Due to the importance of visual information for humans, visual computing is at the very core of the technologies enabling the modern information society. New and emerging technologies such as multimedia, digital television, telecommunication and telepresence, or virtual reality further indicate the tremendous potential of visual interaction with computers in the years to come. Typical for the field is the coincidence of very large data sets with the demand for fast, if possible interactive,

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... -adapted high quality visual display of the results. Furthermore, the user should be able to interact with the environment in a natural and intuitive way. In order to address the challenges mentioned above, a new and more integrated scientific view of Visual Computing is required that unifies the previously separate "visual" disciplines of computer graphics and computer vision. Computer graphics is traditionally concerned with generating visual interfaces of computers and applications to the user. Computer vision focuses on enabling computers to understand and interpret visual information from static images and video sequences.