Reading the Stories

The life stories of the surveilled are contained in the digital representation and their analog presence. These stories make up the narrative bits—narbs—that eventually create the profiles of institutions and people. These narbs eventually become the big data that offer the information that the watchers seek.

Changing Design Cognition

<p>Building Information Modeling methodology is the current interest for many didactic programs around the world. May be the Master program can be an opportunity to understand the whole BIM concept in the AEC industry. In the Master BIM in Pisa, Italy we are teaching an approach that is not only “tech”. In the Building Information Modeling methodology, the digital representation receives a new strategic task in the world of construction: reducing the gap between the “res aedificanda” and its simulation via object-oriented graphics. Developing research on this way means to offer new powerful opportunities to re-think the link between “the fact” and “its representation”. There is a strong link between graphics approach and cognitive paradigms in design architecture. If the Building Information Modeling could be an answer for the actual needs of the world of AEC, digital design in BIM becomes the way to think the whole project “as one”. In the BIM graphics environment, the digital drawing changes the sign in ontology. To sum up, we are moving beyond vision to "experience" the design before it is built: we design the constructive ontology according to our experience of the “fabrica”. Modeling the interaction means represent the process through the time.</p>

Development of a technology for collecting and analyzing data for monitoring based on an ontological approach

One of the ways to build information models is ontological modeling. The use of ontologies greatly facilitates the exchange of data between embedded models and utilities for the digital representation of an object or a real-world system, sometimes called “digital twin” (DT). It is also important to establish a correspondence between the DT, people and external programs. Based on the dictionary of the main terms, classes, objects of the subject area and the relations between them, we have built an ontology of the hydroelectric dam DT.

Multimodal image and audio music transcription

Optical Music Recognition (OMR) and Automatic Music Transcription (AMT) stand for the research fields that aim at obtaining a structured digital representation from sheet music images and acoustic recordings, respectively. While these fields have traditionally evolved independently, the fact that both tasks may share the same output representation poses the question of whether they could be combined in a synergistic manner to exploit the individual transcription advantages depicted by each modality. To evaluate this hypothesis, this paper presents a multimodal framework that combines the predictions from two neural end-to-end OMR and AMT systems by considering a local alignment approach. We assess several experimental scenarios with monophonic music pieces to evaluate our approach under different conditions of the individual transcription systems. In general, the multimodal framework clearly outperforms the single recognition modalities, attaining a relative improvement close to $$40\%$$ 40 % in the best case. Our initial premise is, therefore, validated, thus opening avenues for further research in multimodal OMR-AMT transcription.

Drawing in Perspective: A Proposition for a Discursive Architecture in the Age of Digital Representation

<p>Contemporary architectural practise has come to depend upon digital representation as a means of design and for the production of architectural drawings. The computer is common place in architectural offices, relegating the drawing board as a machine of the past. Today, the architect is more likely to draw with a mouse than a mechanical pencil. The proposition of this research suggests such a dramatic shift within representational technology will not only affect how architects design, but also, what they design. Digital modes of architectural representation are reliant on mathematical code designed to artificially simulate visual experience. Such software offers strict alliance with a geometrically correct perspective code making the construction of perspective as simple as taking a ‘snap shot’. The compliance of the digital drawing to codes prescribed by a programmer distance the architect from the perspectival representation, consequently removing the architect’s control of the drawing convention. The universality of perspectival views is enforced by computer programmes such as Google Sketch-Up, which use perspective as a default view. This research explores the bias of linear perspective, revealing that which architects have forgotten due to a dependence on digital software. Special attention is drawn to the lack of control the architect exerts over their limits of representation. By using manual drawing the perspective convention is able to be unpacked and critiqued against the limitations of the system first prescribed by Brunelleschi. The manual drawing is positioned as a powerful mode of representation for it overtly expresses projection and the architect’s control of the line. The hand drawing allows the convention to be interpreted erroneously. The research is methodology driven, focusing on representation as more than a rudimentary tool, but a component of the design process. Thus, representational tools are used to provide a new spatial representation of a site. Computer aided design entered wide spread architectural practice at the end of the 1980’s, a decade that provided an ideal setting for speculative drawn projects. Such projects proved fruitful to architects critically approaching issues of representation and drawing convention, treating the drawing as more than utilitarian in the production of architecture. Whilst the move into digital imagining is not a paradigm shift for the act of drawing, it fundamentally shifted the way architects draw, separating drawing conventions onto visually separate ‘sheets’. The architectural drawing known today was that discovered in the Renaissance, Renaissance architects, the first to conceive of architecture through representation, thus was their endeavour to produce a true three dimensional image. The Renaissance architect executed absolute control of perspective, control, which has since defined the modern architect. Positioned within research by design, the ‘drawing-out’ process is a critical interpretation of perspective. In particular the drawing of instrumental perspective is unpacked within the realm of scientific research. The picture plane, horizon line and ground plane remain constant as the positions of these are well documented. The stationary point, vanishing point (possibly the most speculative components of the drawing) or the relationship between the two, behave as independent variables. In breaking the assumptions that underlie linear perspective as a fixed geometric system we may ask ourselves if we are in control of representational methods, or if they control us. Since architects are controlled by their means of representation this question is paramount to the discipline, particularly today, when digital drawing has shifted the relationship between architect and representation. The implications of this new relationship may result in monotony across the architectural disciple, where the production of critical architecture is secondary to computer technology.</p>

Drawing in Perspective: A Proposition for a Discursive Architecture in the Age of Digital Representation

<p>Contemporary architectural practise has come to depend upon digital representation as a means of design and for the production of architectural drawings. The computer is common place in architectural offices, relegating the drawing board as a machine of the past. Today, the architect is more likely to draw with a mouse than a mechanical pencil. The proposition of this research suggests such a dramatic shift within representational technology will not only affect how architects design, but also, what they design. Digital modes of architectural representation are reliant on mathematical code designed to artificially simulate visual experience. Such software offers strict alliance with a geometrically correct perspective code making the construction of perspective as simple as taking a ‘snap shot’. The compliance of the digital drawing to codes prescribed by a programmer distance the architect from the perspectival representation, consequently removing the architect’s control of the drawing convention. The universality of perspectival views is enforced by computer programmes such as Google Sketch-Up, which use perspective as a default view. This research explores the bias of linear perspective, revealing that which architects have forgotten due to a dependence on digital software. Special attention is drawn to the lack of control the architect exerts over their limits of representation. By using manual drawing the perspective convention is able to be unpacked and critiqued against the limitations of the system first prescribed by Brunelleschi. The manual drawing is positioned as a powerful mode of representation for it overtly expresses projection and the architect’s control of the line. The hand drawing allows the convention to be interpreted erroneously. The research is methodology driven, focusing on representation as more than a rudimentary tool, but a component of the design process. Thus, representational tools are used to provide a new spatial representation of a site. Computer aided design entered wide spread architectural practice at the end of the 1980’s, a decade that provided an ideal setting for speculative drawn projects. Such projects proved fruitful to architects critically approaching issues of representation and drawing convention, treating the drawing as more than utilitarian in the production of architecture. Whilst the move into digital imagining is not a paradigm shift for the act of drawing, it fundamentally shifted the way architects draw, separating drawing conventions onto visually separate ‘sheets’. The architectural drawing known today was that discovered in the Renaissance, Renaissance architects, the first to conceive of architecture through representation, thus was their endeavour to produce a true three dimensional image. The Renaissance architect executed absolute control of perspective, control, which has since defined the modern architect. Positioned within research by design, the ‘drawing-out’ process is a critical interpretation of perspective. In particular the drawing of instrumental perspective is unpacked within the realm of scientific research. The picture plane, horizon line and ground plane remain constant as the positions of these are well documented. The stationary point, vanishing point (possibly the most speculative components of the drawing) or the relationship between the two, behave as independent variables. In breaking the assumptions that underlie linear perspective as a fixed geometric system we may ask ourselves if we are in control of representational methods, or if they control us. Since architects are controlled by their means of representation this question is paramount to the discipline, particularly today, when digital drawing has shifted the relationship between architect and representation. The implications of this new relationship may result in monotony across the architectural disciple, where the production of critical architecture is secondary to computer technology.</p>