Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2008. The uniqueness of shape as a perceptual property lies in the fact that it is both complex and structured. Shapes are perceived veridically—perceived as they really are in the physical world, regardless of the orientation from which they are viewed. The constancy of the shape percept is the sine qua nonof shape perception; you are not actually studying shape if constancy cannot be achieved with the stimulus you are using. Shape is the only perceptual attribute of an object that allows unambiguous identification. In this first book devoted exclusively to the perception of shape by humans and machines, Zygmunt Pizlo describes how we perceive shapes and how to design machines that can see shapes as we do. He reviews the long history of the subject, allowing the reader to understand why it has taken so long to understand shape perception, and offers a new theory of shape. Until recently, shape was treated in combination with such other perceptual properties as depth, motion, speed, and color. This resulted in apparently contradictory findings, which made a coherent theoretical treatment of shape impossible. Pizlo argues that once shape is understood to be unique among visual attributes and the perceptual mechanisms underlying shape are seen to be different from other perceptual mechanisms, the research on shape becomes coherent and experimental findings no longer seem to contradict each other. A single theory of shape perception is thus possible, and Pizlo offers a theoretical treatment that explains how a three-dimensional shape percept is produced from a two-dimensional retinal image, assuming only that the image has been organized into two-dimensional shapes. Pizlo focuses on discussion of the main concepts, telling the story of shape without interruption. Appendixes provide the basic mathematical and computational information necessary for a technical understanding of the argument. References point the way to more in-depth reading in geometry and computational vision.

This book looks at the exciting world of advanced programming concepts with the three major Java platforms - Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) and Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME).

A completely revised edition, offering new design recipes for interactive programs and support for images as plain values, testing, event-driven programming, and even distributed programming. This introduction to programming places computer science at the core of a liberal arts education. Unlike other introductory books, it focuses on the program design process, presenting program design guidelines that show the reader how to analyze a problem statement, how to formulate concise goals, how to make up examples, how to develop an outline of the solution, how to finish the program, and how to test it. Because learning to design programs is about the study of principles and the acquisition of transferable skills, the text does not use an off-the-shelf industrial language but presents a tailor-made teaching language. For the same reason, it offers DrRacket, a programming environment for novices that supports playful, feedback-oriented learning. The environment grows with readers as they master the material in the book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of programming tasks. This second edition has been completely revised. While the book continues to teach a systematic approach to program design, the second edition introduces different design recipes for interactive programs with graphical interfaces and batch programs. It also enriches its design recipes for functions with numerous new hints. Finally, the teaching languages and their IDE now come with support for images as plain values, testing, event-driven programming, and even distributed programming.

The Model Driven Architecture defines an approach where the specification of the functionality of a system can be separated from its implementation on a particular technology platform. The idea being that the architecture will be able to easily be adapted for different situations, whether they be legacy systems, different languages or yet to be invented platforms.MDA is therefore, a significant evolution of the object-oriented approach to system development.Advanced System Design with Java, UML and MDA describes the factors involved in designing and constructing large systems, illustrating the design process through a series of examples, including a Scrabble player, a jukebox using web streaming, a security system, and others. The book first considers the challenges of software design, before introducing the Unified Modelling Language and Object Constraint Language. The book then moves on to discuss systems design as a whole, covering internet systems design, web services, Flash, XML, XSLT, SOAP, Servlets, Javascript and JSP.In the final section of the book, the concepts and terminology of the Model Driven Architecture are discussed. To get the most from this book, readers will need introductory knowledge of software engineering, programming in Java and basic knowledge of HTML.* Examines issues raised by the Model-Driven Architecture approach to development* Uses easy to grasp case studies to illustrate complex concepts* Focused on the internet applications and technologies that are essential for students in the online age

Fra bagsiden: As a platform, Java defines the services needed to connect binary components at runtime safely and reliably. To truly take advantage of alle Java has to offer, you must consider not just development, but also deployment, and not just objects, but also components. The book delves into the component-oriented features of the Java platform, thoroughly discussing class loading, refelction, serialization, native interoperation and code generation.

Advanced Java Game Programming teaches you how to create desktop and Internet computer games using the latest Java programming language techniques. Whereas other Java game programming books focus on introductory Java material, this book covers game programming for experienced Java developers. David Wallace Croft, founder of the Game Developers Java Users Group (GameJUG), has assembled an open-source reusable game library—a Swing animation engine that allows developers to use these techniques and put out new games very rapidly. The open-source game library also includes a reusable game deployment framework and a multiplayer networking library with HTTP firewall tunneling capability for applets. All of the code is open source, including the example games. The animation has been scrupulously tested and optimized in the Swing environment, and Croft clearly explains how the code works in great detail. The graphics and audio libraries used in the examples are public domain and may also be used royalty-free for creating new games.