Resources about Shen Castan algorithm - algorithm

I have started some simple project about Text Detection in images. And one of steps in solving this problem is implementation of Edge detector. I wanted to implement Shen Castan, because it gives better results with noisy images. Problem is that I cannot find anywhere some usefull resources about this algorithm. Does anyone knows how Shan Castan works ? Or have some article about this ?
Thanks in Advance

It's quite expensive, but if you're serious about edge detection, I'd highly recommended the book Algorithms for Image Processing and Computer Vision. It's a techniques cookbook, and also comes with a CD of C source code implementations. Here's a review that specifically mentions the Canny and Shen-Castan techniques.

This describes both the Canny and Shen-Castan methods: http://www.comput-vision.net/Computer.vision-Advanced.Edge/

Related

Material and Information to improve algorithmic knowledge

Lately I have been stuck on improving my algorithmic skills. And at this point I am finding myself out of good material for solving grid problems based on dfs and bsf. I somehow managed to do http://www.spoj.pl/problems/POUR1/ with a brute force logic but i recently go-ogled to find out that the problem can be done by bfs. But I can't figure out exactly how to go about it. Can someone please provide some text to read or some kind of explanation to the above mentioned problem so I can add this to my skill set. It would be extremely kind if you could even help me out for these techniques in problems like these http://www.codechef.com/problems/MMANT/ .please help as soon as possible I am really stuck in these kind of problems ant can't move on. It would also be really kind if u could provide a list of good questions about Binary Indexed Trees and segment trees and some more examples of their usage.
Thanks for the help!! :)
One resource I've found useful is The Algorithmist:
The Algorithmist is a resource dedicated to anything algorithms - from
the practical realm, to the theoretical realm. There are also links
and explanation to problemsets.
Also The Algorithm Design Manual by Steve Skiena is extremely useful, especially the second part.

Algorithm for genogram

I am developing a ruby program that should be able to draw a genogram on a web page.
I am therefore looking for an algorithm for drawing a genogram or a similar tree-structure.
I prefer an algorithm in ruby but also other languages will do or some references explaning the principles behind such an algorithm
A recursive algorithm in c++ has been published here but it is not documented in a way that allows me to use it.
Any help about how to implement a genogram would be much apriciated
AFAIK, the canonical work on rendering trees is "Drawing Dynamic Trees" by Sven Moen. You should be able to find the paper or an implementation of his polyline algorithm with a bit of googling.
You could also have a look at Graphviz as that can handle trees as well as arbitrary graphs.

Are there any standard algorithms or techniques to create Thinkmap/Constellation-style software

I'm not talking about utilising them to browse my own data set. I'm talking about actually writing one. Are there algorithms for where the circles move and how they move around slickly and in such a liquid way. If anyone could even point me towards a book or a general area that would be great because I don't know where to start!
You can find examples of each at:
http://asterisq.com/products/constellation/framework/implementations
and
http://www.visualthesaurus.com
What you're looking at is called a force-directed graph. Google for that and you should find some helpful documentation. The math is surprisingly straightforward.
(By munificent on Games Development Stack Exchange)

Where can I learn more about "ant colony" optimizations?

I've been reading things here and there for a while now about using an "ant colony" model as a heuristic approach to optimizing various types of algorithms. However, I have yet to find an article or book that discusses ant colony optimizations in an introductory manner, or even in a lot of detail. Can anyone point me at some resources where I can learn more about this idea?
On the off chance that you know German (yes, sorry …), a friend and I have written an introduction with code about this subject which I myself find quite passable. The text and code uses the example of TSP to introduce the concept.
Even if you don't know German, take a look at the code and the formulas in the text, this might still serve.
link Wikipedia actually got me started. I read the article and got to coding. I was solving a wicked variation of the traveling salesman problem. It's an amazing meta-heuristic. Basically, any type of search problem that can be put into a graph (nodes & edges, symmetric or not) can be solved with an ACO.
Look out for the difference between global and local pheromone trails. Local pheromones discourage one generation of ants from traversing the same path. They keep the model from converging. Global pheromones are attractors and should snag at least one ant per generation. They encourage optimum paths over several generations.
The best suggestion I have, is simply to play with the algorithm. Setup a basic TSP solver and some basic colony visualization. Then have some fun. Working with ants, conceptually, is way cool. You program their basic behaviors and then set them loose. I even grow fond of them. :)
ACOs are a greedier form of genetic algorithms. Play with them. Alter their communicative behaviors and pack behavior. You'll rapidly begin to see network / graph programming in an entirely different way. That's their biggest benefit, not the recipe that most people see it as.
You just gotta play with it to really understand it. Books & research papers only give a general sky-high understanding. Like a bike, you just gotta start riding. :)
ACOs, by far, are my favorite abstraction for graph problems.
National Geographic wrote an interesting article awhile back talking about some of the theories.
The best resource for these topics is Google scholar. Ive been working on Ant Colony Optimization algorithms for a while, here are some good papers:
Ant Colony Optimization - A New Metaheuristic
Ant Colony Optimization - Artificial Ants as a Computational Intelligence Technique
Just search for "Ant Colony" on google scholar.
Also, search for papers published by Marco Dorigo.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned the bible of ACO:
Marco Dorigo & Thomas Stützle: Ant Colony Optimization
This book is written by the author of ACO and it is highly readable. You can take it to the beach and have fun reading it. But it is also the most complete resource of all, great as a reference when implementing the thing.
You can read some excerpts on Google Books
Another great source of wisdom is the ACO Homepage
See for example this article on scholarpedia.
There is also discussion here in the What is the most efficient way of finding a path through a small world graph? question.
At first glance this seems to be closely related to (or prehaps a special case of) the Metropolis algorithm. So that's another possible direction for searching.
Addition: This PDF file includes a reference to the original Metropolis paper from 1953.
Well, i found the Homepage of Eric Rollins and his different Implementations (Haskell, Scala, Erlang,...) of a ACO Algorithm helpfull.
And also the Book from Enrique Alba, titled "Parallel Metaheuristics: A New Class of Algorithms" where you can find a whole chapter of explanation about ACO Algorithms and their different usages.
Hth

Fast FEM Solvers

What are the fast solvers for FEM equations? I would prefer open source implementation, but if there is a commercial implementation, then I won't mind paying for it.
Code Aster is an open source FE code. code aster
The pre- and post-processing is usually done with Salome - both originate from EDF.
How about FEAP. It has full source code available when you purchase it. It is pretty big project, maybe its too much for your needs, but check it out.
FEAP is a general purpose finite
element analysis program which is
designed for research and educational
use. Source code of the full program
is available for compilation using
Windows (Compaq or Intel compiler),
LINUX or UNIX operating systems, and
Mac OS X based Apple systems.
It has also a Personal Edition called FEAPpv available for free, including source code. Differences between those versions are listed in this pdf.
"brad"? do you mean "broad"?
you don't say if your problem is linear or non-linear. that'll make a very big difference.
the solver depends on the type of equation and the size of your problem. for elliptical pdes you can choose standard linear algebra techniques like lu decomposition, iterative methods like successive over relaxation, or wavefront solvers that minimize memory consumption.
some people like solving non-linear steady-state problems as if they were dynamics problems. the idea is to create "fake" mass and damping matricies and use explicit time integration to converge to steady state.
lots of choices. standard linear algebra is a good starting point.
language? java?
Oops, that's kind of a brad question.
Solving differential equations usually starts with analyzing equation itself. Some equations are notoriously difficult to solve efficiently, e.g. indifinite boundary problems.
So if you have something else than an elliptic problem, you'll might better prepare for hard times ahead.
Next important and crutial part is transfering the contiouus problem into a discrete mesh. Typically the accuracy of your results will vary with different ways to generate this mesh. You'll need some sound experience here.
So I'd say there is nothing like the fast slover for FEM equations. Anyway, while Wikipedia gives a short overview of the topic, you might perhaps also have a look a the german Wikipedia page. It lists well-known FEM implementations.
OpenFoam and Elmer are two open source solvers. Not sure about Elmer, but I think OpenFoam might uses the control volume approach.
I used OpenFOAM for fluid dynamics research. You can do parallel processing with it with MPI. And if you have a Cray T3E it will be fast!
It's open source :D
http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/features.html#features
Please have look for Deal.II open source library:
http://www.dealii.org/
They provide also VirtualBox image which comes pre-installed libs.

Resources