VISmaF: Synthetic Tree for Immersive Virtual Visualization in Smart Farming. Part I: Scientific Background Review and Model Proposal

Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) has received increasing interest in both research and the entertainment industry. Recent advancements in computer graphics allowed researchers and companies to create large-scale virtual environments with growing resolution and complexity. Among the different applications, the generation of biological assets is a relevant task that implies challenges due to the extreme complexity associated with natural structures. An example is represented by trees, whose composition made by thousands of leaves, branches, branchlets, and stems with oriented directions is hard to be modeled. Realistic 3D models of trees can be exploited for a wide range of applications including decision-making support, visualization of ecosystem changes over time, and for simple visualization purposes. In this review, we give an overview of the most common approaches used to generate 3D tree models, discussing both methodologies and available commercial software. We focus on strategies for modeling and rendering of plants, highlighting their accordance or not with botanical knowledge and biological models. We also present a proof of concept to link biological models and 3D rendering engines through Ordinary Differential Equations.

Toward an Ontology of the Moving Image

This chapter proposes a series of necessary conditions for membership in the category of the moving image, a group that includes not only film, but broadcast television, video, various kinds of computer-generated imagery, and technologies yet to be invented. The chapter argues that “the moving image” is the category that media studies – including the philosophy of media – needs in order to organize and carry out the kinds of research it is pursuing.

Philosophy and the Moving Image

Philosophy and the Moving image is a collection of articles by Noël Carroll involving many of the ways in which the moving image – including cinema, television, video, and computer generated imagery – can intersect with philosophy. These intersections can include discussions of movies that do philosophy outright, and movies that illustrate philosophical themes as well as discussions various philosophical issues that moving-image practices can provoke. The book shows that movies make contact with many of the established branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of the arts, specifically music and dance. The book also includes essays on the history of the philosophy of motion pictures, discussing the work of Balász, Eisenstein, Cavell, and Danto.

Discordant storytelling, ‘honest fakery’, identity peddling: How uncanny CGI characters are jamming public relations and influencer practices

This article critically explores whether and how computer-generated imagery (CGI) characters are jamming public relations and influencer practices. We use Miquela, a virtual character with 3 million Instagram followers as a case study. We examine Miquela’s (and her creators’) communication strategies to identify what makes her so appealing to postmillennial audiences, luxury and indie brands, and civil rights activists alike. Valued at USD125 million, Miquela is algorithmically moulded as a fashionista, singer and civil rights warrior to maximise visibility, influence and emotional release. ‘Her’ discordant, uncanny human/nonhuman ethos simultaneously attracts, intrigues and defies. To study Miquela’s case we built a four-tiered theoretical framework (parasocial relations, identity influence, culture jamming, and algorithmic branding) using the Freudian concept of ‘the uncanny’ as connecting thread; and a mixed method that includes digital ethnography, textual and sentiment analysis. We aim to make a contribution to studies on the use of digital media in PR.

Picture Perfect Vitamins The Semiotics Of Health Supplement Marketing on Instagram

Instagram. Specifically, this MRP examines the visual social media marketing techniques utilized by vitamin supplement companies in health images on Instagram, and the images communicated messages and implications. Through a qualitative content analysis case study approach, two vitamin supplement companies Instagram images were analyzed and compared: Sugar Bear Hair and Ritual. An image analysis guided by Roland Barthes semiotic theory of myth was conducted on 20 images posted on each company’s Instagram profile on and before April 1, 2019. The results suggest that health brands use a variety of visual marketing techniques to market their brands and products to users on social media, such as colours, influencers, and computer-generated imagery. In addition, the communicated messages in health images, or the “Barthian” myths as referred to in this study, exaggerate and differ from the scientific evidence surrounding the efficacy of vitamin supplements. Lastly, the myths derived from the images have the potential to confuse consumers, which may lead to health repercussions. This research contributes to the field of health communications as it builds upon literature that has found that marketing health via traditional and social media can be misleading and that organizations and brands on social media can do more to communicate necessary and accurate health messages.

Picture Perfect Vitamins The Semiotics Of Health Supplement Marketing on Instagram

Instagram. Specifically, this MRP examines the visual social media marketing techniques utilized by vitamin supplement companies in health images on Instagram, and the images communicated messages and implications. Through a qualitative content analysis case study approach, two vitamin supplement companies Instagram images were analyzed and compared: Sugar Bear Hair and Ritual. An image analysis guided by Roland Barthes semiotic theory of myth was conducted on 20 images posted on each company’s Instagram profile on and before April 1, 2019. The results suggest that health brands use a variety of visual marketing techniques to market their brands and products to users on social media, such as colours, influencers, and computer-generated imagery. In addition, the communicated messages in health images, or the “Barthian” myths as referred to in this study, exaggerate and differ from the scientific evidence surrounding the efficacy of vitamin supplements. Lastly, the myths derived from the images have the potential to confuse consumers, which may lead to health repercussions. This research contributes to the field of health communications as it builds upon literature that has found that marketing health via traditional and social media can be misleading and that organizations and brands on social media can do more to communicate necessary and accurate health messages.

Conclusion: Techno-Romantic Cinema from the Silent to the Digital Era

Techno-romantic thought, which construes machine technology as a means to reach beyond material reality, is still with us today. It is reflected in the vogue of speculative fiction in contemporary moving image media, which has been made possible by radical advances in digital visual effects. Computer-generated imagery has brought into reach the fully malleable photograph, a dream that epitomizes a major triumph of the human mind over outside reality and thus an essentially techno-romantic fantasy. The same ambition already animated German silent filmmakers, who saw special effects as a way to shape mechanically produced images. Their use of trick technology for conveying thoughts and emotions gives rise to a new research area: special/visual effects as artistic tools.

Collaging atmosphere: Exploring the architectural touch of the eye

In recent decades, research has paid attention to the atmospheric ways computer-generated imagery (CGI) marks the experience of future urban design. What has been addressed in the generic abbreviation CGI has, however, exclusively concerned visualisations that communicate with stakeholders beyond designers and architects. Based on fieldwork within an urban design lab, the paper differentiates among the range of CGI used by urban designers. Focusing on collage, which forms one kind of CGI that has received scant attention in scholarly literature, I demonstrate its key function as an epistemological in-house work-in-progress tool that helps designers to refine their vision and to identify the atmosphere of future urban spaces. Based on New Aesthetics, collaging atmosphere is characterised by a physiognomic approach to urban space that selectively addresses aesthetic characteristics. Hence, the paper tackles a discussion that points towards cautious handling of the communicative scope of collages that can be well complemented by other types of CGI before entering a constructive dialogue with clients.

Spectacularized and Branded Digital (Re)presentations of Black People and Blackness

Digital racism and the online experiences of Black people have been foregrounded in vital contemporary research, particularly Black scholarship and critical race and digital studies. As digital developments occur rapidly there is a need for work which theorizes recent expressions of digital anti-Blackness, including since increased marketing industry interest in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2020. This paper explores digital racism related to online (re)presentations of Black people and associated racist marketplace logics, digital practices, and (re)mediations of Blackness in the service of brands. Focusing on computer-generated imagery (CGI) racialized online influencers, the spectacularization of Black pain and lives, digital marketing approaches, and digital Blackface, this work contextualizes anti-Black digital racism by reflecting on its connection to centuries of white supremacy and often under-investigated racial capitalism. Overall, this work examines the shape-shifting nature of anti-Black digital racism and commercial components of it which are impacted by intersecting oppressions.

Dense 3D Indoor Scene Reconstruction from Spherical Images

Techniques for 3D reconstruction of scenes based on images are popular and support a number of secondary applications. Traditional approaches require several captures for covering whole environments due to the narrow field of view (FoV) of the pinhole-based/perspective cameras. This paper summarizes the main contributions of the homonym Ph.D. Thesis, which addresses the 3D scene reconstruction problem by considering omnidirectional (spherical or 360◦ ) cameras that present a 360◦ × 180◦ FoV. Although spherical imagery have the benefit of the full-FoV, they are also challenging due to the inherent distortions involved in the capture and representation of such images, which might compromise the use of many wellestablished algorithms for image processing and computer vision. The referred Ph.D. Thesis introduces novel methodologies for estimating dense depth maps from two or more uncalibrated and temporally unordered 360◦ images. It also presents a framework for inferring depth from a single spherical image. We validate our approaches using both synthetic data and computer-generated imagery, showing competitive results concerning other state-ofthe-art methods.