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The King of Pop: The Life & Times of Michael Jackson view
20 Sweet Father's Day Moments That Made Us Smile view
Happy 20th Anniversary: Holly Robinson & Rodney Peete Over the Years view
Sharon Leal's character Cleo serenades the crowd in a scene with Samuel L....
Sharon Leal's character Cleo serenades the crowd in a scene with Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac in "Soul Men."
"Bernie would do this great impression of Sam Jackson and he had him down," she says of being on set with the comedian. "Bernie was good at keeping things rolling along with the long hours on set; he kept us entertained. We've lost a phenomenal guy and to watch his farewell performance is amazing."
Read our exclusive interview with Sharon Leal »
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text:
Browse Italeri
While no Soviet or Russian equivalent to the US F-117A Stealth Fighter is
known to exist, this model is a conception of what such an aircraft might look
like. The model has been designed from extensive research into the
capabilities of the Soviet aircraft industry, as well as Western publications
on the Soviet defense industry. As conceptualized, the MiG-37B would have a
similar mission profile and capabilities to its U.S. counterpart, the F-117A.
1/72nd scale for static display - Skill Level 2.
51 parts in black and clear with raised and recessed panel lines.
Interior detail: Single piece cockpit tub, separate instrument panel,
3 piece seat, control stick, and optional position canopy.
Detailed landing gear, wheel wells, and "platypus" exhaust outlet.
Optional position speed brakes and missile bay doors.
OPTIONS: One decal sheet with two marking options:
1: Low Visility Aicraft, #36, Soviet AF.
2: All-Black Aircraft, "Red 36", Soviet AF.
Airframe Colors:
1: Overall Gull Grey with White undersides.
2: Overall Flat Black.
Detail Colors:
White, Olive Drab, Grey, Yellow, Red, Dk Grey, Khaki, Silver.
One 1/72 MiG-37B Conceptual Soviet Stealth Fighter
Hobby Knife
Paint (see MARKING OPTIONS)
Cement for plastics (TESR3512)
Nice-to-have tools: Needle File Set, Sprue Cutter, Airbrush and
Associated Accessories
Scale: 1/72
Wingspan: 7-1/4" (18.3cm)
Length: 11" (27.9cm)
san 7/3/00

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Aperture Ireland version 2.0Jun 30, 2014 Full Version 7 comments
This is a full download of version two of this mod. It contains new features and is easier to get up and running. This is a ZIP archive, which usually...
Aperture Ireland tells the story of a test subject in one of Aperture's regional branches. Solve puzzles and dodge bullets as you start to unravel the facility's dark secret.
Current State of progress:
0 comments by PluMGMK on Jun 30th, 2014
This is just to announce on the news page of this mod that the new version has been released, uploaded to the site!
Most of the relevant information is in the file's description, but I might as well share a few thoughts here too.
I promised SteamPipe support, but it seems Valve didn't want to co-operate here. Even with the GNU/Linux beta of Portal 2, the VPK format remains incompatible with that used in Orange Box games. Therefore, my dream of simply mounting assets from HL2 and Portal 1 into this game has been crushed - to mitigate this, I have packed necessary assets in with the mod, which is something I never wanted to have to do. Anyway, this means that the mod, like any good mod, is now just "drop in and go" on any OS that supports Portal 2!
There are two outstanding issues, which in my opinion are quite minor. I will no longer be searching for solutions, or actively developing this mod. If solutions come my way, I will implement them and release version 2.1, otherwise, this is the final version of the mod!
This is a full download of version two of this mod. It contains new features and is easier to get up and running. This is a ZIP archive, which usually...
This is the full download for version 1.1 - please use this and not the original below. This is a 7-zip archive, which needs 7-zip to extract, and installation...
This is the setup file for the full version of Aperture Ireland. It is a self-extracting archive that runs a simple installer tool and automatically does...
I'm stuck at test chamber 11. I've got the Exotic Matter Cube to the ball receiver but I can't figure out how to get the ball to go into the receiver. Any suggestions?
EDIT: The BBcodes work, so I removed the warnings. Anyway, I was looking at a screenshot, and I saw Button L - Eject Ball. Shame on Valve for removing the HUD hints! It ruins Portal 2's intro, too - you know when it would tell you that Space was to talk but in reality it would jump? When I played it for the first time I loved it, but then it disappeared!
I don't think you should blame Valve - that is definitely not supposed to happen. Are you sure you didn't turn them off yourself (via the console) and forget to turn them back on?
I didn't. Do you know what the console command is to turn them back on?
I think it's "cl_showhint 1".
Okay, thanks. Sorry it took me so long to reply, but I kinda forgot to watch this comment.
That didn't work, but I shouldn't be asking you about it -- it's not your fault. I'll go ask someone at Steam Support. Thanks anyway.
Good stuff! Check what key is set for load last save! Mine was f7...
The only thing I need is a uninstaller which would completely clean my PC from this litterbug mod.
yea, i agree. it''s a peice of garbage.
Some cool looking custom chamber elements, I'll be giving it a go when download is up.
And, y'know, Ireland's in the name. I have to try it. :D
There are some very interresting concepts and ideas that you worked into this mod. I can say, just by looking at the images, that I'm going to like this mod. :3
im from ireland
wheew ireland is cool i like it
I can do playtesting and maybe music
What kind of music?
Promote Aperture Ireland on your homepage or blog by selecting a button and using the embed code provided (more).


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Free business breakfast planned at KSU City Center
October 7, 2010 SALEM—A free business breakfast, sponsored by Kent Salem Workforce Development and Continuing Studies, will be held from 7:45 to 9 a.m. Oct. more »»
First Cruze rolls off Lordstown line
September 8, 2010 LORDSTOWN — Hailing the moment as the rebirth of the American economy, General Motors Co. more »»
Professional Engine Systems deals with industrial strength solutions
August 29, 2010 Bill Hendricks of Professional Engine Systems in Canfield which sells, rents, services and repairs engine from one-liter up to 154 liters, and generators of all sizes, says, "Usually when people get... more »»
August 1, 2010 Consign and Design relocates to Poland POLAND—Diane Young and Stacey Duber of Consign and Design are announcing the relocation of their upscale furniture consignment store. more »»
Big hopes, big hurdles — Workers to begin building GM's Cruze at LordstownBig hopes, big hurdles — Workers to begin building GM's Cruze at Lordstown
July 11, 2010 WARREN — The launch of the Lordstown-built Cruze is being carefully watched by everyone from General Motors Corp. more »»
SHS graduate Gabriel appointed hospital's chief operating officer
July 4, 2010 COLUMBIA CITY, Ind.—Scott Gabriel has been named the new chief operating officer of Parkview Whitley Hospital in Columbia City, Ind. more »»
Creditors cry foul over Forum sale
June 20, 2010 Forum Health's secured and unsecured creditors both objected Friday to the hospital system's effort to have the bankruptcy court approve procedures for its proposed sale to Ardent Health Service. more »»
East Palestine officials eye business area restrictions
June 20, 2010 EAST PALESTINE — City officials can do nothing to stop a storage business from opening shop on South Market Street, but some want to prevent any more from popping up downtown. more »»
Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell's L'Italien named 2010 ATHENA Award recipient
May 23, 2010 BOARDMAN — Before a crowd of more than 700 at Mr. Anthony's in Boardman Thursday Atty. Shawna L. L'Italien, member of the law firm Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell, Ltd. more »»
Blanton named president, chief operating officer of Quaker Mfg. Corp. in Salem
May 9, 2010 SALEM — Chairman Christopher Smith recently annouced the appointment of William D. Blanton as president and chief operating officer of Quaker Mfg. Corp. in Salem. Quaker Mfg. Corp. more »»
Chinese wind turbine company visits area
April 24, 2010 YOUNGSTOWN - A Chinese company that makes wind turbines visited the Mahoning Valley on Thursday and Friday for a ''very exploratory look'' at the area, a Regional Chamber official said Friday. more »»
Kiko Classic Car Auctions participate during Auto-Rama
April 18, 2010 CLEVELAND—On March 20, the auction crew from Kiko Classic Car Auctions pushed classic vehicles 26 years and older in front of the Kiko auction block at the Cleveland I-X Center during the 44th Annua... more »»
April 18, 2010 Fellman named president of ADAEO BOARDMAN—The Automobile Dealers Association of Eastern Ohio, which represents new car and truck dealers in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties,... more »»
Dr. Ward receives University Research Professorship from University of Kentucky trustees
April 11, 2010 Former New Waterford resident Dr. more »»
Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell Ltd lawyers receive recognition
February 7, 2010 YOUNGSTOWN—Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell Ltd recently announced that three of its business litigation lawyers have been recognized on the 2010 Ohio Super Lawyers lists of outstanding lawyer. more »»
The MATLET Group achieves national recognition; owned by West Branch graduate
January 3, 2010 The MATLET Group, the nation's largest minority-owned commercial printing company, and Corporate Plus member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council and DiversityBusiness. more »»
Army official: No decision yet on tile
December 9, 2009 LISBON — A federal official says a final decision has yet to be made in the case of a local tile manufacturer that maintains it lost a no-bid government contract to a foreign competitor. more »»
Columbiana Buick Cadillac Chevrolet awarded GM Mark of Excellence
September 6, 2009 COLUMBIANA—General Motors continues to recognize superior performance and takes pride in rewarding dealerships for their accomplishments. more »»
GM adds 2nd shift
August 19, 2009 LORDSTOWN — Rebounding demand for the Chevrolet Cobalt, plus the desire for a smooth launch of the all-new Chevrolet Cruze in April, is driving the recall of 1,000 hourly and 50 salaried workers to... more »»
Sebo named Chair of BGSU Board of Trustees
July 6, 2009 BOWLING GREEN, O.— Robert Sebo, Salem resident and retired executive of Paychex Inc., has been named chairman of the Board of Trustees of Bowling Green State University. more »»


text:
|3 posts found
Hard Core Member
Joined: 6/10/13
Now im not saying that CCP are important, but when country allows you erect a monument in honor of your games players you must have some pull lol
Now dont take this as gospel, But i did read somewhere that Icelands largest income / company was actually CCP - I cannot find it, but remember hearing/reading something, but this is cool dont care who you are :) lol
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game :) were of course your welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Login or Register to never see this panel
Advanced Member
Joined: 7/18/04
Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. -Lao Tzu
No, CCP isn't all powerful...
I toured Iceland summer after my Junior year in college as part of the GeoSci department at the University of Chicago; Iceland is something of a super-hotspot of geological activity. I got to follow the work of Jan Hospers, who as I understand it did much pioneering work in the field of magnetic stratigraphy, riding around old paleo-basaltic lava flows with a motorcycle, magnetometer, and stereonet graph paper.
Reykjavik and Iceland as a whole holds a lot of stark beauty, and it's easy to see how at least some of this environmental essence may have found its way into Eve. Some of the weaponry looks a bit like the northern lights I've seen cover the sky up there. I wouldn't be surprised if Eve was Iceland's biggest export, having spent a month and circuiting the entire country.
I admire the game, but that doesn't mean it's something I would play. It sounds like a contradiction, but I'm the type that would lose myself in Eve. The closest I've come is watching player-made videos on Youtube, and reading articles in Forbes magazine.
Novice Member
Joined: 8/17/09
"A very special kind of stupidity"
Iceland's GNP is about 13 billion dollars per year. CCP has a turnover of rather less than 100 million dollars per year. CCP is therefore roughly 0.5% of Iceland's GNP - a useful source of foreign exhange income, but I think it's pretty safe to say that there are much larger Icelandic companies.
Give me liberty or give me lasers


text:
|Artist: Soundtrack (Explicit Version)
Learn more about Heavy Metal 2000 (Bonus Tracks) (Limited Edition) (Explicit Version):
Format: CD
Manufacturer: Bmg/restle
Sku: 60399356
Release Date: 4/18/2000
See more in Soundtracks & Scores
Song Listing
Disc 1
Song Title
1. F.A.K.K. U - F.A.K.K. U ~ Original Soundtrack
2. Silver Future - Monster Magnet ~ Original Soundtrack
3. Missing Time - MDFMK ~ Original Soundtrack
4. Immortally Insane - Pantera ~ Original Soundtrack
5. Inside The Pervert Mound - Zilch ~ Original Soundtrack
6. Dirt Ball - Insane Clown Posse/Twiztid ~ Original Soundtrack
7. Storaged - System Of A Down ~ Original Soundtrack
8. Rough Day - Days Of The New ~ Original Soundtrack
9. Psychosexy - Sinisstar ~ Original Soundtrack
10. Infinity - Queens Of The Stone Age ~ Original Soundtrack
11. Alcoholocaust - Machine Head ~ Original Soundtrack
12. Green Iron Fist - Full Devil Jacket ~ Original Soundtrack
13. Hit Back - Hate Dept. ~ Original Soundtrack
14. Tirale - Puya ~ Original Soundtrack
15. Dystopia - Apartment 26 ~ Original Soundtrack
16. Buried Alive - Billy Idol ~ Original Soundtrack
17. Wishes - Coal Chamber ~ Original Soundtrack
18. Dog's A Vapour, The - Bauhaus ~ Original Soundtrack
Album Notes and Credits
Notes & Personnel Info
|Includes liner notes by Kevin Eastman.
|Nineteen years ago, the movie "Heavy Metal" broke new ground in film animation. Its accompanying soundtrack gathered some of the hottest rock acts of the time, although the likes of Devo, Donald Fagen, and Don Felder could hardly be considered either hard rock or metal. Now, HEAVY METAL 2000 has rectified the situation as metal and industrial acts unite on an ear-splitting album.
|Maintaining the values of the original film, "F.A.K.K. U" is an extreme aural breach that screams sex, drugs and rock & roll. Monster Magnet's rock radio hit "Silver Future" starts off in a deceptively mellow mood, until it's overtaken by Dave Wyndorf's slashing guitar riffs. Pantera stokes the metal tradition with its pounding, aggressive "Immortally Insane," while Days Of The New inject their acoustic stylings into the proceedings on "Rough Day," and Queens Of The Stone Age proffer a psychedelic "Infinity." Billy Idol, who provides the voice for one of the film's main characters, retains his snarl and attitude on his first track in seven years, the appropriately-titled industrial workout "Buried Alive" with rap-metal represented by an Insane Clown Posse/Twiztid one-two punch on the anti-police "Dirt Ball."
Producer: Bruce Berman
Associated Artists and Works
|California Dreams
|Original Soundtrack
Technical Info
|Release Date : 04/18/2000
|Original Release Date : 2000
|Catalog ID : 73733
|Label : Restless Records (USA)
|Number of Discs : 1
|Studio/Live : Studio
|Mono/Stereo : Stereo
|SPAR Code : n/a
Professional Reviews
Alternative Press (5/00, p.92)
- 3 out of 5 - "...a pummel-fest from start to finish....a ball-breaking release."
- 3 out of 5 - "...a pummel-fest from start to finish....a ball-breaking release."


text:
$10 off $75 Home, Sports, School Supplies, Fashion, & Beauty - Back to School. Use promo code BACK2SCHOOL at checkout. Ends 7/8/2015.
Learn more about Mission Twin Low Loft Bed with Built-In Ladder and Tent, White, with Tent and Slide, Loft, Low Loft:
Manufacturer: Bolton Furniture
Mfg Part#: 9921500LT6TR
Sku: 246313449
Package Weight: 138 lbs
See more in Beds
|JON1296: Features: -Comes complete with slat roll.-Metal to metal connections.-With tree, tower, top tent, and bottom curtain.-No additional support necessary. Construction: -Veneers, solid wood, cotton construction.-Solid frame construction built-to-last. Dimensions: -Overall dimensions: 87" H x 43" W x 79" D. Collection: -Mission collection.


text:
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text:
Beyond: Two Souls
Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe star in PS3 exclusive, releasing on October 8.
Recommended for You
Summer Games Guide 2015 (17 photos)
Everyone loves summer — except gamers. Historically, the joyful three-month school break has been a video game wasteland. And while at first glance the summer of 2015 seems like another season of slim pickings, it kicks into gear in a huge way as we charge into the busy fall. Here are just some of…Yahoo Games (Media)
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Rise of the Tomb Raider (7 photos)
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Screenshots from the next-gen reboot of the classic racing series, set to release November 3.Yahoo Games (Media)
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Halo 5: Guardians (22 photos)
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Screenshots from the latest entry in Microsoft's hit sci-fi shooter series.Yahoo Games (Media)
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The latest chapter in the critically acclaimed DARK SOULS series will arrive on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in early 2016.Yahoo Games (Media)
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DOOM (6 photos)
Screenshots from Bethesda's upcoming update of the classic demons-on-Mars first-person shooter.Yahoo Games (Media)
Fallout 4 (24 photos)
Screenshots from the latest in Bethesda's epic post-apocalyptic action-RPG series. Set to release November 10, 2015.Yahoo Games (Media)
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The next Skylanders game revs up the action with 20 land, sea, and sky vehicles. It's due out September 20 for the Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and 3DS.Yahoo Games (Media)
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Star Wars headlines the next installment of Disney's toy/game hybird. It's due out this fall for the PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC, iOS and Android devices.Yahoo Games (Media)


text:
If you asked true blue Boston Red Sox fans during much of the 20th century if they would sell their soul to the devil in order to lift the famed "curse" from their team, you would probably get more than a few volunteers.
That's Joe DiPietro's wicked spin on the revival of the 1955 musical "Damn Yankees," which is now in previews at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam. (The show opens April 30 and continues to June 21.)
The folks at Goodspeed say this tweaking of the classic show is perfect for the theater because polls show the Connecticut residents' allegiance to the Yankees or Sox is split almost right down the Connecticut River with East Haddam being the center of that great divide.
In the original production of the show that features such familiar songs as "(You Gotta Have) Heart" and "Whatever Lola Wants", the Yankee team is portrayed as all powerful and their winning as inevitable. A middle-aged Washington Senators fan, exasperated at yet another losing season, makes the Faustian deal and is transformed into a young and vital slugger whose skills and spirit transforms the Senators, making them contenders against the invincible Yanks.
Eight years ago, DiPietro was approached by John Kimball, the executive director of the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass., about localizing the musical, switching the underdog team from the Senators to the Red Sox. (DiPietro's relationship with the theater went back to 2003 when the musical "Memphis" had its world premiere there. In 2010 it went on to win the Tony Award as best musical.)
"I thought it was a great idea because of the 'curse,' " says DiPietro in a recent telephone interview.
Ah, the curse, which legend has it, happened when the team owner sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees because he wanted to invest in a Broadway musical "No, No, Nanette." (It's not true but that's beside the point.) That's why the Sox, many believed, could never win the World Series. It was because of that damn Broadway musical.
The switch made the rivalry of the teams in the musical even more playful for local audiences. And even though the Sox have since gone on to win the World Series, the intensity of the rivalry still makes the script switch, well, a natural —- at least to East Coast fans.
"It was like a writer's dream," says DiPietro, adding he didn't tinker with any other aspect of the show. "This is not a rewrite."
DiPietro says the show was never in need of a fix, calling it "a great classic musical." But this single change —- which didn't require much tweaking in the script —- still needed the blessing from the license holders of the show.
Joy Abbott, the widow of George Abbott, who directed and co-wrote the script, gave the OK for a one-time-only production at the North Shore Music Theatre. (The Red Sox also gave the production permission to use its brand in the show.)
Approval was also given two years ago for a production at the Ogunquit (Maine) Playhouse. The Goodspeed show is the third major New England theater to receive the special dispensation to do this version.
DiPietro, who played baseball in Little League and says he's a Mets fan, says he identifies with the underdog. His own career was on the verge of collapsing when a little show that began at New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre —- "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" —- went on to be an off-Broadway and regional theater hit —- and changed the writer's life. Instead of giving up on theater and moving to Los Angeles, he hung in there writing many more shows, including Broadway's "All Shook Up" and off-Broadway's "The Thing About Men," "Over the River and Through the Woods" and "The Toxic Avenger."
"I never took anything for granted and tried to get better and stretch myself," says DiPietro.
Behind The Scenes Of 'Damn Yankees'
'Damn Yankees' Is A Love Story
DiPietro's relationship with Goodspeed goes back to 2000 when he scripted "They All Laughed," using existing music by George and Ira Gershwin. It was not a hit but years later he would rework it into the Broadway musical "Nice Work If You Can Get It."
DiPietro says one of the reason "Damn Yankees" works so well when other sports-themed musicals have flopped, is that it's not just a tale about teams. "It's a complicated love story," he says, pointing to the central relationship between the fan who gives up his life for the team and leaves his beloved wife behind.


text:
I've been saying I would do this for a while and finally got a chance over christmas, theres 100 in the set all on one massive artboard free for you lovely Dribbblers.
Attribution isn't necessary but will be much appreciated and i'd love to put them all in a bucket. Alternately tweet me a pic so I can see what you guys can do with them https://twitter.com/BannisterChris - I also have a couple more little things like this coming up so go there for updates.
More Chris Bannister
keyboard shortcuts: ← previous shot → next shot L or F like Z toggle zoom


text:
Think Like a Doctor: Limping Along Solved!
July 2, 2015
The deputy director of the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke lists five things everyone should know about strokes.
The findings show that humans' native revulsion to hurting others relies on a part of neural anatomy.
People with a rare injury expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others' lives.
Chris Ratuszny went home 16 days after an operation to treat a distended artery in his brain that was in danger of bursting and killing him.
Dr. Michael DeBakey, one of the first surgeons to perform a coronary bypass operation, is its oldest survivor.
Chris Ratuszny was the first person in the U.S. to undergo an operation involving the use of an excimer laser to treat a giant brain aneurysm.
Katrina Firlik, a neurosurgeon practicing in Connecticut, leads the reader on an engaging tour of human brains and the doctors who cut into them.
Cocaine users face a newly discovered and possibly fatal risk: coronary aneurysms, a ballooning of the walls of coronary arteries.
An influential medical group says all men ages 65 to 75 who have ever smoked need an ultrasound test to see if they have a condition that could quickly kill them.
It started with a rash, an odd scatter of itchy bumps across my 8-year-old daughter's arms, legs and bottom. She's prone to weird skin reactions, so I wasn't worried. As I slathered on the steroid cream, Soleil began to cry.


text:
A fingerprint image is divided into blocks of pixels. The blocks are determined to be within the foreground or background of the image. Each of the foreground blocks are assigned a block direction. If an image consists of the complete impression of the fingerprint, there should exist at least one path (ridge), composes of foreground blocks, which lies on both half planes of a coordinate system with an origin at the centroid of the foreground and that comes sufficiently close to the x axis once the path crosses to the second half plane of the coordinate system.
1. A system for determining from fingerprint images whether they are from partial prints comprising:
a computer comprising at least one central processing unit, at least one memory, and at least one input device;
at least one fingerprint image having a foreground and a background and being acquired by the input device and stored in the at least one memory; and
a partial process that operates on said computer for determining if the fingerprint image is a non partial image by determining whether there exists a path on the fingerprint image, the path beginning at a start point in a first half plane of a Cartesian coordinate system with an x and a y axis and an origin located at a centroid of the foreground, the path crossing to a second half plane of the coordinate system and only then coming within a distance threshold of the x axis.
2. A system, as in claim 1, where the foreground further comprises a plurality of foreground blocks each comprised of blocks of pixels in the foreground, the foreground blocks each having a direction, and the path being determined by the directions connecting a sequence of the foreground blocks.
3. A system, as in claim 2, where the path is comprised of at least one foreground block that changes direction by 90 degrees, and wherein the direction is replaced by the direction of a foreground block that immediately precedes, on the path, the block that changes direction by 90 degrees.
4. A system, as in claim 2, where the path is extended along one or more of the directions so that a change in direction along the path is minimized.
5. A system, as in claim 1, where the path represents a valley.
6. A system, as in claim 1, where the path represents a ridge.
7. A system, as in claim 1, where said at least one input device is comprised of at least one of a camera, an image scanner, and a second computer connected to a network in common with the system.
8. A system, as in claim 1, where the blocks comprise down-sampled subsets of pixels from an area on an original fingerprint image.
9. A system, as in claim 1, where the y axis is parallel to an orientation of the fingerprint.
10. A method of determining from a fingerprint image whether the fingerprint image is from a partial fingerprint, comprising the steps of:
selecting blocks of pixels in the fingerprint image and determining which of the selected blocks are foreground blocks, the foreground blocks being in a foreground of the image;
assigning a direction to each of the foreground blocks;
constructing a Cartesian coordinate system with an x axis, a y axis, and an origin that is located at a centroid of the foreground; and
determining if the fingerprint image is a non partial image by determining whether there exists a path on the fingerprint image, the path beginning at a start point in a first half plane of the coordinate system, and passing to a second half plane of the coordinate system only after which the path comes within a distance threshold of the x axis.
11. A method for processing an image of a fingerprint, comprising steps of:
obtaining an image of a fingerprint, the image being comprised of pixels;
processing the fingerprint image to partition the image into blocks of pixels each specified to be one of a background block or a foreground block;
further processing foreground blocks to obtain regions each comprised of set of contiguous foreground blocks wherein the pixels of a block exhibit a prominent directionality, the regions being located in the foreground of the fingerprint image;
weighting blocks as a function of distance from a centroid of the foreground;
determining a quality measure for the fingerprint image by computing a ratio of a summation of total weights of blocks exhibiting a prominent directionality to a summation of the weights of the foreground blocks; and
directing further processing of the fingerprint image based on the determined quality measure by comparing the determined quality measure to a quality threshold;
wherein if the determined quality measure is greater than the quality threshold, the step of directing further processing is comprised of a step of performing a partial fingerprint analysis of the fingerprint image;
wherein the partial fingerprint analysis comprises steps of,
constructing a Cartesian coordinate system with an x axis, a y axis, and an origin that is located at the centroid of the foreground; and
determining that the fingerprint image is a non-partial fingerprint image by locating a path on the fingerprint image, the path beginning at a start point in a first half plane of the coordinate system, and passing to a second half plane of the coordinate system only after which the path approaches to within a predetermined distance threshold of the x axis, the path being comprised of a set of blocks that are connected by their associated block directions.
12. A method as in claim 11, wherein the predetermined distance threshold is three blocks.
13. A method as in claim 11, where the path is comprised of a foreground block that changes direction by 90 degrees, and wherein the direction of the foreground block that changes direction by 90 degrees is replaced by the direction of an immediately preceding foreground block on the path.
This invention relates to the field of image processing. More specifically, the invention relates to a system and method for processing fingerprint images and rejecting partial fingerprint images.
There exist systems that accomplish automatic verification or identification of a person using his/her fingerprint. A fingerprint of a person comprises a distinctive and unique ridge pattern structure. For identification/verification purposes, ridge pattern structure could be characterized by endings and bifurcations of the individual ridges. These features are popularly known as minutiae. An example fingerprint is shown in FIG. 1A; the minutiae for the fingerprint shown in FIG. 1A are shown in FIG. 1B as being enclosed by "boxes." For example, box 101B shows a bifurcation minutia of a bifurcated ridge 101A in FIG. 1A and box 103B shows a ridge ending minutia of ridge 103A in FIG. 1A. Note that minutiae on the ridges in fingerprints have directions (also called orientations) 105 associated with them. The direction of the minutia at a ridge end 103B is the direction in which the end of the ridge points. The direction of a bifurcation minutia 101B is the direction in which the bifurcated ridge points. Minutiae also have locations which are the positions of the minutiae on the fingerprint with respect to some coordinate system.
The prevalent methods of fingerprint identification and verification methods are based on minutiae features. These systems need to process the fingerprint images to obtain accurate and reliable minutiae features to effectively determine or verify the identity of a person.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the steps generally performed by a typical prior art system 200.
In step 210, the image is acquired. This acquisition of the image could either be through a CCD camera and framegrabber interface or through a document scanner communicating with the primary computing equipment.
Once the image is acquired into the computer memory or onto disk, relevant features minutia features are extracted (220). Not all of the features thus extracted are reliable. Some of the unreliable features are optionally pruned (step 230), e.g., manually edited. The resultant reliable features are used for matching two fingerprint images (step 240). That is, matching the acquired fingerprint image with stored minutiae representations of previously acquired fingerprint images.
In semi-automatic systems, the unreliable features could be manually pruned by visual inspection of the processed fingerprint images by a human expert before the minutiae are used for matching (step 240). The fingerprint feature extraction, pruning, and matching system constitute the primary backbone of a typical minutiae-based Automatic Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS). The matching results are typically verified by a human expert (step 260 in FIG. 2). The verification may also be performed automatically. The following reference describes examples of the state of the prior art:
Nalini K. Ratha and Shaoyun Chen and Anil K. Jain, Adaptive flow orientation based texture extraction in fingerprint images, Pattern Recognition, vol. 28, no. 11, pp. 1657-1672, November, 1995.
This reference is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the prior art steps performed by a feature extraction process that are similar to some of the feature extraction proposed by Ratha, Jain, and Chen in the above mentioned article.
It is often not desirable to directly use the input fingerprint image for feature extraction. The fingerprint image might need an enhancement or preprocessing before one could further extract minutiae. Typically, an image smoothing process is employed to reduce the pixel-wise noise by assuming spatial pixel correlation (step 305).
After the preprocessing stages, prior art systems find the directions of the ridge flow (step 310). The next important step in the processing is finding the exact location of the finger in the image, a process referred to as the foreground/ background segmentation (step 315). Once the finger is localized, the next step is to extract the ridges from the finger image (step 320). The ridges thus extracted are thick and might contain some noisy artifacts which do not correspond to any meaningful structures on the finger. The small structures could be safely removed (step 325). The longer structures are thinned to one-pixel width and then processed to remove any other artifacts using morphological operators (step 330). The locations and orientations of ridge endings and bifurcations are then extracted from the thinned structures (step 335) to obtain the minutiae. In some systems, post-processing 340 is performed on the extracted minutiae.
Some prior art systems fail to correctly image fingerprints that have scars, other imperfections, or are fingerprint impressions of one of the sides of a finger, rather than the center of finger (hereafter, such a print is referred to as "partial print"). Also, some prior art fails to overcome problems with optics, lighting and image acquisition (e.g., finger contact). Accordingly, there are a large number of poor quality images produced by these systems. Therefore, these systems are not effective because the matching based on these poor quality features, or subsets of features, is poor. It is therefore critical to design an automatic scheme that examines the quality of an acquired fingerprint image before it is processed so that fingerprints with poor quality caused by conditions like partial impressions or poor condition of the finger (too dry, too wet) can thereafter be identified and rejected.
For instance, FIG. 4A is a prior art drawing of a typical fingerprint 400 of poor quality. Specifically, region 410A is smudged. This smudging is common in fingerprints and can be caused by excessive pressure, sweat, excess ink, skin diseases, etc. FIG. 5A is a prior art drawing of another typical fingerprint of poor quality. Region 510A is caused by dryness of the finger in which case very little impression is produced in the image. Other reasons for poor quality regions include: poor optics, poor illumination, motion blur, etc. FIGS. 4B and 5B are prior art drawings of the unreliable minutia that result from the poor quality fingerprint in FIGS. 4A and 5A, respectively. Both images have excess minutiae (410B, 510B) from the smudging 410A and from the dryness 510A. These "noisy" fingers result in a number of unreliable minutiae, i.e., the minutiae do not uniquely identify their respective fingerprint and therefore cannot be reliably matched to minutiae in a database that were extracted from an image of the same finger.
Furthermore, it is desirable to determine if an image of a fingerprint is produced by capturing only a portion of the fingerprint. In these cases, the image quality of the portion of the fingerprint ("partial print") can be high but the portion will not contain all of the minutia of the fingerprint. For example, FIGS. 6A and 6B are two partial impressions of separate portions of the same finger. Each impression has good quality but lacks minutiae (610A, 620B) that exist in the other impression. Specifically, FIG. 6A shows the left part of a finger, while FIG. 6B shows of the right part of the same finger. Again, such fingerprint images are referred to as "partial prints." Irrespective of how reliable the extracted minutiae are, there are not many common minutiae to be matched and therefore, use of these partial impressions can lead to non-identification or non-verification. Prior art does not recognize or address this problem.
An object of this invention is an accurate and reliable fingerprint image pre-processing system that detects images containing partial prints.
An object of this invention is an accurate and reliable fingerprint image pre-processing system that quantifies fingerprint image quality.
Another object of this invention is an accurate and reliable fingerprint image pre-processing system that quantifies fingerprint image quality and reject images of poor quality, one reason for poor quality can be that the print is a partial print.
The invention is a computer system and method that determines a quality measure of a fingerprint image by dividing the image into blocks of pixels. (The invention permits the blocks to be created by down sampling pixels from the original image.) The blocks are determined to be within the foreground or background of the image. Each foreground block is assigned a direction/orientation. One embodiment of the invention makes these determinations by summing the intensity differences between the pixels in the block and their neighbors along one or more directions to classify the pixels as either foreground or background pixels. Blocks with over a threshold number of background pixels are background blocks, the other blocks are foreground blocks.
First a Cartesian coordinate system is constructed with its origin located at the centroid of the foreground. In one preferred embodiment, the y axis of the fingerprint is parallel to the long axis of the fingerprint. If an image is a complete impression of the fingerprint, there should exist at least one path (ridge) which lies on both half planes (left and right half planes) with respect to the constructed coordinate system and which begins close to or crossing the x axis in a first half plane and comes sufficiently close to the x axis again only after crossing into the second half plane.
In a preferred embodiment, the directions of foreground blocks are used to define the path. Specifically, a path is defined to be a sequence of blocks whose member blocks are connected by the associated block directions. Then the path is determined to exist or not exist in both the right and left half planes about the centroid. If this path exists and passes within the distance threshold of the x axis only after crossing into the second half plane, the fingerprint image is determined to be complete (non partial).
The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the drawings that include the following:
FIG. 1A is a prior art drawing of a typical fingerprint.
FIG. 1B is a prior art drawing showing minutia of the fingerprint in FIG. 1A.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the method steps performed by a typical prior art system.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the prior art steps performed by an feature extraction process.
FIG. 4A is a prior art drawing of a typical poor quality fingerprint image where the poor quality is the result of smudginess of the finger that is imaged.
FIG. 4B is a prior art drawing of the unreliable minutia that result from the poor quality fingerprint in FIG. 4A.
FIG. 5A is a prior art drawing of a typical poor quality fingerprint image where the poor quality is the result of dryness of the finger that is imaged.
FIG. 5B is a prior art drawing of the unreliable minutia that result from the poor quality fingerprint in FIG. 5A.
FIG. 6A is a prior art drawing of a (portion) left part of a fingerprint, i.e., "partial print."
FIG. 6B is a prior art drawing of a (portion) right part of a fingerprint, i.e., "partial print."
FIG. 7 is a block diagram of one preferred embodiment of the present system.
FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the steps performed by the fingerprint quality checker.
FIG. 8A is a flow chart showing a preferred embodiment of image segmentation and block direction determination.
FIG. 8B is a flow chart showing the steps for determining whether a fingerprint image contains a complete or partial impression.
FIG. 9 is a figure showing the sets of neighboring pixels for four directions.
FIG. 10 is an illustration of a fingerprint with directional blocks used in a quality measurement.
FIG. 11 is a figure illustrating how to identify an image containing only partial impressions.
FIG. 12 is a drawing that shows how to resolve the ambiguities in directions of fixed size regions.
FIG. 13 is a drawing that shows how abrupt changes in block directions are handled.
Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 7, there is shown the block diagram representation of a general computer hardware environment that is used as the image processing system 700. This computer 710 may be one of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of Personal Computers, a RISC System/6000, or Power Parallel System (SP/x), or equivalent. The system 700 includes one or more central processing units (CPU) 715, which may conform to any general computer architecture (e.g., Intel or a reduced instruction set microprocessor.) The CPU 715 is attached to a system bus (not shown) to which are attached a read/write and/or random access memory (RAM) 720 that can include one or more cache memories, a read only memory (ROM) 740, and an input/output adapter 725. The RAM 720 provides temporary storage for one or more application program processes 800 (FIG. 8) containing code and/or data while the ROM typically includes the basic input/output system (BIOS) code. Direct Access Storage Devices (DASDs), here represented by hard disk drive 730, are also connected to the CPU by appropriate adapter (not shown.) The hard disk drive 730 typically stores the computer's operating system (OS), such as IBM's OS/2 operating system, and various application programs, data, and/or databases. These databases include intermediate results and fingerprint image data 735. Typically, the input/output adapter 725 has attached to it a keyboard 727, a mouse 728, and/or other user interface devices (not shown).
The system 700 also can include a display 738, here represented as a cathode ray tube (CRT) display but which may be a liquid crystal display (LCD) or other suitable display and/or graphic user interface (GUI) 738. The display 738 is connected to the system bus via a display adapter.
The computer 710 is also interfaced with a framegrabber 750 and an image acquisition device, e.g. a camera 760, arrangement to capture the fingerprint image into the computer memory/disk. Alternatively, the computer might be communicating with a document scanning device 765 that scans the fingerprint image 766 from a document 770 like an inked fingerprint card 770. Any other known means can be used to enter a fingerprint image to the memory 735, e.g., transmitting an image over a network 786 to the system 700 from another computer 710A, e.g., a server 710A, that is connected to the network 786 and has access to one or more databases 787.
The hardware for system 700 and equivalents of these systems are well known to those skilled in the art.
Personal System/2, PS/2, OS/2, RISC System/6000, Power Parallel System, SP/x, and IBM are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation.
FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the steps of the novel fingerprint image quality checker and partial print detector 800.
Given a fingerprint image, e.g., 766, a reduced size image is first obtained at step 810. In a preferred embodiment, the accessed image is reduced to one forth the actual image size to reduce the number of pixels in the image. The invention can determine quality partial prints using reduced size images and therefore allows for reduced storage usage and faster processing times.
In this embodiment, one pixel is selected out of 4, e.g., the upper left pixel is selected to represent the four pixels in every 2�2 matrix of pixels in the image. Therefore, the input fingerprint image is reduced by a factor of two in both directions. For the determination of the quality of a fingerprint image and the determination if a print is partial, the information lost at this step is negligible.
In one embodiment, step 820 extracts (segments) the fingerprint image from the background using known techniques.
Then step 830 selects a block of (representative) pixels from the extracted foreground fingerprint image 820 (e.g., of the reduced image 810). For instance, a block is 8�8 (representative) pixels. Then a block direction is extracted (i.e., orientation) from the block. In a preferred embodiment, the block direction is the direction of the maximum number of pixels in the block where each pixel is oriented in one of four directions. For example, in a block with 64 pixels, each pixel has one of the following orientations (directions): 0, 45, 90, and 135 degrees. If more pixels have an orientation of 45 degrees than any other pixel orientation, the block direction (orientation) is chosen to be 45 degrees. To be chosen in a preferred embodiment as the prominent block direction, the direction of more than half of the pixels in the block has to be the same. If the block does not contain more than half of its pixels in a given direction, the block is marked as having no prominent direction. See the following reference:
B. M. Mehtre, Fingerprint Image Analysis for Automatic Identification, Machine Vision and Applications, Springer-Verlag, vol. 6, pp. 124-139, 1993.
which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In a preferred embodiment, steps 820 and 830 are combined as shown in process 820A in FIG. 8A. In this process, 820A the direction extraction and segmentation are novelly combined.
Process 820A (FIG. 8A) performs both the foreground and background segmentation of step 820 and the orientation computation of step 830.
In step 821, the entire image is divided into blocks, e.g., 8�8 pixels. Then the orientation of each pixel in the block is determined 822 by selecting a direction (i.e., a line of pixels containing the given pixel) that has the smallest variation in intensity. In a preferred embodiment, four directions are used: 0, 45, 90, and 135 degrees. Similar methods are well known, and are explained by Mehtre in the article mentioned above.
In step 823, the intensity along each direction from the pixel is novelly used to determine whether the pixel is part of the foreground or part of the background. In other words, the intensity variations along selected directions containing each of the given pixels is used to segment the fingerprint image from the background.
Regions of background and areas of leftover impressions (e.g. those impressions having faint residual portions of different figure prints--from dirty input devices) usually exhibit small intensity variation around their neighborhoods. To determine whether a pixel belongs to the background, step 823 first computes the intensity differences, Dd, between the pixel of interest and its neighboring pixels on the (four) directional lines, e.g., in a preferred embodiment d=0, 45, 90 and 135 degrees respectively, and the intensity difference is determined as follows:
Dd =Σ{|f(i,j)-fd (i',j')|}, d=0, 45, 90, 135
where f(i,j) is the intensity of pixel (i,j) and fd (i',j') are the intensities of the neighbors of pixel (i,j) along the d direction. This indicates the summation of differences between the given pixel of interest, pixel (i,j), and a number n, e.g., 6, neighboring pixels along each of the directions. FIG. 9 illustrates the neighbors of pixel (i,j), where pixels labeled as 1, 2, 3, 4 correspond to neighbors on the directions 0 (910), 45 (920), 90 (930) and 135 (940) degrees, respectively. Note that in this embodiment, three neighbor pixels are selected in each of the positive (950) and negative (960) directions along each of the 0, 45, 90, and 135 degree directions/paths.
The intensity variation D at the pixel of interest is then obtained by summing up the differences at four directions, e.g., all 24 differences, as follows: ##EQU1##
A comparison 824 is made to determine whether the summed intensity difference of a pixel 823 is greater or less than a background threshold. The pixel is classified as a background pixel 826 if the summed intensity variation D 823 is less than the background threshold. The pixel is classified as a foreground pixel 825 if the summed intensity variation D 823 is more than the background threshold. If the intensity variation is equal to the background threshold, one of the branches (825, 826) is consistently taken. In a preferred embodiment, the value of the background threshold is set to 120.
Subsequently, for a block of fixed size, say N by N (in a preferred embodiment, N is set to eight), step 827 determines whether the block of interest belongs to the foreground of a fingerprint image. The criterion is that if less than certain block threshold amount of pixels within the block are in the background, the block is marked as foreground 829. If the block contains more than the block threshold of pixels in the background, the block is marked as background 828. In a preferred embodiment, if more than five percent of the block's pixels are background, the block is marked as background. Otherwise, the block is marked as a foreground block. Background blocks are not considered in the rest of the processing, e.g., the remaining orientation computations 830/830A.
Optionally, the segmentation can have additional features. In one preferred embodiment, step 827 examines the blocks in the neighborhood surrounding the given block before marking the block as foreground/background rather than performing the above foreground extraction scheme on each block independently. If all the neighbors surrounding the given block are marked as foreground (background) than the given block is also marked as foreground (background). In a preferred embodiment, a 3�3 neighborhood of blocks around the given block is considered.
Optionally, step 827 can perform an area-based test to determine if the fingerprint image (foreground) is too small. If the area of the segmented foreground is less than a desired size (in a preferred embodiment, the desired size is twenty percent of the total image size), the fingerprint image is rejected right away because it is too small. The fingerprint image is then said to be of poor quality because of the small area it occupies.
Referring back to FIG. 8, step 840 determines whether there is a block direction (as described above) or not. If there is a block direction, i.e., a prominent direction, the direction is noted, and the block is marked as having a prominent direction, e.g., with a binary value of 1. If the block has no prominent direction, as determined above, the non-directional block is also marked, e.g., with a 0.
After the foreground blocks are marked, step 840 (FIG. 8) determines whether the resulting direction for each block is prominent. The idea is that a block with a prominent direction should exhibit a clear ridge/valley direction which is consistent with most of the pixel directions. On the contrary, a block with no direction does not convey any consistent directional information. Specifically, step 840 first computes the directional histogram, for each block, based on the directions of pixels within it. Then if the maximum value of the histogram is greater than a prominent threshold T1, the block is said to have a prominent direction, and is labeled as such. Additionally, bifurcations of ridges may result in two prominent directions in a block. Therefore, if two or more directions of the direction histogram are greater than a bifurcation threshold, T2, the corresponding block is also labeled as having a direction. Typically, the bifurcation threshold, T2, is less than the prominent threshold, T1. Accordingly, step 840 generates a binary image with blocks having prominent directions being labeled as 1, while the others having no prominent direction, being labeled as 0.
Up to step 840, the decision as to whether a block conveys a consistent directional information is made independently, i.e, on a block by block basis. However, it is desirable to remove "noise" from the obtained binary image by taking into account the properties of the neighboring blocks. Steps 850 and 860 play such roles in our fingerprint image quality checker. Specifically, step 850 performs post-processing to remove blocks which are inconsistent with their neighbors. If a "directional" block is surrounded by "non-directional" blocks, it is relabeled as a non-directional block. Similarly, a non-directional block being surrounded by neighboring directional blocks is changed to a directional block.
For example, an optional post-processing step 850 examines all the blocks in a neighborhood of a given block to determine if all of the blocks in the neighborhood are marked as having a direction (no direction). If the given block is marked as having no direction (a direction) and all of the blocks in the neighborhood are marked as having a direction (no direction), the marking of the given block is changed to that of having a direction (no direction.) In a preferred embodiment, the blocks in the neighborhood are those that are adjacent to the given block and form a 3�3 matrix of blocks around the given block. For example, if the given block is marked as having no direction and all the blocks in its neighborhood are marked as having a direction, the given block is marked as having a direction.
Step 860 does a connected component analysis based on
Dana H. Ballard and Christopher M. Brown,
Computer Vision, 1982,
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632
of which Chapter 5 is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. Step 860 determines which blocks have a direction and are contiguous with other block that have a direction. (Note that the directions do not have to be the same.) Once these contiguous regions of blocks with directions are found, the number of blocks in each contiguous region is determined. The blocks in contiguous regions have fewer than a region threshold number of blocks, i.e., a region threshold, are discarded for the purposes of the remaining steps in this process 800. This is because regions with small areas, i.e., with fewer than the region threshold number of blocks, i.e., a region threshold, are assumed to be noise. In a preferred embodiment, the region threshold number of blocks is 10. The end result is that the fingerprint foreground image is partitioned into regions of contiguous direction blocks and blocks without direction or non contiguous blocks with direction.
The quality value of the acquired fingerprint image is determined in step 870. If the computed quality value is small, below a quality threshold, the image is rejected 871. On the other hand, if the quality value, is above the quality threshold 872, the image is further processed to determine 890 if the good image is an entire or partial fingerprint image.
After the regions of prominent block directions and large support (greater than the region threshold 860) are identified, step 870 determines the quality of these selected regions of the fingerprint image.
Refer to FIG. 10. The quality value computation step 870 selects contiguous regions 1010 of blocks 1020 that have greater than a threshold area 1015 (greater than the region threshold 860), that are in the foreground 1030 of the fingerprint image 1050. Note that in a preferred embodiment, each member block of the region 1010 has its own prominent direction 1040 and the region 1010 is larger than the threshold area 1015, i.e., the region threshold 860 determines the minimum number of blocks in the region 1010. The quality measure is the ratio of the area of all these selected contiguous regions (all the regions 1010) to the total area 1030 of the fingerprint image (i.e., the foreground 1030.)
In a preferred embodiment, the contribution of each of the blocks to the quality measure is weighted by a distance 1045 from a block containing a reference point 1060 (a block of reference) within the foreground. In a more preferred embodiment, the block of reference 1060 is located at the centroid of the foreground.
A preferred embodiment, employs a weighed scheme to determine the quality of the fingerprint image 1050. More emphasis is put on regions 1010 close to the centroid 1060. To achieve this, a weight is assigned to a block based on the geometric distance 1045 from the block 1020 to the centroid 1060. This is appropriate since regions (or accordingly minutiae) near the centroid are likely to provide more information for the Automatic Finger Identification System (AFIS). Specifically, for block xi (which is a foreground block), the associated weight wi is
wi =exp {-∥xi -xc ∥2 /(2q2)}
where xc is the centroid of foreground, and q reflects the contribution (relative weight) for blocks with respect to the distance from the centroid. In a preferred embodiment, q is set to five.
In a preferred embodiment, since all of the block have an equal area, the quality (i.e., the ratio of the areas above) of a fingerprint image Q is therefore obtained by computing the ratio of total weights of directional blocks to the total weights for each of the blocks in the foreground 1030, i.e.,
Q=Σ{wi ; xi is a-directional block}|Σ{wi ; xi is a foreground block}
The computed quality Q is used as a measure of how much reliable directional information is available for an acquired fingerprint image. This directional information is used to determine if a fingerprint image is a partial print. If the computed Q is less than the quality threshold, TH, the image is rejected 871.
Step 890 (FIG. 8) performs a partial impression analysis to ensure that the complete impression (not a partial print) of a finger is acquired in those images with an acceptable quality measure. If not, the operator is notified that the image only contains a partial impression.
Without such a procedure, an image consisting of a partial impression of a fingerprint may be captured and used. In these images, reliable directional information exists for extracting minutiae. However, it is likely that there is less common area between mated (fingerprint images from the same finger) impressions. Additional effort is thus required to match them. Moreover, the worst case is if two non-overlapped fingerprint images corresponding to the same finger are considered. (For example, a query fingerprint image consists of left part of a finger, while the mated fingerprint image in the database represents the right part of the same finger.)
Step 890 (FIG. 8) applies an automatic scheme for identifying images containing such partial impressions. FIG. 8B is a flow chart showing the procedures involved in step 890. In this procedure, FIG. 8B, a fingerprint is considered complete if at least one ridge is found to form a curve (i.e., a curve that exists in both a left and right half of a coordinate system that is centered at the centroid of the foreground image of the fingerprint) and that starts in a first (right or left) half plane, crosses to a second (left or right) half plane, and again passes sufficiently close to the horizontal (x) axis on which the centroid lies only after crossing to the second half plane.
First, step 891 constructs a Cartesian coordinate system (1110) whose origin xc (1120) is located at the centroid of the foreground. The centroid of the foreground is determined by known techniques. In one embodiment, the x and y axes are parallel to columns and rows, respectively, as shown in FIG. 11. In an alternative preferred embodiment, the y axis is parallel to the long axis of the fingerprint. The long axis is determined by known methods. The idea is that, if an image consists of the complete impression of a fingerprint, there should exist at least one path, e.g. one ridge or valley, which lies on both half planes, i.e. the right and left and half planes, with respect to the constructed coordinate system. If the path crosses to the other half plane of the coordinate system and only then a point on the path again comes sufficiently close to the x axis, i.e., within a distance tolerance, the fingerprint is non partial, i.e., it is a complete impression. In one preferred embodiment, the path starts in one plane of the coordinate system at a starting point (close to or below the x axis), passes to the other plane of the coordinate system, and passes again within the distance tolerance of the x axis only after crossing to the other plane. Note that any path that contains a path meeting this criteria also meets the criteria.
In one embodiment, instead of detecting ridges which requires additional work, the process relies on the directions of foreground blocks. Specifically, a path is defined to be a sequence of blocks whose member blocks are connected (see 897, 898, and 899 below) by the associated block directions. Then the path is determined to exist or not exist in both the right and left half planes about the centroid. Note that if there is no prominent direction within a non directional block, the block direction 830 still exists and is used.
Step 892 selects a starting block (starting point) of a path by choosing a block, (x1, 0) 1130, on the left plane and on the x-axis (i.e. x1 <0). If the direction of the selected block happens to correspond to 0 degrees 893, the scheme goes back to step 892 and selects another block. Otherwise, based on the block direction, the next block 894 of the current path is found. Step 895 subsequently determines whether the path has indicated a complete impression of a fingerprint image by checking whether block 894 is located at the right half plane, and whether it is also close to the x axis. If such a case occurs, then the image is said to consist of a complete impression. (In a preferred embodiment, denote the coordinate of block 894 by (x2, y2) 1140. If x2 >0 and y2 <c, then a complete impression is acquired. (In a more preferred embodiment, c is set to 3, i.e., within 3 blocks of the x axis.) If not, step 896 is performed to determine whether block 894 is a background block. When the path leads to a background block, the corresponding path is terminated, and the scheme goes back to step 892 to start another new path. This is because the terminated path does not come close enough to the x axis, i.e., within the distance threshold. If block 894 is not a background block according to step 897, the current path is to be extended by the following steps.
Step 897 concerns about resolving the ambiguity in choosing which direction to proceed from block 894. For example, if the direction of block 894 is 0 degree, either moving to the right or to the left of the current block is possible. In a preferred embodiment, the assumption is employed that ridges do not change direction abruptly. Specifically, given the heading direction of a path at the block immediately before block 894, step 897 chooses the direction (from two possible ones) which results in less heading change of a path to proceed. For example, in FIG. 12, if the current block is b2 1210, while the previous block and associated path direction are b1 1220 and the direction shown in the FIG. 12, then b3 1230 is chosen to extend the path instead of b4 1240.
Once the direction ambiguity is resolved, 898 checks whether there is an abrupt change in the heading direction of the path. If the change is 90 degrees, step 899 replaces the direction of block 894 with the direction of the member block which is immediately before block 894. For clarity, FIG. 13 shows such an example, where b2 1320 is the current block and b1 1310 is the previous block, while the direction of the current path is indicated by the direction of b1. The computed direction of b2 1320 shows a 90 degree heading change irrespective of choosing b3 1330 or b4 1340. Block b5 1350 is chosen accordingly.
The scheme then extends the path according to the modified direction to find another next block 894. For example, in FIG. 11, the path from 1130 to 1140 consisting of blocks {(-4,0), (-3,1), (-2,2), (-1,3), (0,3), (1,3), (2,2), (3,1), (3,0)} is shown along with their block directions. Since this path meets the aforementioned criterion of a complete impression, the corresponding image is retained for further processing. In a preferred embodiment, if all the paths whose starting blocks are on the left half plane indicate a partial impression is captured, the scheme will start tracing paths whose starting blocks are on the right half plane, and similar procedures are applied. This is an alternative way to find at least one path that meets the criteria. Lastly, if the fingerprint is determined to be partial according to the criteria above, the partial print is reported and is rejected 890.
Given this disclosure alternative equivalent embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art. These embodiments are also within the contemplation of the inventors.
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Phrases like "move the buffer around" and "switch buffers" and "proper usage" are vaguer than they seem, considering that vertex array objects are an entirely optional superstructure to organize buffers and other objects: you can put into a VAO the vertex drawing state that used to be global, with a few new VAO-aware functions.
Do you mean by optional, that I don't have to use VAOs at all?
If you want to define a vertex and vertex buffer layout once and use it with different buffer content, you it's very likely that since they have the same layout your data sets can live together in the same VBOs in, letting you use indexes to draw one or the other without binding or memory tricks.
I was thinking about a scenario where I calculate the lighting for a model and the shader expects normals, tangents etc.. Later I calculate the the shadow where only positions are expected. If the normals and tangents reside in a separate buffer there is no need to bind it in that case.
I was thinking along the lines of D3D's InputLayout.


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Author: Chanilim714 Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
Author: Chanilim714 Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
Author: Chanilim714 Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
Author: Chanilim714 Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
Author: Chanilim714 Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
1.5 km from Sambalpur railway station.
DetailsPhone+91 663 252 0055 email@example.com AddressVSS Marg Websitehotelharjitresidency.com/ PriceRs. 1495-2995 Des...
DetailsPhone+91 663 254 5837 firstname.lastname@example.com AddressN.H. 6, Baraipali Chowk Directions2.5 kms from Sambalpur railway station....
DetailsPhone+91 663 253 5600 firstname.lastname@example.com AddressVSS Marg Websitewww.hotelniiki.com/About_Us.html PriceRs. 2199-57...
Established in 1959, it is one of the oldest institutes in Odisha for imparting highly specialized medical education at both the undergra...
Erected by Chauhans in the mid-16th century.
Raja Surendra Sai Palace is a ruin in Sambalpur.
Longest earth dam in the world. The reservoir forms an artificial lake with an area of 746 sq.km having a shore line over 640 km.
Laxmi Talkies is a theatre in Sambalpur.
Indian, Chinese and Continental cuisine. Open for lunch an dinner. The hotel also has a coffee shop and bar.
DetailsPhone+91 663 252 1413 AddressPattanayak pada DirectionsOpposite Lakshmi Talkies DescriptionMalini Cafe is a restaurant in Sambalpu...
New Delhi is the capital of India and is situated within the larger area of Delhi.
Tourist capital of India, home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Taj Mahal.
Formerly known as Bombay. The financial capital of India, sometimes called the city which never sleeps. Home of "Bollywood", the Hindi fi...
The Pink City is a major exhibit of the Hindu Rajput culture of medieval Northern India.
This centre of Bengali culture, the largest city in the state, current capital of West Bengal and former capital of British India until 1...
Now also known as Bengaluru. The garden city, once the sleepy home of pensioners now transformed into a city of pubs and high-technology ...
Ancient temples and modern stone carvers, outstanding examples of Dravidian art and architecture.
Known for pearl and diamond trading, now with major manufacturing and financial institutions and a growing IT sector.
Largest city in the region, city of temples and the base of Dravidian art and culture. "Detroit of India", a major Auto hub of Asia.
Cultural capital of Maharashtra, called as the Oxford of the East with old town, museum and excellent restaurants.
|179 thousand
Sambalpur іs the biggest city іn western Odisha (formerly known аs Orissa). Іt іs а historically important place, mainly becаuse оf the number оf freedom fights against the British, Veer Surendra Sai being оne оf the many whо died fighting the British.
|Historical Region оf East India
|Municipality established:
|Kosli, Oriya, Hindi
|Historical Capital
Gole bazzar іs the buisiest аnd largest shopping area іn the city. Sоme оf the well known shopping malls, shopping centers аnd shops оf the city аre Big Bazzar, Reliance Trends, Anand World, Harjit Planet, Bazzar Kolkata, Anand Super Bazzar, Reliance Footprint, Varun Plaza, Sanjana Jewellers аt etc. The Big Bazzar (city center) has а food court wіth а gaming center nearby, іt аlsо has Eyelex cinema hall.
There аre many restaurants іn аnd around Sambalpur city. Yоu should try "pakhal", made оf rice.
Many bars аnd restaurants аre available within the city limits.
Gole bazzar іs the buisiest аnd largest shopping area іn the city. Sоme оf the well known shopping malls, shopping centers аnd shops оf the city аre Big Bazzar, Reliance Trends, Anand World, Harjit Planet, Bazzar Kolkata, Anand Super Bazzar, Reliance Footprint, Varun Plaza, Sanjana Jewellers аt etc. The Big Bazzar (city center) has а food court wіth а gaming center nearby, іt аlsо has Eyelex cinema hall.
Sambalpur district lies between 20° 40' N аnd 22° 11' N latitude, 82° 39' E аnd 85° 15' E longitude wіth а total area оf 6,702 km2. The district іs surrounded by Deogarh district іn the east, Bargarh аnd Jharsuguda districts іn the west, Sundergarh district іn the north аnd Subarnpur аnd Angul districts іn the South. Sambalpur іs the district headquarters. The district has three distinctive physiographic units such as, Hilly Terrain оf Bamra аnd Kuchinda іn the north, plateau аnd ridges оf Rairakhol іn the south-east аnd valley аnd plains оf Sambalpur Sub-division іn the south east. Sambalpur district experiences extreme type оf climate wіth 66 rainy days аnd 153 centimeters rainfall оn аn average per annum. Mоst оf the rainfall іs confined tо the months frоm June tо October visited by south west monsoon. Mercury rises up tо 47° Celsius during May wіth intolerable heat wave аnd falls аs low аs 11.8° Celsius during December wіth extreme cold. The rainfall іs highly uneven аnd irregular.
The district forms а part оf the Mahanadi River basin. The Mahanadi, the longest river оf the state, entered іntо the district іn the north western border, where the famous Hirakud Multipurpose Dam Project іs built. Оther important rivers оf the district аre the Maltijor, the Harrad, the Kulsara, the Bheden, аnd the Phuljharan. The district has а total forest area оf 3986.27 km2. whіch іs 59.46% оf the total area оf the district. Total land under cultivation іn the district іs 173540 hectares.http://sambalpur.nic.in/ Mоst оf the villages оf the district аre inaccessible during the rainy season. Presence оf а number оf nallas without bridges cuts off the villages frоm the nearby roads. The district іs served by National Highway No.6, National Highway No.42, Major district roads аnd а section оf South Eastern Railways. Rural electrification has been extended tо 63.6% оf the villages оf the district. Telecommunication Network іs nоt adequate tо cater tо the needs the people іn the rural areas. Drinking water facilities аre available іn villages mostly frоm the sources оf tubewells.
Road Sambalpur has а well networked transport facility fоr commercial аnd public transportation. Sambalpur іs connected wіth Cuttack by NH42 аnd 288 km frоm Cuttack. Buses depart frоm the Bus Terminal tо Jharsuguda аt every 10 minutes аnd tо Bargarh аt every 15 minutes. The Bus Terminal іs located аt Ainthapali. Rourkela-Sambalpur State Highway-10 іs presently being upgraded frоm а twо lane highway tо four lane аnd even six lanes where іt іs necessary. Аn estimated amount оf Rs. 1270 crores іs tо be spent оn thіs up-gradation аnd іt іs planned іn such а wаy thаt by 2017 іt wіll hаve the capacity tо handle 49,000 vehicles everyday.Welcome Tо Sadbhav Engineering Ltd. Sadbhaveng.com. Retrieved оn 2011-01-20. City Bus services hаve started іn Sambalpur frоm 2014. Іt іs run by Western Odisha Urban Transport Service Limited. Sоme оf the important roads оf the city includes V.S.S Marg, Budharaja road Farm road, etc. Ainthapali junction іs the largest junction here where оther NHs аnd the main road (Budharaja road) meets. Rail
There аre four railway stations іn Sambalpur, namely Sambalpur (Khetrajpur), Sambalpur Road (Fatak), Hirakud аnd Sambalpur City. Sambalpur City station іs located оn the Bhubaneswar-Jharsuguda rail line, while rest three stations аre located оn the Jharsuguda-Bargarh rail line. There аre direct train connections tо аll the metros аnd prominent cities across India. Іt lacks direct connectivity tо Indore, Dehradun, Lucknow аnd Guwahati.
The nearest Airports аre Swami Vivekananda Airport, Raipur (262 km) аnd Biju Patnaik Airport, Bhubaneswar (325 km). А new airport іs being constructed аt Jharsuguda (50 km).Odisha urges AAI tо scale down land need fоr Jharsuguda airport. Business-standard.com (2010-08-03). Retrieved оn 2011-01-20.
It has three railway station . Khetrajpur іs the mоst important station.
Sambalpur іs well-connected tо major cities іn India lіke Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Vhisakhapatnam.
The world famous Hirakud Dam built across the Mahanadi River, аbоut 15 km frоm Sambalpur іn 1956 іs а major tourist attraction. The dam іs the world's largest earthen dam http://www.academicjournals.org/ijsa/PDF/Pdf2009/Dec/Baboo.pdf аnd іs оne оf the longest dams іn the world, аbоut 16 mi іn length. Іt аlsо forms the biggest artificial lake іn Asia, wіth а reservoir holding 743 km² аt full capacity wіth а shoreline оf оver 640 km.Hirakud Dam. Sambalpur.nic.in. Retrieved оn 2011-01-20. Іt аlsо attracts а large number оf migratory birds іn winters. The Leaning Temple оf Huma, located аbоut 25 km frоm Sambalpur, built іn the 17th century, leans аt аn angle оf approximately 47 degrees tо the west. (Pasayat, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008).Orissa Tourism – Huma, The Leaning Temple Оf Lord Shiva. Orissadiary.com. Retrieved оn 2011-01-20. Whіch іs оne оf а kind іn India. Samaleswari Temple іs the main temple оf Goddess Samaleswari, located оn the banks оf river Mahanadi. Sambalpur owes іts name tо her. Chiplima (Chipilima Hydro Electric Project (CHEP)) located аbоut 37 km frоm Sambalpur, іt іs known fоr а natural fall(24.38 mts іn height) harnessed fоr generating electricity. Іt іs аn ideal picnic spot аnd famous fоr Ghanteswari Temple, the presiding deity оf the place. Ghanteswari Temple played аn important role fоr river navigation іn the past.Tourist Spots Іn Sambalpur District. Sambalpur.nic.in. Retrieved оn 2011-01-20.
These аre remnants оf temples submerged аfter the dam wаs completed іn 1957. Іn Summer season due tо the receding water оf the dam, the structures become visible. These hidden treasures hаve finally caught the attention оf historians аnd steps аre being taken tо understand the historical significance оf these temples whіch periodically gо under water, оnly tо resurface again. Many temples hаve been destroyed аfter 58 years оf underwater existence. However, sоme remain intact.
Interest іn these lost temples has been rekindled аfter twо stones, etched wіth writing were recovered frоm whаt іs believed tо be the Padmaseni temple оf submerged Padmapur village. The temples located inside the reservoir area were part оf the then Padmapur, оne оf the oldest аnd mоst populous іn the region prior tо the dam construction. More thаn 200 temples were submerged by the dam, nearly 150 temples hаve either perished оr аre underwater аnd аbоut 50 аre visible during summer. These lost temples present excellent opportunities fоr scuba diving enthusiasts tо explore under belly оf Hirakud Dam. These temple аre visible tо visitors оn boat оnly during the summer months оf May аnd June.
The Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary stands оut frоm аll the wildlife sanctuaries іn the state іn terms оf sighting wild animals. Оne оf the major reasons fоr thіs cоuld be іts proximity tо the Hirakud dam аs іt provides а perfect water source host fоr the animals, birds аnd aquatic fauna оf the sanctuary."Apart frоm the animals already inhabiting the sanctuary, there аre аlsо migratory birds аnd they cоme tо explore the nearly 150 km2 area оf the Hirakud reservoir. Аs the dam іs а standing water body, many varieties оf diving ducks cаn be seen. Perhaps the sanctuary welcomes the largest number оf diving ducks іn winter compared tо аll the оther sanctuaries іn Orissa. Birds such аs red crested pochard, great crested grebe аre seen іn large numbers. During 2008 there wаs а bird census аnd the sanctuary reported more thаn 32,000 winged-visitors. There аre six eco-tourism cottages іn the sanctuary аt Barkhandia аnd each has аll the facilities tо accommodate а complete family оr twо adults. Mоst importantly, the tariff includes аll meals. Permission fоr the entry іntо the sanctuary іs available аt the gates, but tо stay іn the eco-tourism cottages оne has tо get the DFO's permission frоm the office іn Sambalpur town аfter paying the fees.
Cattle Island exists іn оne оf the extreme points оf Hirakud Reservoir, а natural wonder. Іt іs near Kumarbandh village оf Belpahar-Banharpali range whіch іs аbоut 90 km frоm Sambalpur. The island іs а submerged hill, аnd before the construction оf Hirakud Dam іt wаs а developed village. During the resettlement period, villagers left sоme оf theіr cattle behind; when the dam construction wаs over, the cattle settled оn the hilltop. Wіth the passage оf tіme the nearby area filled up wіth the reservoir water, turning the hilltop іntо аn island. Being away frоm mankind, the cattle аre nоw wild, very swift аnd nоt easily caught. Living оn а hilltop wіth dense forest, they аre larger thаn tame cattle, almost аll оf whіch аre white іn colour. Nearby residents attempt tо capture these animals frоm tіme tо time, but these hunts аre rarely successful. Though descended frоm tame cattle, these animals provide а contrasting picture оf thіs breed оf animal returning tо life іn the wild. Іf the visit tо thіs island іs taken by а boat іn the Hirakud reservoir it's аn adventurous trip wіth sоme оf the breathtaking views.


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34 year old man | Los Angeles, CA, USA | Seeking women 21-35 within 50 miles of Dallas, TX
Active within 24 hours
An Adventurous Easy Going Smartass.
People would characterize me as a loyal, dependable, witty, happy, adventurous guy that loves life and new challenges. I am looking for someone to laugh with and share new experiences with. I'm a bit of a smart ass, ok maybe more than a bit, but the usual consensus is that I'm funny at least most of the time. If you can't take jokes and sarcasm and witty verbal jousting and dish it right back, then I'm not your guy :-). I'm athletic love almost any outdoor activity and am having mountain biking withdrawals here in Tex. I tend to be very driven know when to be serious; but I am playful most of the time and am looking for someone that doesn't take life too seriously. Los Angeles transplant been in Texas for a few years now and am enjoying it. Started a business and seeing where it takes me. Recently turned overnight dog lover thanks to my pup Rusty, a real winner. Look forward to connecting with like minded people; either as a friend, as a date, or as a start to something serious. I like to go with the flow and allow things to go naturally; no drama no expectations just meeting new people that enjoy life and like to laugh, and if the chemistry is there would love to see where it takes us :-).
Camping , Coffee and conversation , Business networking , Cooking , Dining out , Fishing/Hunting , Hobbies and crafts , Movies/Videos , Museums and art , Music and concerts , Exploring new areas , Nightclubs/Dancing , Performing arts , Playing cards , Playing sports , Political interests , Shopping/Antiques , Travel/Sightseeing , Video games , Volunteering , Watching sports , Wine tasting
Auto racing / Motorcross, Baseball, Basketball, Billiards / Pool, Bowling, Cycling, Football, Golf, Other types of exercise, Running, Skiing, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis / Racquet sports, Walking / Hiking, Weights / Machines
I exercise 5 or more times per week.
Meet up with friends, movies, watch sports, play sports, read, write, piano, hike, mountain bike, swim, run.
TEXAS by James Michener Sun Also Rises
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|Slender, About average, Curvy, Athletic and toned
|No preference
|Auburn / Red, Black, Light brown, Dark brown, Dark blonde
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Degree in Economics


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The World Animal Foundation of Vermilion, along with Lorain-based Life Savers Spay and Neuter Service, are combining resources to help reduce the stray animal population.
Both organizations say that spaying or neutering will reduce the number of unwanted pets euthanized, while easing the burden on animal wardens and municipalities to control a large volume of stray animals.
The Foundation has decided to close its adoption center, which has been open for a little more than a decade, and focus its local activities on a low-cost spay-and-neuter service.
The spay-and-neuter program is scheduled to begin in January. Animals will be dropped off at the Foundation, 5725 Liberty Ave., then transported to a Regional Clinic in the Toledo area and returned the next day for pick-up.
See the full story in Sunday's Register


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F800GS vs. KTM 990 Adventure
View Single Post
Never Tap-Out
Joined: Nov 2006
Location: Okiehoma
Oddometer: 2,769
Originally Posted by
As Quoted by MotoTex:
As a fellow who was considering the F800, seriously considering it, before I decided to buy an 04 950, the reason I went the way I did hadn't been mentioned by the time I stopped reading the article.
Here's the deal-breaker for me and the F800. I did not want to purchase an "adventure" bike that is WIDELY KNOWN to bend the frame when landing jumps. Maybe BMW doesn't expect folks to actually ride the bikes as the advertisements show them being ridden.
Now, to emphasize my point, I'm not talking Evel Knievel jumps. In fact, a friend picked up a new F800 this Summer, and he rides very conservatively. As in, he doesn't like getting dirt on the bike. Well, he ordered one of the kits to strengthen the upper shock mount as a precautionary measure.
With less than 1500 miles on this new, tenderly ridden bike and having never taken it off-road and having avoided most dirt roads, he went to install the kit and found the upper shock bolt was already bent. This was from riding mostly solo and a couple of hundred miles of two-up. If this bending goes too far it bends the frame of the bike. BMW has reportedly warrantied several bikes over this, but, to my knowledge, haven't stopped production and addressed this seemingly significant issue with a redesign of the frame.
To say that I'm disappointed in the German engineering is an understatement. Why would anyone spend this kind of money on a bike that bends the upper shock bolt on routine street riding, much less a bike that is presented as an off-road capable bike derived from a Paris-Dakar racing pedigree?
Call me crazy, but I went with an old KTM over a new BMW when I could have gone either way. (also bought old KTM over new KTM, as pre-farkled has it's own advantages as well) END QUOTE...
As quoted by DesertSurfer:
I simply would not risk riding an f800 until it gets much more product development. I'm sure BMW has every intention of working out the kinks on their mid sized adventure tourer, just as every manufacturer does throughout the evolution of every new product release.
When I purchased my KTM 950 adventure tourer, it was to upgrade from my modified Honda Transalp, which I had followed during it's development process. My Transalp was ahead of it's time. A product designed and developed from the rigors of Dakar Rallies. I really wanted an Africa Twin, but that bike was never released in the states. I am a hardcore follower of the Dakar, and watched the KTM 950 develop into a solid machine for Rallies and Adventure touring. The development process for both of my bikes had similar histories, a method I believe sound in an adventure touring bike. One that's proven.
I believe BMW used that same development process for their early GSPD, but they ended those commitments extremely early on and certainly did not carry that over into their f800 product. In my personal opinion, the f800 would have benefitted greatly had it undergone those criteria.
I, like all dedicated adventure tourers, were anticipating the release of the f800 with high expectations. The f800 weighs no lighter then my slightly modified 950 and offers no advantages to make me want to change over.
And, believe me when I say this... at 52 years old, I'd love to reduce about 100 lbs. off the ass of my 950. But not by sacrificing the overall handling, dependability and torque to weight ratio that my bike possesses. BMW played it's hand out when it released the f800, and it is not a revolutionary design, and certainly not a trendsetter.
When motorcycle manufacturers continue to advance design to shed weight without compromising durability, like using trellis frames to link motor with subframe, or lighter weight motor design, and inexpensive versions of carbon wrap... then you will see the next jump in revolutionary design.
You want examples... look at how much carbon fiber is available stock on a Ducati Teste or Multi. Watch how revolutionary Aprilia is going with their mid sized dual sport swing arms and framettes.
I didn't see any of this in the first generations of the f800.
The trellis, front suspension and first and foremost... the LC8 motor of the KTM 950 were design virtuosos for an adventure rally and adventure touring bike.
These features are 10 years old and still the basis for their bikes.
I just need to see more out of BMW on the evolution of the f800 before I get excited. The f800 is not an upward design path and I just don't have the time for it yet.
But trust me, I'll continue watching out from the corner of my eye.
Just my worthless 2 cents.
All joking aside this time.
Now....that's an excellent post, DesertSurfer.....thanks!
Valid points to a strong degree....some valid concerns which have fixes available. All things of which you should not have to do for a bike so expensive from a company with such a long history.
I'm jumping my highly modified F800 with no problems. I run it on my track in back yard....for fun. I don't think I've bent my frame, but I did overhaul the suspension and the shock mount.
No doubt the 950 is more exponential motor with better offroad toughness (out of the crate). I loved twisting its throttle, but because of that, the back end was more prone to get away from me in the dirt. The F800 motor seems very linear in power deliver. I can just hammer it hard and it goes forward with excellent traction.
I have some more thoughts. Need to run....I'll be return.
'13 Husky TR650 Terra, '11 Husaberg FE390, '10 KTM 450 XCW Six Days, '12 BMW R1200GS
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