Image processing, the use of computers to process pictures, has revolutionized the fields of medicine, space exploration, geology, and oceanography, and has become the hottest area in digital signal processing. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the most popular image processing techniques used today, without getting bogged down in the complex mathematical presentations found in most image processing books and journals.

This coffee-table book will delight and inform general readers curious about ideas of chaos, fractals, and nonlinear complex systems. Developed out of ten years of interdisciplinary seminars in chaos and complex systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it features multiple ways of knowing: Robin Chapman’s poems of everyday experience of change in a complex world, associated metaphorically with Julien Clinton Sprott’s full-color computer art generated from billions of versions of only three simple equations for strange attractors, Julia sets, and iterated function systems; his definitions of 39 key terms; a mathematical appendix; and even a multiple-choice quiz to test understanding. Accompanied by a CD-ROM of the poet reading 13 poems and 1,000 images of chaos art from which slide shows can be generated and 100 high-resolution posters created. With a foreword by Cliff Pickover, author of A Passion for Mathematics.

All the tools and know-how to create digital characters that can move, express emotions, and talk 3-D Human Modeling and Animation demonstrates how you can use your artistic skills in figure drawing, painting, and sculpture to create animated human figures using the latest computer technology. This easy-to-follow book guides you through all the necessary steps to create and animate digital humans. Students and professional 3-D artists will find this book to be an invaluable resource. This Second Edition combines detailed, practical information about creating and animating 3-D human models. More than 400 images, interactive files, and exciting animations included on the CD-ROM detail the modeling and animation processes for both male and female figures. Chapter objectives and exercises are tied to the CD-ROM, which also provides color example images, sample models, modeling templates, textures, lesson plans, and relevant animation movies that allow you to start modeling and animating right away!