Cylindrical and Toroidal Parameterizations Without Vertex Seams

A simple rendering method to avoid vertex seams in cylindrical and toroidal UV mappings used for texture mapping is presented. (A vertex seam is a vertex duplication of a polygonal mesh with different texture coordinates assigned to the two geometrically coinciding copies.) As a result, the method leads to simpler, leaner, replication-free data structures. Is also allows for a higher degree of proceduralism in generation of texture coordinates. The method is general, trivial to implement (exhaustive pseudocode is provided), very low in cost on resources (with a virtually null impact on performance), and it leverages only basic mechanisms widely available in most GPU implementations. An open-source implementation is available online

Feminist Theory and the Right-Wing: Shiv Sena Women Mobilize Mumbai

Feminist scholars engaged in the study of women and religion often grapple with the problem of how to theorize the phenomenon of women’s attraction to, and active involvement in politico-religious movements characterized by strongly “patriarchal” authority structures, and by ideologies that either seem to denigrate women or assign them to subordinate social and symbolic roles. This paper looks at some of the approaches that have been taken by feminist scholars to this issue. It reviews some key adaptations of feminist theory to the rising phenomena of women’s public participation in religious, right-wing agendas. It specifically explores the relevance of feminist theory for understanding women’s involvement in movements driven by Hindu religious revivalism in India. Using ethnographic data collected on the activities of the women’s wing of the right-wing, Shiv Sena party (Shivaji’s Army) in India, it explores the alternative ways by which feminist theorization might engage with the construction of the female subject that comes into being through religiously motivated political and social agendas in the post-colonial world

Law e-assessment pilot study

This study evaluates the pilots of LL205 & LL4K9, both of which were timed, take-home formative mock exams at LSE led by Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI) and the Department of Law. Given the LL205 and LL4K9 pilots were designed to explore students’ perceptions with typing versus handwriting exams, this report considers the impact of the latter on the students and LSE academic and academic support staff whowere involved in the process. It also captures evidence about how best to facilitate the development of assessment and feedback with technology practices at LSE through collaboration between academic and academic support staff and students. Overall, the pilots were successful in allowing academic and academic support staff at LSE to uncover a broad range of student views and preferences pertaining to typed exams while further providing an opportunity to test the ExamSoft software. The findings reveal a general willingness on the part of students to engage with typed exams but highlight the importance of having adequate training and support to facilitate any shift toward e-assessment practice. The pilots further illustrate the coordination and communication required with and amongst various stakeholders at LSE to ensure security, regulations and facilities can support the implementation of e-assessment practice. This report details findings of the two pilots and includes a discussion on student views and the overall software experience. In summary: Students - Students welcome online exams but student feedback, technical advice, and pedagogical insight may point to providing students with an opportunity to choose between handwriting and typing exams. - The timed component of formative assessments is highly valued as an effective simulation of the final exam. The software’s provision of a timer is highly utilised feature. - Students value training (i.e. the opportunity to test the technology used). Therefore, it is necessary to make available a practice exam to those students who would like to experiment with the platform prior to any formal examination. - The adequate provision of technical support for students during assessment periods is a key concern for scaling-up e-assessment practice. This is of particular relevance in the case of assessments taking place out of office hours (e.g. over the weekend). - Coordination among all relevant stakeholders in e-assessment processes is crucial to ensuring students receive clear communications in a timely manner

Moodle-turnitin integration pilots

This report presents findings of the Moodle-TurnItIn (TII) integration pilots, which took place in the 2014/2015 academic year. The purpose of the pilots was to examine the feasibility of integrating the originality check provided by the external TII online service within the Moodle submission portal. Moreover, TII as an integrated component of Moodle allows teachers to also take advantage the additional functionality that TII provides (for example, teachers can use the TII GradeMark for marking and feedback provision, QuickMark sets – a feature that allows teachers to provide feedback on specific criteria when using a rubric on an essay (e.g. structure, argument, data collection, analysis etc.). The integration further includes PeerMark – a feature whereby students are able to comment on each other’s work. This report details findings pertaining to the process and ease of use for integration, including the GradeMark, PeerMark and QuickMark sets features

Browsing Large Image Datasets through Voronoi Diagrams

Conventional browsing of image collections use mechanisms such as thumbnails arranged on a regular grid or on a line, often mounted over a scrollable panel. However, this approach does not scale well with the size of the datasets (number of images). In this paper, we propose a new thumbnail-based interface to browse large collections of images. Our approach is based on weighted centroidal anisotropic Voronoi diagrams. A dynamically changing subset of images is represented by thumbnails and shown on the screen. Thumbnails are shaped like general polygons, to better cover screen space, while still reflecting the original aspect ratios or orientation of the represented images. During the browsing process, thumbnails are dynamically rearranged, reshaped and rescaled. The objective is to devote more screen space (more numerous and larger thumbnails) to the parts of the dataset closer to the current region of interest, and progressively lesser away from it, while still making the dataset visible as a whole. During the entire process, temporal coherence is always maintained. GPU implementation easily guarantees the frame rates needed for fully smooth interactivity

e-assessment practice at Russell Group Universities

The Learning Technology & Innovation (LTI) at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) undertook a study on e-assessment practice across Russell Group universities in an effort to better understand the current e-assessment landscape and the various institutional factors affecting the degree of engagement with e-assessment practice. This report details the results of the online survey relating to all Russell Group universities while providing a focused analysis on LSE from a comparative perspective. The findings illustrate a wide degree of technology usage for e-assessment practice. While some universities make extensive use of technology throughout the assessment life-cycle from e-Submission to e-Return, others use it sparingly or have concentrated usage at a specific point in the life-cycle (e.g. early stage or mid-stage). Overall however, there is significant usage of basic platforms such as Moodle (or equivalent Virtual Learning Environments) and Turnitin. Furthermore, the study revealed the use of newer technologies such as table computing and student produced video for both formative and summative assessments, which may be seen to highlight an inclination toward innovative practice in e-assessment. From an institutional perspective, the findings suggest institutional culture and time constraints prove to be critical factors to enabling e-assessment development. While technical feasibility constitutes an important component of driving e-assessment practice, the results affirm the necessary behavioral and organizational change management components of enabling new and innovative process reforms. Most interestingly in this regard, the study suggests non-financial incentives are underexploited in motivating greater engagement with e-assessment. LSE’s experience and engagement with e-assessment is not uncommon in relation to other Russell Group universities, particularly with regards to the institutional factors that enable and constrain e-assessment development. However, significant improvements can be made with increasing the number of modules incorporating technology throughout the entire assessment life-cycle; while LSE uses technology throughout the entire assessment life-cycle for approximately 11% of all offered courses, the Russell Group average stands at 43.10%

LSE100 portfolio assessment pilot study

This study provides a preliminary overview of the impetus and outcomes of the LSE100 change in assessment structure. While initially evaluating student performance based on a heavily weighted final exam, LSE100 now consists of an e-portfolio assessment method that is structured to support and incentivize ongoing student learning. Based on the feedback of LSE100 teachers and administrative staff, the findings affirm the pedagogical merit of e-portfolios in driving student learning and performance. Overall, teachers suggest there are visible differences in the clarity, cohesiveness, and depth of student work when under an e-portfolio versus exam method of assessment. However, the findings highlight a number of areas for future consideration. Given LSE100 is unique in its size (with upwards of 1500 students registered at any given time), a number of process changes with regards to marking are required. Striking a balance between creativity on the part of teachers while ensuring consistency across cohorts is for example, a challenge with a course of this nature. From a technical perspective, the course evaluation has highlighted the necessity to invest in portfolio specific software (as an ideal alternative) or significantly adapt existing systems to accommodate multiple teachers and a much larger volume of student work being submitted at any given time. Overall however, the success of the LSE100 change in assessment structure is clear; it is no longer an assessment for the sake of an assessment but rather, an assessment structured to support and drive student learning

A quadrilateral rendering primitive

The only surface primitives that are supported by common graphics hardware are triangles and more complex shapes have to be triangulated before being sent to the rasterizer. Even quadrilaterals, which are frequently used in many applications, are rendered as a pair of triangles after splitting them along either diagonal. This creates an undesirable C1 -discontinuity that is visible in the shading or texture signal. We propose a new method that overcomes this drawback and is designed to be implemented in hardware as a new rasterizer. It processes a potentially non-planar quadrilateral directly without any splitting and interpolates attributes smoothly inside the quadrilateral. This interpolation is based on a recent generalization of barycentric coordinates that we adapted to handle perspective correction and situations in which a quadrilateral is partially behind the point of view.The only surface primitives that are supported by common graphics hardware are triangles and more complex shapes have to be triangulated before being sent to the rasterizer. Even quadrilaterals, which are frequently used in many applications, are rendered as a pair of triangles after splitting them along either diagonal. This creates an undesirable C1-discontinuity that is visible in the shading or texture signal. We propose a new method that overcomes this drawback and is designed to be implemented in hardware as a new rasterizer. It processes a potentially non-planar quadrilateral directly without any splitting and interpolates attributes smoothly inside the quadrilateral. This interpolation is based on a recent generalization of barycentric coordinates that we adapted to handle perspective correction and situations in which a quadrilateral is partially behind the point of view. \ua9 The Eurographics Association 2004

Almost Isometric Mesh Parameterization through Abstract Domains

In this paper, we propose a robust, automatic technique to build a global hi-quality parameterization of a two-manifold triangular mesh. An adaptively chosen 2D domain of the parameterization is built as part of the process. The produced parameterization exhibits very low isometric distortion, because it is globally optimized to preserve both areas and angles. The domain is a collection of equilateral triangular 2D regions enriched with explicit adjacency relationships (it is abstract in the sense that no 3D embedding is necessary). It is tailored to minimize isometric distortion, resulting in excellent parameterization qualities, even when meshes with complex shape and topology are mapped into domains composed of a small number of large continuous regions. Moreover, this domain is, in turn, remapped into a collection of 2D square regions, unlocking many advantages found in quad-based domains (e. g., ease of packing). The technique is tested on a variety of cases, including challenging ones, and compares very favorably with known approaches. An open-source implementation is made available

Pinchmaps: textures with customizable discontinuities

We introduce a new texture representation that combines standard sampling, to be bilinearly interpolated in smoothly varying regions, with customizable discontinuities, to model sharp boundaries between these regions. The structure consists of a standard signal texture, plus a second texture we call pinchmap, which encodes discontinuities along generally curved lines; at rendering time the fragment processor efficiently decodes this structure with a single access to each texture. We also present a fully automatic way to compute a pinchmap and signal texture pair, starting from an original high resolution image. The final result on the screen is a comparable visual quality for a fraction of the texture storage and with a negligible impact on performance