The present chapter is an introduction to the book. The subject we propose has seen an exploded interest since last decade from research community in computer vision and multimedia indexing. From the field of video quality assessment where models of Human Visual System (HVS) were generally used to predict where humans will foveate and how will they perceive the degradation, these methods moved to classical Image and Video Indexing and retrieval tasks, recognition of objects, events, actions in images and video. In this book we try to give the most complete overview of the methods for visual information indexing and retrieval using prediction of visual attention or saliency. But also consider new approaches specifically designed for these tasks.
With the advent of low volume, low cost desk top copiers, a low cost transfer system is needed. The present invention uses a brush having conductive bristles, and a low voltage source, the brush being mounted adjacent to, but not in contact with a photoreceptor. A copy sheet is directed toward the bristles to deflect the bristles so that the bristles are in contact with the back side of the copy sheet as it contacts the toner image on the photoreceptor. Immediately before the trailing edge of the copy sheet moves out of contact with the photoreceptor, the brush is returned to its original position without contacting the photoreceptor.
A subtractive photographic printer is capable of providing extremely short exposure time by coordinating the operation of a shutter and color filters. The shutter is normally positioned in the light path, and is driven out of the light path at the beginning of an exposure cycle. The exposure in each color channel is terminated by driving the color filter associated with that color channel into the light path in a direction which is essentially the same as the direction in which the shutter was driven out of the light path. In addition, the filter is driven into the light path at essentially the same rate at which the shutter was driven out of the path. The exposure time for the color channel is determined by the time delay between actuation of the shutter drive and actuation of the filter drive, since the shutter and the filter move in the same direction and at essentially the same rate. It is possible, therefore, to achieve exposure times which are shorter than the time required to drive the shutter out of the light path or the filter into the light path, since the exposure time is determined by the time delay between actuation of the shutter drive and the filter drive, rather than the response times of the shutter and filter drive.
