Luster measurement of pearl by UV-Vis reflectance spectroscopy

Pearl is an organic gem with its unique color and luster. One of the factors determining the quality and price of pearl is the luster. The different luster of pearls could be related to the different phase structures such as aragonite, calcite and vaterite. Previously, a gloss meter has been developed to measure light specularly reflected at 45° to the surface normal. Six different visual criteria for measuring gloss have been determined. Luster, a type of gloss, was defined as the ratio of specularly reflected light and that diffusely reflected normal to the surface. In practice, luster may be interpreted as relative brightness of specularly and diffusely reflecting areas. Due to the roundness of pearl, we measured the luster of pearl samples by a portable UV-Vis spectrophotometer with an integrating sphere. The luster could be calculated from the difference of CIELAB lightness measured by SCI and SCE geometries.

TrackAER: Real-Time Event-Based Particle Tracking

Event-based cameras (Lichtsteiner et al., 2008; Posch et al., 2010; Gallego et al., 2020) operate fundamentally different from frame-based cameras: Each pixel of the sensor array reacts asynchronously to relative brightness changes creating a sequential stream of events in address-event representation (AER). Each event is defined by a microsecond-accurate time stamp, the pixel position and a binary polarity indicating a relative increase or decrease of light intensity. Thus, event-based cameras only sense changes in a scenery while effectively suppressing static, redundant information. This renders the camera technology promising also for flow diagnostics. In established approaches like PIV or PTV vast amounts of data are generated, only for a large part of redundant information to be eliminated in data post-processing. In contrast, eventbased cameras effectively compress the data stream already at the source. To make full use of this potential, new data processing algorithms are needed since event-based cameras do not generate conventional framebased data. This work utilizes an event-based camera to identify and track flow tracers such as helium-filled soap bubbles (HFSBs) with real-time visual feedback in measurement volumes of the order of several cubic meters.

Low-Light Image Brightening via Fusing Additional Virtual Images

Capturing high-quality images via mobile devices in low-light or backlighting conditions is very challenging. In this paper, a new, single image brightening algorithm is proposed to enhance an image captured in low-light conditions. Two virtual images with larger exposure times are generated to increase brightness and enhance fine details of the underexposed regions. In order to reduce the brightness change, the virtual images are generated via intensity mapping functions (IMFs) which are computed using available camera response functions (CRFs). To avoid possible color distortion in the virtual image due to one-to-many mapping, a least square minimization problem is formulated to determine brightening factors for all pixels in the underexposed regions. In addition, an edge-preserving smoothing technique is adopted to avoid noise in the underexposed regions from being amplified in the virtual images. The final brightened image is obtained by fusing the original image and two virtual images via a gradient domain guided image filtering (GGIF) based multiscale exposure fusion (MEF) with properly defined weights for all the images. Experimental results show that the relative brightness and color are preserved better by the proposed algorithm. The details in bright regions are also preserved well in the final image. The proposed algorithm is expected to be useful for computational photography on smart phones.

Road lighting density and brightness linked with increased cycling rates after-dark

Cycling has a range of benefits as is recognised by national and international policies aiming to increase cycling rates. Darkness acts as a barrier to people cycling, with fewer people cycling after-dark when seasonal and time-of-day factors are accounted for. This paper explores whether road lighting can reduce the negative impact of darkness on cycling rates. Changes in cycling rates between daylight and after-dark were quantified for 48 locations in Birmingham, United Kingdom, by calculating an odds ratio. These odds ratios were compared against two measures of road lighting at each location: 1) Density of road lighting lanterns; 2) Relative brightness as estimated from night-time aerial images. Locations with no road lighting showed a significantly greater reduction in cycling after-dark compared with locations that had some lighting. A nonlinear relationship was found between relative brightness at a location at night and the reduction in cyclists after-dark. Small initial increases in brightness resulted in large reductions in the difference between cyclist numbers in daylight and after-dark, but this effect reached a plateau as brightness increased. These results suggest only a minimal amount of lighting may be sufficient to promote cycling after-dark.

Liquid Crystal Based Head-Up Display with Electrically Controlled Contrast Ratio

With the growing demand for driving safety and convenience, Head-Up Displays (HUDs) have gained more and more interest in recent years. In this paper, we propose a HUD system with the ability to adjust the relative brightness of ambient light and virtual information light. The key components of the system include a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) film, a geometric phase (GP) liquid crystal lens, and a circular polarizer. By controlling the voltage applied to the GP lens, the contrast ratio of the virtual information light to ambient light could be continuously tuned, so that good visibility could always be obtained under different driving conditions.

Response to White Light Emitting Diode Aviation Signal Lights Varying in Correlated Color Temperature

Airfield lighting for runways and taxiways is currently undergoing a transition from filament-based incandescent sources to light emitting diodes (LEDs). Although models to assess the relative brightness, discomfort glare, and peripheral detectability of signal lights such as those used for aviation exist, their applicability to white LED airfield lighting has not been verified independently. A series of three experiments was conducted to compare white LED sources, having correlated color temperatures of 2,700 K and 5,900 K, in terms of their relative brightness, discomfort glare, and peripheral detectability. The perceived brightness and discomfort glare from the light sources closely matched predictions from the published models, demonstrating the usefulness of these models at characterizing these responses in airfield lighting. In the case of peripheral detectability, there was little to no difference in how quickly the two LEDs were perceived at low light levels, suggesting that there is no need to consider spectral differences between light source spectra for this response when the intensities are similar to those used in the present study.

The Planets in Aboriginal Australia

Studies in Australian Indigenous astronomical knowledge reveal few accounts of the visible planets in the sky. However, what information we do have tells us that Aboriginal people are close observers of planets and their motions and properties. Indigenous Australians discerned between planets and stars by their placement in the sky and their general lack of scintillation. Traditions generally describe the ecliptic and zodiac as a pathway of sky ancestors represented by the sun, moon, and planets. This included observing the occasional backwards motion of sky ancestors as they communicate with each other during their journey across the sky, representing an explanation of retrograde motion. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people note the relative brightness of the planets over time and information about the roles they play in their traditions around Australia. Knowledge systems outline the importance placed on Venus as the morning and evening star, making connections to the object as it transitions form one to the other through observations and calculation of the planet’s synodic period. Traditions note the relative positions of the planets to the moon, sun, and background stars, as well as inter planetary dust through zodiacal light, which is perceived as a celestial rope connecting Venus to the sun. The relative dearth of descriptions of planets in Aboriginal traditions may be due to the gross incompleteness of recorded astronomical traditions and of ethnographic bias and misidentification in the anthropological record. Ethnographic fieldwork with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is revealing new, previously unrecorded knowledge about the planets and their related phenomena.