Recent studies indicate that human activities are a significant component of ecosystem processes that need to be incorporated into existing ecological models. The Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) site was recently established (along with a sister LTER site in Baltimore, Maryland) to study biogeochemical, geophysical, and social processes operating in a human-domi...

This project relates to automated 3D model generation of Urban Environments. Ground based modeling involves a setup of two 2D laser scanners, and a digital camera mounted on top of a truck. As we drive the truck in a city, the laser scans capture depth information using the LIDAR time-of-flight principle. These laser scans are then subjected to accurate localization and 3D data processing algor...

urban space has been formed in historical texture of cities under the influence of meaning and shape on the onehand and qualities related to human behaviors on the other hand. among these points, neighborhood centers as themost important areas of social life in urban open space play a critical role in attracting people and improving qualityand vitality of environment. this study presents the re...

The effects of urbanization on soil structure can be extensive. Infiltration of rain water through soils can be greatly reduced, plus the benefits of infiltration and biofiltration devices can be severely jeopardized. Our research group (along with others), have been studying disturbed urban soils for several decades, both in the laboratory and in the field. The effects of compaction on infiltr...

We present a surface texture and microstructure extraction system to provide added realism in visualiza-tion and virtual reality applications. The system uses multiple images, 3-D models and camera information, in addition to knowledge about man-made structures, to cope with problems such as perspective distortion, data deeciency, and corruption caused by shadows and occlusions. Combined with t...

This paper describes a parallel implementation of a texture segmentation algorithm. The algorithm uses a Pearl Bayes Network (PBN) to combine evidence for the location of urban regions in airborne infra-red linescan images and for the location of driveable regions in autonomous land vehicle imagery. A multilevel PBN approach is introduced and followed by an example which is used to illustrate t...