Finland; 2015 | full text (PDF)

No longer bound by traditional 2D physical representations, there is a steady shift towards three dimensional (3D) data. Existing research recognises landmarks to be important navigational but specific geometric and semantic attributes in 3D have not been identified. This study offers a usercentred investigation into assessing of the saliency of environmental objects which facilitate pedestrian navigation. A novel real-world navigation experiment using Google Glass is carried out with fourteen participants. Results show geometric and semantic detail for navigation are most pertinent between 1.65 – 7.5m for buildings. Visual characteristics such as colour, shape and texture are more relevant than function and use.

Authors: K. Wong and C. Ellul

Publication: Proceedings of the 23rd GIS Research UK (GISRUK) Conference, Leeds, UK | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

EuroSDR Report 

Authors: K. Wong and C. Ellul

Publication: EuroSDR Report, April 2015 

Year: 2015

As the national mapping agency of Great Britain, Ordnance Survey (OS) is looking to launch a new generation of 3D products over the next few years and are keen to test and validate the value of 3D models, in particular with photovoltaic (PV) suitability assessments (Ordnance Survey 2012). Current desktop methods to assess a property for PV suitability are crude, unreliable and mostly two-dimensional. The argument presented in this paper concerns the capacity of 3D geographic information (GI) to enhance the desktop evaluation assessment of property suitability for photovoltaic panels.

Authors: K. Wong and C. Ellul

Publication: Proceedings of the 21st GIS Research UK (GISRUK) Conference, Liverpool, UK | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

Micro-augmentations provide novel ways to interact directly with the past. This is a new concept that uses minimum stimulation to achieve maximum effects in spaces of cultural heritage. We experiment with new implicitly interactive and almost transparent museum technologies to create a holistic emotional visitor experience and solve a number of museum problems (i.e. misconceptions, intra-group communications, and visitor engagement). The paper presents the rationale for the design decisions, as well as the technical challenges faced during implementation. Audio micro-augmentations were firstly used at the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology. Initial user testing data from the system’s calibration phase at that museum revealed the entertaining and learning potential of the application, together with issues for future development.

Authors: Angeliki Antoniou, Jamie O'Brien, Tiphaine Bardon, Andrew Barnes, Dane Virk

Publication: Proceedings PCI '15 Proceedings of the 19th Panhellenic Conference on Informatics, Pages 229-234 

Year: 2015

This paper presents the results from a modelling study that assessed the effectiveness of retrofitted green and cool roofs at reducing energy use for a typical office in Central London. These technologies were compared to application of retrofitting traditional insulation. Initial microclimatic modelling of the impact of the roofs showed that both green and cool roofs can reduce air temperatures directly above their surfaces, with maximum air temperature reductions of 1 °C. The results of the microclimatic modelling were then used as input into a whole building thermal simulation model, in order to assess the direct and indirect effects of the roofs.

Authors: Gurdane Virka, Antonia Jansza, Anna Mavrogiannia, Anastasia Mylonab, Jenny Stockerc, Michael Davies

Publication: Energy and Buildings, Volume 88, 1 February 2015, Pages 214–228 |

Year: 2015

Highlights: (1) We use Multi Objective Genetic Algorithms to optimise refurbishment designs. (2) We used Life Cycle Carbon Footprint and Life Cycle Cost as objective criteria. (3) MOGA chose a design with the thickest insulation and smallest available windows. (4) The utilization of MOGA has the potential to reduce LCCF and LCC. (5) Thermal bridge insulation and different fuel types can impact LCCF and LCC.

Authors: Y. Schwartz., R. Raslan., D. Mumovic.

Publication: Proceedings of the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture & Urban Design, pages 189-196 | full text

Year: 2015

Reconstructing the surface of highly specular objects is a challenging task. The shapes of diffuse and rough specular objects can be captured in an uncontrolled setting using consumer equipment. In contrast, highly specular objects have previously deterred capture in uncontrolled environments and have only been reconstructed using tailor-made hardware. We propose a method to reconstruct such objects in uncontrolled environments using only commodity hardware. As input, our method expects multi-view photographs of the specular object, its silhouettes and an environment map of its surroundings.

Authors: C Godard, P Hedman, W Li, GJ Brostow

Publication: Proceedings3DV 2015 | VIEW THE FULL ARTICLE

Year: 2015

Man-made objects, such as chairs, often have very large shape variations, making it challenging to detect them. In this work we investigate the task of finding particular object shapes from a single depth image. We tackle this task by exploiting the inherently low dimensionality in the object shape variations, which we discover and encode as a compact shape space. Starting from any collection of 3D models, we first train a low dimensional Gaussian Process Latent Variable Shape Space. We then sample this space, effectively producing infinite amounts of shape variations, which are used for training.

Authors: Shuai Zheng, Victor Adrian Prisacariu, Melinos Averkiou, Ming-Ming Cheng, Niloy J. Mitra, Jamie Shotton, Philip HS Torr, Carsten Rother

Publication: GCPR & VMV 2015 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

Due in large part to new consumer virtual reality systems, panoramic media is an increasingly popular image and video format. While the capture of panoramic media is well understood, editing still poses many challenges. In this paper we explore object removal in 360° images. First, a method is proposed in which field-of-view expansion using retargeting techniques is combined with Graphcut Textures to remove objects near the equator of the viewing sphere. Several extensions and refinements are proposed to improve this technique, including how it can be extended to removing objects anywhere on the viewing sphere. Secondly, inpainting in 360° images is examined, with an exploration of how the choice of projection affects the inpainting result. Finally, the latter technique is shown to work for video in certain situations.

Authors: A. MacQuarrie and A. Steed

Publication: CVMP '15 Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Visual Media Production, Article No. 2. | VIEW FULL PUBLICATION

Year: 2015

Internal wall insulation as energy efficiency retrofit measure could considerably help to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of more than 6 million solid wall buildings in the UK. However during retrofit, junctions that are hard to reach are often left uninsulated, increasing heat loss and surface mould growth risk at thermal bridges. This paper presents a parametric study on the impact of thermal bridges on the total heat loss of an internally insulated mid-terrace house. Findings showed that heat flux through junctions occurred mainly at reveals and that the total heat flux at junctions per unit of exposed area was often higher than the default value used in the UK.

Authors: Valentina Marincioni, Neil May, Hector Altamirano-Medina

Publications: (1) Energy Procedia, Volume 78, November 2015, Pages 889-894 | View full text; (2) 6th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2015 

Year: 2015

A novel approach is demonstrated to approximate the effects of complex urban interference on the wind-induced surface pressure of tall buildings. This is achieved by decomposition of the domain into two components: the obstruction model (OM) of the static large-scale urban context, for which a single computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is run; and the principal model (PM) of the isolated tall building under design, for which repeatable reduced-order model (ROM) predictions can be made. The ROM is generated with an artificial neural network (ANN), using a set of feature vectors comprising an input of local shape descriptors and a range of wind speeds from a training geometry, and an output response of pressure.

Authors: Samuel Wilkinson, Gwyneth Bradbury, Sean Hanna

Publication: Simulation, Volume: 91 issue: 9, page(s): 809-824 | full text

Year: 2015

Poster exhibited

Authors: Hannah Corcoran, Stephen Brown, Stuart Robson, Robert Speller, Michael McCarthy

Publication: European Portable Metrology Conference, Manchester, UK

Year: 2015

Monitoring the movement of structures on railway projects in the UK typically involves the fixing of targets (e.g. prisms) or sensors onto the structures being monitored and their surroundings. Whilst this provides discrete point measurement capability across the structure, it is highly intrusive and expensive to setup in a railway environment. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has become an invaluable method of data capture within the surveying industry including applications such as deformation monitoring. The main advantages of TLS, as opposed to other surveying techniques, are the ability to capture large volumes of 3D data at high speed, remotely and with a reasonably high accuracy.

Authors: Anita Soni, Stuart Robson, Barry Gleeson

Publication: Applied Geomatics, June 2015, Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 123–138 | view article

Year: 2015

Latency is detrimental to interactive systems, especially pseudo-physical systems that emulate real-world behaviour. It prevents users from making quick corrections to their movement, and causes their experience to deviate from their expectations. Latency is a result of the processing and transport delays inherent in current computer systems.

Authors: Malcolm Reynolds, Jozef Dobos, Leto Peelz, Tim Weyrich, Gabriel Brostow

Publication: Transactions on Visualisation and Computer Graphics, 22(5):1605-1615 | full text (PDF)

Iron sulfate compounds have been used extensively to produce iron gall ink, a widely used writing ink in the western world from the 12th–20th centuries. Iron gall ink is well known to corrode writing supports, so detection of iron species is important for the preservation of historical artwork and documents. Iron(II) sulfate readily changes hydration states and oxidizes in ambient conditions, forming compounds that contribute to this deterioration. In this study, five forms of iron sulfate are characterized by terahertz spectroscopy and solid-state density functional theory (DFT).

Authors: Michael T. Ruggiero, Tiphaine Bardon, Matija Strlič, Philip F. Taday and Timothy M. Korter

Publication: Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015, 17, 9326-9334 | full text

Year: 2015

Time-of-Flight cameras provide high-frame-rate depth measurements within a limited range of distance. These readings can be extremely noisy and display errors not present with other scanning technologies, for instance, where scenes contain depth discontinuities or materials with low infrared reflectivity. Previous works have treated the amplitude of each Time-of-Flight sample as a measure of confidence. In this paper, we demonstrate the shortcomings of this common lone heuristic, and propose an improved per-pixel confidence measure using a Random Forest regressor trained with real-world data.

Authors: Friston, S., Steed A., Tilbury S., Gaydadjiev G.

Publication: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications - FPL 2015. 128-131. 24 Aug 2015 | poster 

With the sheer complexity of the built environment, understanding the aspects of the building that directly impact the occupants can be prohibitively difficult. Previous methods have been largely split between low-number, high-detail methods (photo-surveys or interviews), or high-number, low-detail methods (questionnaires). This study presents an alternative to these methods; creating an online tool that represents a navigable building, enabling the occupants to freely identify any aspect of the building that they feel is important. This online tool deliberately works in a manner similar to Google Street View, taking advantage of this familiarity to reduce the learning curve and maximise immersion. Using spherical images captured with a special camera or martphone, each space in the building is captured and then uploaded into the online tool. Whilst in the online version of their building, the respondent can navigate through the building, make unguided comments about any part of the building.

Authors: Joseph Williams, Kerstin Sailer and Richard Priest (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios LLP)

Publication: Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

The new CIBSE design summer years (DSYs) for London Weather Centre, Heathrow and Gatwick in London are now available for three baseline years: 1976, 1989 and 2003. This study tested how these different design summer years impacted the assessment of overheating in a naturally ventilated office in London. Two office designs were tested, an uninsulated and one retrofitted with insulation and night cooling.

Authors: Gurdane Virk, Anastasia Mylona, Anna Mavrogianni, Michael Davies

Publication: Building Serv. Eng. Res. Technol., 2015, Vol. 36(2) 115–128 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2015

The bottom-up methods for energy benchmarking aim to derive a yardstick for energy performance based on a theoretical analysis of a building. While the top-down methods drive performance improvement by ranking a building against its peers, the bottom-up methods are focused on the building’s specific context. Consequently, the bottom-up methods can help identify how performance improvement could be materialised. These two complementary approaches can improve design practice and facilities’ management. 

Authors: Esfandiar Burman, Sung-Min Hong, Greig Paterson, Judit Kimpian, Dejan Mumovic

Publication: International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, Volume 3, Issue 2, December 2014, Pages 247–261 | full text

Year: 2014

Background literature review, methodology, results, and analysis are presented for a novel approach to approximating wind pressure on tall buildings for the application of generative design exploration and optimisation. The predictions are approximations of time-averaged computational fluid dynamics (CFD) data with the aim of maintaining simulation accuracy but with improved speed. This is achieved through the use of a back-propagation artificial neural network (ANN) with vertex-based shape features as input and pressure as output. The training set consists of 600 procedurally generated tall building models, and the test set of 10 real building models; for all models in both sets, a feature vector is calculated for every vertex.

Authors: Samuel Wilkinson and Sean Hanna

Publication: International Journal of Architectural Computing, Volume: 12 issue: 2, page(s): 155-177 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

A new approach is demonstrated to approximate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in urban tall building design contexts with complex wind interference. This is achieved by training an artificial neural network (ANN) on local shape and fluid features to return surface pressure on test model meshes of complex forms. This is as opposed to the use of global model parameters and Interference Factors (IF) commonly found in previous work. The ANN is trained using shape and fluid features extracted from a set of evaluated principal (design) models (PMs). 

Authors: Samuel Wilkinson, Gwyneth Bradbury, Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceeding SimAUD '14 (Symposium on Simulation for Architecture & Urban Design), Article No. 12 | full text (pdf)

Year: 2014

Terahertz (THz) vibrational spectroscopy is a promising tool for the nondestructive and potentially noninvasive characterization of historical objects, which can provide information on the materials used for their production as well as identify and monitor their chemical degradation. Copper sulfate (CuSO4) has drawn interest due to its inclusion in the preparation of iron gall inks found in historical artwork and documents. Copper sulfate rapidly forms hydrates which contribute to the formulation of these ink species and may influence their corrosive nature. In this study, copper sulfate has been studied using a combination of THz time-domain spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and solid-state density functional theory (DFT) in order to better understand the spectral absorbances in the THz region. 

Authors: Michael T. Ruggiero, Tiphaine Bardon, Matija Strlič, Philip F. Taday, and Timothy M. Korter

Publication: J. Phys. Chem. A, 2014, 118 (43), pp 10101–10108 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

We present an interactive method to restore severely damaged historical parchments. When damaged by heat in a fire, such manuscripts undergo a complex deformation and contain various geometric distortions such as wrinkling, buckling, and shrinking, rendering them nearly illegible. They cannot be physically flattened due to the risk of further damage. 

Authors: Kazim Pal, Christian Schüller, Daniele Panozzo, Olga Sorkine-Hornung, Tim Weyrich

Publication: Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics), 33(2), 9 pages, 2014 | full text (PDF)

The purpose of this paper is to overview carefully selected existing literature to enable further analysis directly concerned with facilities management (FM) supply chain structure, components, strategic issues, challenges and risk. Following the key aspects of assembly, design and, most importantly, management of FM supply chain are explored so that a guidance design framework can be put forward.

Authors: Michael Pitt, Sarich Chotipanich, Ruhul Amin, Sittiporn Issarasak

Publication: Journal of Facilities Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 4, pp.330 - 336 | full text

Year: 2014

UK authorities are promoting energy efficiency schemes to improve the performance of buildings as a result of the high levels of energy consumption and consequent CO2 emissions. A quarter of these emissions are due to requirements for space heating. Installation of insulation is one of the most common alternatives to thermally improve buildings, especially on buildings built of solid masonry (~20 percent of the housing stock). However, the thermal improvement of buildings located in conservation areas, listed buildings, decorative façades, or traditional buildings could be only achieved through the use of internal wall insulation. 

Authors: Valentina Marincioni and Hector Altamirano-Medina

Publication: NSB (Nordic Symposium on Building Physics) 2014, Full paper 154, pg 1238-1243 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

In this study we discuss the influence of the state of degradation, the three-dimensional fibrous structure and the presence of calcium compounds on terahertz absorption properties of historic parchment in the interval 45-85 cm-1, based on the analysis of 32 archival parchment samples, with terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in transmission mode, optical microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance mode.

Authors: Tiphaine Bardon, Robert K. May, Philip F. Taday and Matija Strlič

Publication: IEEE 39th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz waves (IRMMW-THz), 2014 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Latency of interactive computer systems is a product of the processing, transport and synchronisation delays inherent to the components that create them. In a virtual environment (VE) system, latency is known to be detrimental to a user's sense of immersion, physical performance and comfort level. Accurately measuring the latency of a VE system for study or optimisation, is not straightforward. A number of authors have developed techniques for characterising latency, which have become progressively more accessible and easier to use. In this paper, we characterise these techniques. We describe a simple mechanical simulator designed to simulate a VE with various amounts of latency that can be finely controlled (to within 3ms). We develop a new latency measurement technique called Automated Frame Counting to assist in assessing latency using high speed video (to within 1ms).

Authors: Friston, S., & Steed, A.

Publication: Proceedings IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings Virtual Reality 2014), 20(4) | full text (PDF)

We introduce a meta-representation that represents the essence of a family of shapes. The meta-representation learns the configurations of shape parts that are common across the family, and encapsulates this knowledge with a system of geometric distributions that encode relative arrangements of parts. Thus, instead of predefined priors, what characterizes a shape family is directly learned from the set of input shapes. The meta-representation is constructed from a set of co-segmented shapes with known correspondence. 

Authors: Noa Fish, Melinos Averkiou, Oliver van Kaick, Olga Sorkine-Hornung, Daniel Cohen-Or, Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: SIGGRAPH 2014 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

This research explores the possibilities of integrating environmental and human inputs to achieve precise architectural goals. Specifically, the aim is to create an adaptive façade, trained on historical data relating to human (an override capability) and environmental inputs to maintain optimal internal lighting conditions for inhabitants. The study was conducted using a physical louvered shading system constructed in the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Authors: Amir Nabil, Prof Michael Pitt, Dr Sean Hanna, Martha Tsigkari

Publication: Proceedings of the International Conference on Constructions in a Changing World (German); 12 pages | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Techniques for augmenting an appearance of a first object. Embodiments include capturing a visual scene for display. Here, the visual scene includes a physical object and wherein the visual scene is captured using one or more camera devices. The physical object is identified as a first redetermined object type, based on one or more object identifiers associated with the physical object. Embodiments also retrieve visual characteristics information corresponding to the first predetermined object type. A sequence of frames that includes the first object is then rendered for display, where the appearance the first object in the rendered sequence of frames is augmented based on the retrieved visual characteristics information and an appearance of the physical object in the captured visual scene.

Authors: Dan Calian, Kenny Mitchell

Publication: United States US20140267412. | view full details

Date: 18th September 2014

In the UK, transient models of heat, air and moisture transport (HAMT) are common tools used by building practitioners to better understand moisture movement within building elements and construction systems. Enforced by BS 5250:2011, hygrothermal simulations are also used for condensation risk analysis and to estimate the likelihood of mould growth and fabric decay. This paper describes the methodology applied in the validation of a hygrothermal-modelling tool used in the evaluation of internal wall insulation.

Authors: Valentina Marincioni, Hector Altamirano-Medina, Ian Ridley

Publication: NSB (Nordic Symposium on Building Physics) 2014, Full Paper 15, pg 119-126 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Extracting semantically related parts across models remains challenging, especially without supervision. The common approach is to co-analyze a model collection, while assuming the existence of descriptive geometric features that can directly identify related parts. In the presence of large shape variations, common geometric features, however, are no longer sufficiently descriptive. In this paper, we explore an indirect top-down approach, where instead of part geometry, part arrangements extracted from each model are compared.

Authors: Youyi Zheng, Daniel Cohen-Or, Melinos Averkiou, Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: Eurographics 2014, Volume 33 (2014), Number 2 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Recent advances in modeling tools enable non-expert users to synthesize novel shapes by assembling parts extracted from model databases. A major challenge for these tools is to provide users with relevant parts, which is especially difficult for large repositories with significant geometric variations. In this paper we analyze unorganized collections of 3D models to facilitate explorative shape synthesis by providing high-level feedback of possible synthesizable shapes. 

Authors: Melinos Averkiou, Vladimir Kim, Youyi Zheng, Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: Eurographics 2014, Volume 33 (2014), Number 2 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Mitigating summertime overheating is increasingly viewed as a key issue in urban planning – a warming climate and increasing urbanisation will exacerbate the problem. The effectiveness of green and cool roofs at reducing summertime overheating was assessed for a naturally ventilated, poorly insulated office roof in London. This was contrasted to the application of retrofitting traditional insulation. The new Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers overheating criteria was used to assess the level of overheating as predicted by a whole building thermal simulation model. 

Authors: G. Virk, A. Jansz, A. Mavrogianni, A. Mylona, J. Stocker, M. Davies

Publication: Indoor and Built Environment, 2014, Vol. 23(3) 504–520 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2014

Digitization of historical documents is extremely useful as it allows easy access to the documents from remote locations and removes the need for potentially harmful physical handling. Traditional imaging methods are unsuitable for documents with complex geometry as they will produce images containing perspective distortions, and 3D imaging methods previously proposed for document scanning will often suffer from occlusions and/or require manual alignment of individual range scans.

Authors: Kazim Pal, Melissa Terras, Tim Weyrich

Publication: In Proc. of 2nd Intl. Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing, pp. 14–21, Washington DC, 24 August, 2013 | full text (PDF)

Benchmarking plays an important role in improving energy efficiency of non-domestic buildings. A review of energy benchmarks that underpin the UK’s Display Energy Certificate (DEC) scheme have prompted necessities to explore the benefits and limitations of using various methods to derive energy benchmarks. The existing methods were reviewed and grouped into top-down and bottom-up approaches based on the granularity of the data used. In the study, two top-down methods, descriptive statistics and artificial neural networks (ANN), were explored for the purpose of benchmarking energy performances of schools. 

Authors: Sung-Min Hong, Greig Paterson, Esfandiar Burman, Philip Steadman, Dejan Mumovic

Publication: International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, Volume 2, Issue 2, December 2013, Pages 119–130 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2013

Carbon emissions from the school stock account for approximately 14% of emissions from the UK's public sector. Energy performance benchmarks play an important role in the built environment which encourage building operators to achieve higher energy efficiency. The robustness of benchmarks and the methodology in CIBSE TM46 which underpins the DEC scheme is vital to obtaining an accurate evaluation of operational performance. 

Authors: Hong, S; Pang, S; Paterson, G; Steadman, P; Mumovic, D

Publication: CIBSE Technical Symposium, Liverpool, UK, 11 April 2013 - 12 April 2013 | view article

Year: 2013

The method behind the UK Display Energy Certificate (DEC) improves the comparability of benchmarking by accounting for variations in weather and occupancy. To improve the comparability further, the incorporation of other features that are intrinsic to buildings (e.g. built form and building services) deserve exploration. This study investigates the impact of these features and explores ways to improve further comparability in benchmarking the energy performance of schools. Statistical analyses of approximately 7700 schools were performed, followed by analyses of causal factors in 465 schools in greater detail using artificial neural networks (ANNs), each designed to understand and identify the factors that have significant impact on the pattern of energy use of schools. 

Authors: Sung-Min Hong, Greig Paterson, Dejan Mumovic & Philip Steadman

Publication: Building Research & Information, 42:1, 47-61 | full article

Year: 2013

A novel approach is presented to predict wind pressure on tall buildings for early-stage generative design exploration and optimisation. The method provides instantaneous surface pressure data, reducing performance feedback time whilst maintaining accuracy. This is achieved through the use of a machine learning algorithm trained on procedurally generated towers and steady-state CFD simulation to evaluate the training set of models. Local shape features are then calculated for every vertex in each model, and a regression function is generated as a mapping between this shape description and wind pressure. We present a background literature review, general approach, and results for a number of cases of increasing complexity.

Authors: Wilkinson S, Hanna S S, Hesselgren L, .

Publication: Proceedings of eCAADe 2013: computation and performance, Delft, the Netherlands | view article

Year: 2013

We present an interactive application for browsing severely damaged documents and other cultural artefacts. Such documents often contain strong geometric distortions such as wrinkling, buckling, and shrinking and cannot be flattened physically due to the high risk of causing further damage. Previous methods for virtual restoration involve globally flattening a 3D reconstruction of the document to produce a static image.

Authors: Kazim Pal, Melissa Terras, Tim Weyrich

Publication: Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics), 32(2), pp. 327–334, 2013 | full text (PDF)

The potential of terahertz-time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) as a diagnostic tool for studies of inks in historical documents is investigated in this paper. Transmission mode THz-TDS was performed on historically informed model writing and drawing inks. Carbon black, bistre and sepia inks show featureless spectra between 5 and 75 cm−1 (0.15–2.25 THz); however, their analysis still provided useful information on the interaction of terahertz radiation with amorphous materials. On the other hand, THz-TDS can be used to distinguish different iron gall inks with respect to the amount of iron(II) sulfate contained, as sharp spectral features are observed for inks containing different ratios of iron(II) sulfate to tannic or gallic acid. Additionally, copper sulfate was found to modify the structure of iron(II) precipitate.

Authors: Tiphaine Bardon, Robert K. May, Philip F. Taday and Matija Strlič

Publication: Analyst, 2013, 138, 4859-4869 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2013

Conserving, digitally reconstructing, transcribing and publishing the manuscript known as the Great Parchment Book

Authors: Nicola Avery, Alberto Campagnolo, Caroline De Stefani, Kazim Pal, Matthew Payne, Philippa Smith, Rachael Smither, Ann Marie Stewart, Emma Stewart, Patricia Stewart, Melissa Terras, Laurence Ward, Tim Weyrich, Elizabeth Yamada

Publication: Poster presentation at Digital Humanities 2013, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. July 2013 | full poster

Year: 2013

The ubiquity of mobile devices with powerful processors and integrated video cameras is re-opening the discussion on practical augmented reality (AR). Despite this technological convergence, several issues prevent reliable and immersive AR on these platforms. We address one such problem, the shading of virtual objects and determination of lighting that remains consistent with the surrounding environment. We design a novel light probe and exploit its structure to permit an efficient reformulation of the rendering equation that is suitable for fast shading on mobile devices.

Authors: Dan Andrei Calian, Kenny Mitchell, Derek Nowrouzezahrai, Jan Kautz

Publication: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 Technical Briefs (SA 2013) ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 20 | view article

Year: 2013

Purpose: This study is aimed at analysing the current procurement practice of facilities management services in Uganda, from which the growth of facilities management in Uganda may be projected.
Design/methodology/approach: Survey questionnaires were carried out, along with self‐administered surveys.

Authors: Cathy M. Natukunda, Michael Pitt, Amir Nabil

Publication: Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 15 Iss: 2, pp.150 - 158 | view article

Year: 2013

Schools are complex systems with an important function in society, namely educating the future generations. As such, it is important to understand whether the built environments provided are assisting this educational process. This study used available data to create a database to evaluate the new buildings built under the Building Schools for Future programme by the British government, using them as a case study to determine whether there was any significant improvement in attainment and absenteeism.

Authors: Joe Jack Williams, Sung Min Hong, Dejan Mumovic and Ian Taylor

Publication: Intelligent Buildings International, 2015, Vol. 7, Nos. 2–3, 83–100 | view article

Year: 2013

It has been argued that traditional building simulation methods can be a slow process, which often fails to integrate into the decision making process of non-technical designers, such as architects, at the early design stages. Furthermore, studies have shown that predicted energy consumption of buildings through the use of building simulation is often lower than monitored energy consumption during operation

Authors: Paterson, G; Hong, S; Mumovic, D; Kimpian, J.

Publication: CIBSE Technical Symposium: 'Delivering buildings that are truly fit for purpose‘, Liverpool, UK, 11 April 2013 - 12 April 2013 | view article

Year: 2013

Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is commonly used to produce physical models for a wide variety of applications, from archaeology to design. While static models are directly supported, it is desirable to also be able to print models with functional articulations, such as a hand with joints and knuckles, without the need for manual assembly of joint components. Apart from having to address limitations inherent to the printing process, this poses a particular challenge for articulated models that should be posable: to allow the model to hold a pose, joints need to exhibit internal friction to withstand gravity, without their parts fusing during 3D printing. This has not been possible with previous printable joint designs. 

Authors: Jacques Calì, Dan A. Calian, Cristina Amati, Rebecca Kleinberger, Anthony Steed, Jan Kautz, Tim Weyrich

Publication: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2012, Volume 31 Issue 6, November 2012, Article No. 130 

Year: 2012

We present a method for automatically aligning a collection of similar shapes in arbitrary initial poses. By analyzing the shape collection we extract a deformation model to capture the variability in the collection. We use this information to deform an extracted template shape and use it to align pairs of shapes by direct PCA alignment. We evaluate our method on synthetically created model collections in arbitrary initial poses and demonstrate accurate results with near ground truth alignment. Our algorithm significantly outperforms existing direct PCA alignment methods, without significant computational overhead.

Authors: Melinos Averkiou and Niloy J. Mitra

Publication: Eurographics 2012 | full poster (PDF)

Year: 2012

This paper discusses the methodology and processes required to implement a geo-business classification to aid spatial decision making in the context of foreign direct investment promotion for London. This research is both timely and relevant since there is need for better decision support tools that will improve sub-regional location decision making ensuring London’s diverse business neighbourhoods are presented effectively to potential investors.

Author: Dave Chapman
Author: Patrick Weber

Publication: Transactions in GIS, Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 309–328, July 2011, Wiley, London.

Year: 2011

While is often assumed that adaptation to a complex set of phenomena requires a complex control mechanism, Adaptive Fa[CA]de suggests a simpler control mechanism in terms of independent units, yet more contextual to its environment. Rather than being a constantly moving structure which would waste energy and lead to potential breakdown, the façade is trained to anticipate its own future behaviour and therefore move less to adapt. To achieve the above, the inherent structural and performative characteristics of CA are used as means to obtain optimum light levels to the interior of the building.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Marileena Skavara

Publication: Insert Publication Here

Year: 2011

Within perceptual psychology, visual masking describes a process whereby the presentation of one image, the mask, affects the conscious perception of another, the target. Given the right conditions the target can effectively be rendered invisible. There is a dearth of research into the effects of visually masked stimuli within virtual environments, particularly with regard to affect psychology. 

Authors: Drummond, J., Berthouze, N., and Steed, A. J.

Publication: Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 167 (Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine 2011), 116-121 

Year: 2011

Time-of-Flight cameras provide high-frame-rate depth measurements within a limited range of distance. These readings can be extremely noisy and display errors not present with other scanning technologies, for instance, where scenes contain depth discontinuities or materials with low infrared reflectivity. Previous works have treated the amplitude of each Time-of-Flight sample as a measure of confidence. In this paper, we demonstrate the shortcomings of this common lone heuristic, and propose an improved per-pixel confidence measure using a Random Forest regressor trained with real-world data.

Authors: Malcolm Reynolds, Jozef Dobos, Leto Peelz, Tim Weyrich, Gabriel Brostow

Publication: Proceedings IEEE CVPR 2011 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2011

As one of the leading ‘world cities’, London is particularly reliant on sources of foreign direct investment (FDI). In the face of increasing global competition and a difficult economic climate, the capital must compete effectively to encourage and support such investors. Through a collaborative study with London's official FDI promotion agency, Think London, the need for a coherent framework for data, methodologies and tools to inform business location decision-making became apparent.

Author: Patrick Weber
Author: Dave Chapman

Publication: Transactions in GIS, Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 309–328, July 2011

Year: 2011

Image segmentation in computer vision refers to the process of dividing an image into multi-pixel, often irregular, contiguous regions. The resulting groups of pixels are then referred to as 'superpixels'  and can be used to give a different, more salient representation of an image.

Author: Alastair P. Moore
Author: Simon J. D. Prince
Author: Jonathan Warrell

Publication: IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 2010 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

We present a novel integration of a brain-computer interface (BCI) with a multi-touch surface. BCIs based on the P300 paradigm often use a visual stimulus of a flashing character to elicit an event related potential in the brain's EEG signal. Traditionally, P300-based BCI paradigms use a grid layout of visual targets, commonly an alphabet, and allow users to select targets using their thoughts.

Author: Anthony Steed
Author: James Tompkin
Author: Michael Donnerer
Author: Beste F Yuksel

Publication: CHI '10 Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

Giving customers what they want is an essential factor for success in business, but knowing what they want is not an easy problem to solve.  Customers do not always want the same thing; they may not even have a clear idea of what they want.  With current business to customer (B2C) mass customization tools and technology, high levels of customization are possible, however, as psychologist Barry Schwartz has pointed out, too much choice can be overwhelming.  Schwartz calls this phenomenon the paradox of choice.

Author: Michal Piasecki
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing Cognition Conference Proceedings 2010

Year: 2010

Simulation is an increasingly essential tool in the design of our environment, but any model is only as good as the initial assumptions on which it is built. This paper aims to outline some of the limits and potential dangers of reliance on simulation, and suggests how to make our models, and our buildings, more robust with respect to the uncertainty we face in design. It argues that the single analyses provided by most simulations display too precise and too narrow a result to be maximally useful in design, and instead a broader description is required, as might be provided by many differing simulations. Increased computing power now allows this in many areas.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Lars Hesselgren
Author:Victor Gonzalez
Author:Ignacio Vargas

Publication: Proceedings: Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design at the 2010 Spring Simulation Multiconference

Year: 2010

Designed artefacts may be quantified by any number of measures. This paper aims to show that in doing so, the particular measures used may matter very little, but as many as possible should be taken. A set of building plans is used to demonstrate that arbitrary measures of their shape serve to classify them into neighbourhood types, and the accuracy of classification increases as more are used, even if the dimensionality of the space in which classification occurs is held constant.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '10. (pp. 115 - 134). Springer: London, UK | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

Applied studies in the area of urban growth have often focused on the apparent physical silhouette of urban form in modelling and simulating city growth. This paper is intended to go beyond such limitations and present a model based on observed dynamics of change in urban structures. Thus the paper translates the spatial laws which govern the process of urban morphogenesis in cities into mathematical rules which represent the change in the configurational structure of street networks. For this purpose, a set of analyses will be made for the sequential development of urban street network in Manhattan.

Author: Kinda Al Sayed
Author: Alasdair Turner
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication:Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Design and Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning | full text (PDF)

Year:2010

The ever-increasing amount of data in biomedical research, and in cancer research in particular, needs to be managed to support efficient data access, exchange and integration. Existing software infrastructures, such caGrid, support access to distributed information annotated with a domain ontology. However, caGrid's current querying functionality depends on the structure of individual data resources without exploiting the semantic annotations.

Author:Alejandra González Beltrán
Author: Ben Tagger
Author: Anthony Finkelstein

Publication:Proceedings of Semantic Web Applications and Tools for Life Sciences | full text (PDF)

Year:2010

The heat-motor is a simple device that converts thermal-to-mechanical energy, individual heat-motors may be considered as inputs to a ‘class of machine’ that can perform simple Boolean logic operands.

Author: Christopher Leung

Publication: PhD symposium at CITA Copenhagen Denmark | full text (scribd)

Year: 2010

Determination of optimal paths in complex buildings is an open research question. Estimating more realistic route choices for the purpose of simulation would be desirable from a number of perspectives. These perspectives include the optimization of building design for ease of wayfinding; accurate prediction of crowding in emergency evacuation scenarios and accurate prediction of movement patterns in scenarios of normal use.

Author: Erica Calogero
Author: Christoph Stahl

Publication: Environmental Modeling: A workshop held as part of Spatial Cognition | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

Public access to environmental information is now a common requirement by national, international and European Union legislation. It is widely recognized that web-based GIS can enhance access to environmental information and can support public participation in environmental decision-making. Yet when these systems are used by non-experts might be challenging because of the GIS complexity. Considerations about data accuracy and errors during the analysis further increase the elements of risk, complexity and uncertainty, which are preconditions of trust. Many lay users are partially aware of the technicalities related to spatial data handling.

Author: Tao Cheng
Author: Muki Haklay
Author: Artemis Skarlatidou

Publication: Proceedings of Joint International Conference on Theory, Data Handling and Modelling in GeoSpatial Information Science, Hong Kong. | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

File to factory processes, direct fabrication and the technologies that drive them are often described by a number of perceived outcomes.

• First, they seem to be flexible throughout the process of design. By controlling designs parametrically, many design decisions can be deferred to a later point in the process, adjusted by altering parameters at any time.
• Second, they appear to provide a unique ability to create non-standard architecture. Individual elements may be entirely unique, and change in every instance of their application.
• Finally, the resulting products of construction are highly complex, and this results both in an unprecedented ability to adapt to functional requirements and to a new aesthetic in its own right.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of International Symposium File to Factory 2010

Year: 2010

Design problems, if they can be called problems at all, are complex. Disciplines such as architecture and planning are described as dealing almost exclusively with situa-tions in which the brief is relatively ill -defined relative to the real range of problem considerations, the perception of the problem itself may change radically as design progresses, and the solution is typically arrived at by a unique process that cannot be predicted in advance.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '10 Workshop on Assessing the Impact of Complexity Science in Design: Alexiou K and Zamenopoulos T (eds.) | full text (PDF)

Year: 2010

Over the years the world has been characterized by a rapidly growth in urbanization. As a consequence, cities all over the world continue to grow at an unparalleled rate to be able to absorb the increasing in urbanization.

Author: Kinda Al Sayed
Author: Alasdair Turner
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. (pp. p. 1). Royal Institute of Technology (KTH): Stockholm, Sweden | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

Interactive tables come in many shapes and forms and are created for different interaction styles and concepts. Many examples of interactive tables exist and recently, commercially available interactive tabletops have been introduced to the consumer, such as the Microsoft Surface, Philips Entertaible and NUI. However, discussion about how these tables were designed has not been adequately disseminated. In fact, little has been reported in the literature about the different design decisions and trade-offs that are made when constructing interactive tables despite the fact that such decisions can have a profound impact on a successful outcome.

Author: George Roussos
Author: Abel Maciel
Author: James Tompkin
Author: Jennifer G. Sheridan

Publication: Proceedings of 23rd Conference on Human Computer Interaction, pages 485-493, Cambridge, UK, 2009 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

Image parsing remains difficult due to the need to combine local and contextual information when labeling a scene. We approach this problem by using the epitome as a prior over label configurations. Several properties make it suited to this task. First, it allows a condensed patch-based representation. Second, efficient E-M based learning and inference algorithms can be used. Third, non-stationarity is easily incorporated. We consider three existing priors, and show how each can be extended using the epitome.

Author: Jonathan Warrell
Author: Simon J.D. Prince
Author: Alastair P. Moore

Publication: CVPR 2009 Proceedings | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

We present a new model for fanning and bending white matter structures on a sub-voxel scale. We devise a parametric model of how the fibre orientation varies spatially over each sub-voxel in the voxel grid for both types of configuration. Fitting the model provides quantitative information about the degree of fanning or bending in each voxel. We demonstrate using data from a standard human brain diffusion MRI acquisition.

Author: Shahrum Nedjati-Gilani
Author: Daniel C. Alexander

Publication: International Society For Magnetic Resonance In Medicine (ISMRM) | full text (PDF)

Publication URL: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/miccai/dmfc/orals/paper27.pdf

Year: 2009

For the last 11 years Think London has acted as London’s official inward investment agency. In this time it has helped over 800 foreign companies set up operations in London, thus making an important contribution to London’s position as a major foreign direct investment target.

Author: Patrick Weber
Author: Dace Chapman

Publication: Computers, Environment and Urban Systems Volume 33, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 1-14

Year: 2009

Aperiodic tiling patterns result in endlessly varied local configurations of a limited set of basic polygons, and as such may be used to economically produce non-repeating, complex forms from a minimal set of modular elements. Several well-known tilings, such as by Penrose (2D) and Danzer (3D) have been used in architecture, but these are only two examples of an infinite set of possible tilings that can be generated by the projection in two or three dimensions of high dimensional grids subject to rotations.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Olivier Ottevaere

Publication: The 2009 international conference of the Association of Computer Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA09): reForm() | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

While business to customer (B2C) mass customization has been discussed mainly from the producers’ perspective, researchers have reported a lack of sufficient literature examining the topic from customers’ perspective. This paper provides a review of configurators with user experience in mind. We first discuss terms such as: personalization, customization, optimization, design and innovation. We then use these terms to discuss definitions of configurators’ features such as: solution space, type of customers’ input, linearity, product visualization method and types of recommendations.

Author: Michal Piasecki
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization 2009

Year: 2009

Unsupervised over-segmentation of an image into superpixels is a common preprocessing step for image parsing algorithms. Superpixels are used as both regions of support for feature vectors and as a starting point for the final segmentation. In this paper we investigate incorporating a priori information into superpixel segmentations. We learn a probabilistic model that describes the spatial density of the object boundaries in the image.

Author: Alistair P. Moore
Author: Simon J.D. Prince
Author: Jonathan Warrell
Author: Umar Mohammed
Author: Graham Jones

Publication: Computer Vision, IEEE 12th International Conference 2009 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

The spectrum of an axial graph is proposed as a means for comparison between spaces, particularly for measuring between very large and complex graphs. A number of methods have been used in recent years for comparative analysis within large sets of urban areas, both to investigate properties of specific known types of street network or to propose a taxonomy of urban morphology based on an analytical technique.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH): Stockholm, Sweden | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

Boundary detection is a fundamental problem in computer vision. However, boundary detection is difficult as it involves integrating multiple cues (intensity, color, texture) as well as trying to incorporate object class or scene level descriptions to mitigate the ambiguity of the local signal. In this paper we investigate incorporating a priori information into boundary detection. We learn a probabilistic model that describes a prior for object boundaries over small patches of the image.We then incorporate this boundary model into a mixture of multiscale conditional random fields, where the mixture components represent different contexts formed by clustering overall spatial distributions of boundaries across images and image regions (vistas).

Author: Jonathan Warrell
Author: Alistair P. Moore
Author: Simon J.D. Prince

Publication: Proceedings of British Machine Vision Conference 2009 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2009

Principal and subsidiary building structure characteristics and their distribution have been inventoried in Icod, Tenerife (Canary Islands) and used to evaluate the vulnerability of individual buildings to three volcanic hazards: tephra fallout, volcanogenic earthquakes and pyroclastic flows. The procedures described in this paper represent a methodological framework for a comprehensive survey of all the buildings at risk in the area around the Teide volcano in Tenerife.

Author: Joan Marti
Author: Robin Spence
Author: Erica Calogero
Author: A. Ordoñez
Author: A. Felpeto
Author: Peter Baxter

Publication: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 178(3).

Year: 2008

The human eye is intuitively drawn to the organic shapes of sand dunes, curling vines, rolling hills and other natural phenomena. Because of its strong aesthetic appeal, our particular interest is in generating biologically inspired form for architects. In the past, architectural form was constrained by material and structure and was able to re ect only a small degree of natural form in examples such as rounded pillars and domed roofs. In an exciting paradigm shift in architecture, contemporary computer aided design and manufacturing in interaction with integrated, human designed materials have largely unleashed today's architects from these shackles. They can now move beyond simply appreciating the graceful form of an emerging ower that bends in response to the sun's position or admiring the evolved shape of a natural shelter that responds to seasonal elements.

Author: Martin Hemberg
Author: Una-May O’Reilly
Author: Achim Menges
Author: Katrin Jonas
Author: Michel da Costa Gonçalves
Author: Steven R. Fuchs

Publication:Juan Romero and Penousal Machado (eds) The Art of Artificial Evolution: A Handbook on Evolutionary Art and Music, Springer - Natural Computing | full text (PDF)

Year: 2008

Technological changes over the past 10 years, in combination with increased bandwidth and the ability to provide better tools for collaboration, have led to “crowdsourcing”—a term developed from the concept of outsourcing in which business operations are transferred to remote, many times cheaper locations. Similarly, crowdsourcing is how large groups of users can perform functions that are either difficult to automate or expensive to implement.

Author: Patrick Weber
Author: Mordechai Muki Haklay

Publication: IEEE Pervasive Computing, October-December 2008, Pages 12-18, ISSN: 1536-1268 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2008

Diffusion MRI provides an insight into the microstructural architecture of tissue by observing the restricted and hindered displacement of water molecules undergoing Brownian motion in vivo. By looking at the probability density function p of displacements over a fixed period of time t, inferences can be made about the tissue microstructure.

Author: Geoff J. M. Parker
Author: Daniel C. Alexander
Author: Shahrum Nedjati-Gilani

Publication: IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging: From Nano to Macro (ISBI) ( pp.875-878). | full text (PDF)

Year: 2008

This paper presents some techniques developed in order to explore the relationship between school design and pupil movement outside of formal teaching activity. In this context, the paper presents the development of techniques suitable for use in this application. The process has to be appropriate to school design and to have as its aim the accurate prediction of crowding in the proposed design.

Author: Erica Calogero

Publication: Movement and Orientation in Built Environments: Evaluating Design Rationale and User Cognition, Veracruz, Mexico | full text (PDF)

Year: 2008

This paper has been written in order to clarify the way that some potentially very useful physical devices can be thought about in the context of a wider system. These devices mechanically change state as their operating environment changes and can be directly used to act on that environment or another physically adjacent environment. The devices are autonomous and require no power. They are usually regarded as being so basic that they are not worth thinking about in a sophisticated 21st Century context.

Author: Stephen A. Gage
Author: Chris Leung

Publication: 'Cybernetics and Systems 2008', Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies and Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies | full text (PDF)

Year: 2008

The problem being addressed relates to the filling of a certain volume with a structural space frame network lattice consisting of a given number of nodes. A method is proposed that comprises a generative algorithm including a physical dynamic simulation of particle-spring system. The algorithm is able to arrange nodes in space and establish connections among them through local rules of self-organisation, thus producing space frame topologies.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: A Kanellos

Publication: Proceedings of the 26th eCAADe Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe 2008

Year: 2008

“A city is a network of paths, which are topologically deformable”. The city is viewed as a system whose identity constantly emerges from the rearrangement of interrelations between its elements. Focusing on the urban neighbourhood as a set of building blocks, this view on urban identity is tested through the automated identification of the structure of relations between discrete blocks of labelled neighbourhoods.

Author: Anna Laskari
Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Christian Derix

Publication:Design Computing and Cognition '08: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition. (pp. pp. 615-634). Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, The Netherlands. | full text (PDF)

Year:2008

This paper proposes a simple parametric system to generate an almost complete set of ruled surfaces that may be used to describe building geometry. The major classes of regular, named ruled surfaces can be generated from a limited set of curves. Each of these is shown to be reducible to a transformation of a single standard curve, a helix, and therefore represented by a limited set of six parameters.

Author: Elena Prosalidou
Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings of CAAD Futures 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

In the field of post-stroke rehabilitation, there appears to be growing interest in the use of virtual reality (VR)-based systems as adjunct technologies to standard therapeutic practices. The limitations and the potentials of this technology are not, however, generally well understood.

Author: Jamie O'Brien

Publication: IEEE Virtual Rehabilitation 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

A common problem in computer vision is that different sensors acquire different colour responses to an imaged object. This problem occurs because physical factors during the imaging process introduce a variation that differs for each sensor; in addition, it is practically impossible to image an object under perfectly constant lighting conditions at different spatial positions within an imaging environment. This variation degrades the performance of colour computer vision processes such as object tracking; in addition, the involved nature of calibration routines means that the calibration step is often ignored.

Author: Chris R. Senanayake
Author: Daniel C. Alexander

Publication: Proceedings of the British Machine Vision Conference 2007. Malvern, UK: British Machine Vision Association | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

The ability of evolutionary algorithms and related search techniques to explore a varied space of solutions with efficiency and often surprising innovation makes them useful tools for design. This typically requires the explicit definition of a goal or objective function and so has been ideally suited to engineering optimisation tasks. For many design problems however, and particularly for those of great complexity, it is difficult to specify such a goal in advance. Design and creativity themselves, particularly in a social context, are often seen as processes of guided, but open exploration. Steels has shown that effective languages can be generated without an external measure of quality by allowing robots to speak and evaluate each other in an environment. Such approaches have been incorporated into genetic algorithms by allowing the objective to change over time.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication:Proceedings of GECCO '07: Genetic And Evolutionary Computation Conference | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

In the course of the exploration of computational means in the architectural design process, in order to investigate more complex, adaptive geometries, the Voronoi diagram has recently gained some attention, being a three-dimensional space-filling structure which is modular but not repetitive. The project looks at the Voronoi diagram as a load-bearing structure, and whether it can be useful for structural optimisation.

Author: Eva Friedrich
Author: Christian Derix
Author:Sean Hanna

Publication: Proceedings Generative Art 10th International Conference, Milan Polytechnic, Milan | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

Research into the process of designing new technologies has undergone considerable changes over the past twenty years. Various trends in the field of Human and Computer Interaction have challenged the traditional engineering-style, top-down approach and  the associated cognitive methodology that regards individuals as making rational decisions and plans according to an abstract model of the world.

Author: Arianna Bassoli
Author: Johanna Brewer
Author: Karen Martin

Publication: ACM Conf Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

Structural optimization is usually handled by iterative methods requiring repeated samples of a physics-based model, but this process can be computationally demanding. Given a set of previously optimized structures of the same topology, this paper uses inductive learning to replace this optimization process entirely by deriving a function that directly maps any given load to an optimal geometry. A support vector machine is trained to determine the optimal geometry of individual modules of a space frame structure given a specified load condition.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing archive Volume 21 Issue 4, October 2007 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2007

This paper summarises the development of a framework of geographic factors which are used to inform the development of a Spatial Decision Support System for the promotion of Inward Investment. First, a literature review identified potentially relevant theories of factors influencing regional development and competitiveness. Drawing from this review, we developed a geospatial framework which incorporates data requirements that were gathered from a user requirements study carried out with Think London, London’s inward investment agency.

Author: Marc Hardwick
Author: Dave Chapman
Author: Patrick Weber

Publication: Suarez, J and Markus, B, (eds.) 9th AGILE conference on Geographic Infomation Science - conference proceedings. (pp. 239 - 246). College of Geoinformatics, University of West Hungary: Szekesfehervar, Hungary. | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

After the industrial revolution, the humanity faced a great period of urbanization and development of industry. At that time, several natural environments were degraded and nothing was done to minimize and mitigate the impacts. Nowadays, scientists have proven two facts to be true: those environmental issues are harmful to life, and the mankind is the main responsible for them. Consequently, that lead us to two questions: How to raise awareness of environmental issues, and how to motivate the community to reduce them?

Author:Giles Lane
Author: Natalie Jerimijenko
Author: Camilla Brueton
Author: Dimi Diall
Author: Demetrios Airantzis
Author: George Papamarkos
Author: George Roussos
Author: Karen Martin

Publication: IET Intelligent Environments | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

Physical spaces are made meaningful to us in a number of ways - by their form and materials, by the activities that take place in them and through social interaction with co-occupants of the space. Increasingly, we are now encountering hybrid electronic and physical spaces where computing capabilities are embedded into the environment or are mobile, personal and networked– environments known as ubiquitous computing. How do we create meaning for these hybrid spaces?

Author: Karen Martin
Author: Alan Penn
Author: Lesley Gavin

Publication: ACM Conference Human Factors in Computing Systems | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

Structural optimisation in this case refers to the branch of engineering in which a physical structure is optimised with respect to certain performance criteria. Finite element methods are one technique to facilitate structural optimisation whilst also allowing visualisations and acting, generally, as a good design tool.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Siavash Haroun Mahdavi

Publication: Gero, JS (ed) Design Computing and Cognition '06. Springer. pp 563-582 | (full text) PDF

Year: 2006

We have suggested a method for mapping the number of fibre orientations in each voxel of a 3D diffusion MRI acquisition. This information can be used for selecting the most appropriate algorithm for finding the orientations of fibres in each voxel. We present a computationally expensive and accurate model generation and selection algorithm. The approach described does have some limitations, as it does not allow for oblate fibre orientation distributions, which could be expected in various brain regions in the presence of fanning (e.g. corona radiata) and of high curvature (e.g. optic radiation).

Author: Chris R. Senanayake
Author: Daniel C. Alexander
Author: G.J. Parker

Publication: ISMRM 14th Scientific Meeting and Exhibition | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

Style is a broad term that could potentially refer to any features of a work, as well as a fluid concept that is subject to change and disagreement. The idea of a style in any discipline is a fluid concept that is always subject to change, and therefore suited to a flexible representation. What is suggested here is that it can nevertheless be accurately represented and emulated. This work has presented an algorithmic method for both deriving a stylistic definition automatically from examples, and using it to generate new designs. Architectural examples were used, and were investigated primarily in terms of their spatial features, but it is intended as a general model in that other forms of input and classification algorithms may be used. Likewise, axial analysis and the aggregation model are not essential to the method, but the principles of feature space reduction and archetype should apply to a variety of analysis and synthesis techniques.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Design Computing and Cognition '06. Springer. pp. 3-22 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

Visionary designers and fiction writers speculate today about a future environment of nanotechnology and 'smart dust', able to create its form in response to external factors, or with an apparent will of its own. Although the manipulation of individual molecules on such a scale is still firmly in the realm of science fiction, this talk presents current research that makes this a reality at the millimetre, rather than the nanometre scale.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Beesley P, Hirosue S, Ruxton J, Turner C and Trankle M (eds) Responsive Architectures: Subtle Technologies 2006, Riverside Architectural Press. ISBN: 0-9780978-0-7

Year: 2006

For researchers in ubiquitous computing there is a growing concern in understanding how innovative technologies might reflect and enhance current social practices of mobility and the personal and collective relationships we begin to build with and within the spaces we move through every day. In this paper we present a design sketch for an example of such a technology. Currently a work-in-progress in its conceptual stage, undersound is an application drawing on prior research, to support music sharing and distribution within the London Underground.

Author: Arianna Bassoli
Author: Johanna Brewer
Author: Karen Martin

Publication: Poster at the 8th International Conference of Ubiquitous Computing | full text (PDF)

Year: 2006

A wide range of authors have highlighted the potential benefits for innovation that may arise from effective networking between organisations along and across the supply-chain. As many organisations have downsized or out-sourced basic research activities Universities have an increasingly important role within such networks.

Author: Patrick Weber
Author: Elena Besussi
Author: Dave Chapman

Publication: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (UCL), UCL (University College London) | full text (PDF)

Year: 2005

Recent developments in innovative technologies and smart materials have created new opportunities and are suggesting significant changes in the way we design and build architecture. Traditionally, however, there has always been a gap between the new technologies and their applications into other areas.

Author: Robert Sheil
Author: Kelvin C. Leung

Publication: Ataman, O, (ed.) Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture. (pp. 254 - 259). ACADIA: Savannah College of Art and Design

Year: 2005

A multi-hazard, multi-vulnerability impact model has been developed for application to European volcanoes that could significantly damage human settlements. This impact model is based on volcanological analyses of the potential hazards and hazard intensities coupled with engineering analyses of the vulnerability to these hazards of residential buildings in four European locations threatened by explosive volcanic eruptions.

Author: Jean Christopher Komorowski
Author: P. John Baxter
Author: G. Toyos
Author: Erica Calogero
Author: Ilan Kelman
Author: Robin J. S. Spence

Publication: Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, Volume 5, Issue 6, 2005, pp.1003-1015

Year: 2005

This paper explores creative design, social interaction and perception. It proposes that creativity at a social level is not a result of many individuals trying to be creative at a personal level, but occurs naturally in the social interaction between comparatively simple minds embodied in a complex world. Particle swarm algorithms can model group interaction in shared spaces, but design space is not necessarily one pre-defined space of set parameters on which everyone can agree, as individual minds are very different. A computational model is proposed that allows a similar swarm to occur between spaces of different description and even dimensionality.

Author: Sean Hanna

Publication: Gero JS and Maher ML (eds) Computational and Cognitive Models of Creative Design VI. | full text (PDF)

Year: 2005

In nature, species have evolved to best suit their niches. Monkeys have evolved to have long arms and dextrous hands that enable them to climb trees and pick fruit. Lions, on the other hand, have evolved to be strong and fast so as to most effectively catch prey in the open savannah. Each species has therefore evolved in order to best cope with typical tasks that are encountered. This can be thought of as optimising to a narrow range of tasks. Human beings have the ability to live almost anywhere. Even early man was found in nearly all climates and surroundings. He is not the strongest, nor fastest, and he is not especially good at climbing trees either. What he has is the ability to think. Moreover, the ability to use tools to transform his body into what is needed for the environment. Weapons for hunting allow him to exceed the lion’s power, and clothing can keep him warm in otherwise inhospitable climates. Therefore he has a very wide range of skills, though none are of great magnitude.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Mahdavi S Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of ICARCV 2004 | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

In this paper, we introduce a technique by which the internal material properties of an object can be optimised at a microstructural level (5x10-5m) to counteract the forces that are applied to it. These can then be fabricated using the rapid prototyping method of stereolithography. The proposed technique is analogous to principles of mass customization and takes advantage of a flexible module to create complex structures in a manner that is computationally efficient and effective.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Mahdavi S. Haroun
Author:Mahdavi S. Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture and the 2004 conference of the AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Knowledge Community | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

Optimisation techniques are used by engineers to design structures to satisfy many criteria, such as high strength or low weight. Recent advances in computer controlled manufacturing technology have also allowed the construction of such structures to be automated, so that the machine plays a significant role in both design and building processes. The work in this paper investigates optimisation of a microstructure suited to a rapid prototyping technology known as stereo lithography that is capable of construction at a high resolution, currently around 0.05mm. Our technique is based on the seamless repetition of a tiny structural module over a large volume such that the overall object behaves as a continuous material. It is, in effect, operating at a scale between traditional large-scale manufacturing and nanotechnology.

Author: Sean Hanna
Author: Madhavi S. Haroun

Publication: Proceedings of SCIS & ISIS 2004. The Joint 2nd International Conference on Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems and 5th International Symposium on Advanced Intelligent Systems | full text (PDF)

Year: 2004

The EU-funded EXPLORIS project (Explosive Eruption Risk and Decision Support for EU Populations Threatened by Volcanoes) focuses on three main areas of enquiry: 1. The quantification of risk in association with various eruption scenarios; 2. the assessment of the impact of such events on the communities living in these high risk areas; and 3. the mitigation of such disaster scenarios. This paper presents work done in the second category, impact assessment, to develop and produce an inventory of the residential building stock in vulnerable areas.

Authors: Erica Calogero
Publication: Proceedings of the UCL Johnston-Lavis Conference, Mitigating Volcanic Crises: Practical Solutions for the 21st Century, London poster
Year: 2004

The aim of this work is to utilize an evolutionary algorithm to evolve the microstructure of an object created by a stereolithography machine. This should be optimised to be able to withstand loads applied to it while at the same time minimizing its overall weight.

Authors: Mahdavi S Haroun and Sean. Hanna
Publication: Proceedings of CEC2003, the Congress on Evolutionary Computation Year: 2003