You might recall this image being shared on social media some time ago.

Source: http://cvcl.mit.edu/hybrid_gallery/monroe_einstein.html

Look closely and you see Albert Einstein. However, if you move further away (or make the image smaller), you see Marilyn Monroe.

To create the image, the high spatial frequency data from an image of Albert Einstein was added to the low spatial frequency data from an image of Marilyn Monroe. This approach was pioneered by Oliva et al. (2006) and is influenced by the multiscale processing of human vision.

• When we view objects near us, we see fine detail (that is, higher spatial frequencies dominate).

• However, when we view objects at a distance, the broad outline has greater influence (that is, lower spatial frequencies dominate).

I thought I'd try to create a similar image in Maple (get the complete application here).

Here's an overview of the approach (as outlined in Oliva et al., 2006). I used different source images of Einstein and Monroe.

Let's start by loading some packages and defining a few procedures.

restart:
with(ImageTools):
with(SignalProcessing):

fft_shift := proc(M)
   local nRows, nCols, quad_1, quad_2, quad_3, quad_4, cRows, cCols;
   nRows, nCols := LinearAlgebra:-Dimensions(M):
   cRows, cCols := ceil(nRows/2), ceil(nCols/2):
   quad_1 := M[1..cRows,      1..cCols]:
   quad_2 := M[1..cRows,      cCols + 1..-1]:  
   quad_3 := M[cRows + 1..-1, cCols + 1..-1]:
   quad_4 := M[cRows + 1..-1, 1..cCols]:
   return <<quad_3, quad_2 |quad_4, quad_1>>:
end proc:

PowerSpectrum2D := proc(M)
   return sqrt~(abs~(M))
end proc:

gaussian_filter := (a, b, sigma) -> Matrix(2 * a, 2 * b, (i, j) -> evalf(exp(-((i - a)^2 + (j - b)^2) / (2 * sigma^2))), datatype = float[8]):

fft_shift() swaps quadrants of a 2D Fourier transform around so that the zero frequency components are in the center.

PowerSpectrum2D() returns the spectra of a 2D Fourier transform

gaussian_filter() will be used to apply a high or low-pass filter in the frequency domain (a and b are the number of rows and columns in the 2D Fourier transform, and sigma is the cut-off frequency.

Now let's import and display the original Einstein and Monroe images (both are the same size).

einstein_img := Read("einstein.png")[..,..,1]:
Embed(einstein_img)

marilyn_img  := Read("monroe.png")[..,..,1]:
Embed(monroe_img)

Let's convert both images to the spatial frequency domain (not many people know that SignalProcessing:-FFT can calculate the Fourier transform of matrices).

einstein_fourier := fft_shift(FFT(einstein_img)):
monroe_fourier   := fft_shift(FFT(monroe_img)):

Visualizing the power spectra of the unfiltered and filtered images isn't necessary, but helps illustrate what we're doing in the frequency domain.

First the spectra of the Einstein image. Lower frequency data is near the center, while higher frequency data is further away from the center.

Embed(Create(PowerSpectrum2D(einstein_fourier)))

Now the spectra of the Monroe image.

Embed(Create(PowerSpectrum2D(monroe_fourier)))

Now we need to filter the frequency content of both images.

First, define the cutoff frequencies for the high and low pass Gaussian filters.

sigma_einstein := 25:
sigma_monroe   := 10:

In the frequency domain, apply a high pass filter to the Einstein image, and a low pass filter to the Monroe image.

nRows, nCols := LinearAlgebra:-Dimension(einstein_img):

einstein_fourier_high_pass := einstein_fourier *~ (1 -~ gaussian_filter(nRows/2, nCols/2, sigma_einstein)):
monroe_fourier_low_pass    := monroe_fourier   *~ gaussian_filter(nRows/2, nCols/2, sigma_monroe):

Here's the spectra of the Einstein and Monroe images after the filtering (compare these to the pre-filtered spectra above).

Embed(Create(PowerSpectrum2D(einstein_fourier_high_pass)))

Embed(Create(PowerSpectrum2D(monroe_fourier_low_pass)))

Before combining both images in the Fourier domain, let's look the individual filtered images.

einstein_high_pass_img := Re~(InverseFFT(fft_shift(einstein_fourier_high_pass))):
monroe_low_pass_img    := Re~(InverseFFT(fft_shift(monroe_fourier_low_pass))):

We're left with sharp detail in the Einstein image.

Embed(FitIntensity(Create(einstein_high_pass_img)))

But the Monroe image is blurry, with only lower spatial frequency data.

Embed(FitIntensity(Create(monroe_low_pass_img)))

For the final image, we're simply going to add the Fourier transforms of both filtered images, and invert to the spatial domain.

hybrid_image := Create(Re~(InverseFFT(fft_shift(monroe_fourier_low_pass + einstein_fourier_high_pass)))):
Embed(hybrid_image)

So that's our final image, and has a similar property to the hybrid image at the top of this post.

• Move close to the computer monitor and you see Albert Einstein.
• Move to the other side of the room, and Marilyn Monroe swims into vision (if you're myopic, just take off your glasses and don't move back as much).

To simulate this, here, I've successively reduced the size of the hybrid image

And just because I can, here's a hybrid image of a cat and a dog, generated by the same worksheet.

To demonstrate Maple 2018’s new Python connectivity, we wanted to integrate a large Python library. The result is the DeepLearning package - this offers an interface to a subset of the Tensorflow framework for machine learning.

I thought I’d share an application that demonstrates how the DeepLearning package can be used to recognize the numbers in images of handwritten digits.

The application employs a very small subset of the MNIST database of handwritten digits. Here’s a sample image for the digit 0.

This image can be represented as a matrix of pixel intensities.        

The application generates weights for each digit by training a two-layer neural network using multinomial logistic regression. When visualized, the weights for each digit might look like this.

Let’s say that we’re comparing an image of a handwritten digit to the weights for the digit 0. If a pixel with a high intensity lands in

• an intensely red area, the evidence is high that the number in the image is 0
• an intensely blue area, the evidence is low that the number in the image is 0

While this explanation is technically simplistic, the application offers more detail.

Get the application here

As a momentary diversion, I threw together a package that downloads map images into Maple using the Google Static Maps API.

If you have Maple 2017, you can install the package using the MapleCloud Package Manager or by executing PackageTools:-Install("5769608062566400").

This worksheet has several examples, but I thought I'd share a few below .

Here's the Maplesoft office

Let's view a roadmap of Waterloo, Ontario.

The package features over 80 styles for roadmaps. These are examples of two styles (the second is inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl movement)

You can also find the longitude and latitude of a location (courtesy of Google's Geocoding API). Maple returns a nested list if it finds multiple locations.

The geocoding feature can also be used to add points to Maple 2017's built-in world maps.

Let me know what you think!

Yahoo Finance recently discontinued their (largely undocumented) historical stock quote API.

Previously, you simply send a HTTP:-Get request like this…

…and get historical OHLCV (open, high, low, close, trading volume) data in your worksheet (in this case for AAPL between 1 January 2016 and 1 January 2017).

This no longer works! Yahoo shut the door on this easy-to-use and widely disseminated API.

You can still download historical stock quotes from Yahoo Finance into Maple, but the process is now somewhat more involved. My complete code in this worksheet but I'll step through the process below.

If you visit the updated Yahoo Finance website and download historical data for a ticker, you see a URL like this in the status bar of your browser

Let's examine how ths URL is constructed.

• period1 and period2 are Unix time stamps for your start and end date
• interval is the data retrieval interval (this can be either 1d, 1w or 1m)
• crumb is an alphanumeric code that’s periodically regenerated every time you download new historical data from from the Yahoo Finance website using your browser. Moreover, crumb is paired with a cookie that’s stored by your browser.

Here’s how to extract and supply the cookie-crumb pair to Yahoo Finance so you can still use Maple to retrieve historical stock quotes

Send a dummy request to get a cookie-crumb pair

Grab the crumb from the response

Store the cookie from the response

Construct the URL

• Your desired start and end dates have to be defined as Unix time stamps. Converting a human readable date (like 1^st January 2017) to a Unix timestamp is simple, so I won't cover it here.
• The previously retrieved crumb has to be added to the URL.

Send the request to Yahoo Finance, including the cookie in the header

Your historical data is now returned

The historical data is now easily parsed into a matrix.

Please note that any use of Yahoo Finance has to be consistent with their terms of service.

With Maple, you can create amazing visualizations that go far beyond the standard mathematical plots that you might typically expect (I wince every time I see yet another sine curve).

At your fingertips, you have

• plotting primitives that can be assembled in new and novel ways
• precise control over coloring (yay for ColorTools) and placement
• an interactive coding environment with inline plots, giving you quick visual feedback over aesthetic changes
• and a comprehensive mathematical programming language to glue everything together

Here, I thought I'd share a few of the visualizations I've really enjoyed creating over the last few years (and I'd like to emphasize 'enjoy' - doing this stuff is fun!)

Let me know if you want any of the worksheets.

Psychrometric chart with historical weather data for Waterloo, Ontario.

Ternary plot of the color of gold-silver-copper alloys

Spectrogram of a violin note played with vibrato

Colored zoom of the Mandelbrot set

Reporting dashboard for an Organic Rankine Cycle

Temperature-entropy plot of an ideal Rankine Cycle

Quaternion fractal

Historical sunpot data

Earthquake data

African literacy rates