Abstract: The invention relates to a method for sensing the presence of at least one analyte in a medium, comprising disposing in the medium a functionalized composite material such that the at least one analyte is absorbed by the functionalized composite material, the functionalized composite material having at least one optical property that is modulated by absorption of the at least one analyte; and measuring modulation of the at least one optical property of the functionalized composite material; wherein modulation of the at least one optical property of the functionalized composite material is indicative of the presence of the analyte in the medium. The invention also relates to an optical sensor for sensing the presence of at least one analyte in a medium, and a functionalized composite material having at least one optical property that is modulated upon absorption of one or more analyte.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method of creating a bounding polygon around a graphical object, wherein the method comprises: creating a rectangular bounding box; placing a plurality of bisectors perpendicular to one side of the rectangular bounding box; for each bisector, determining a set of intersection points between the bisector and the graphical object; and for each set of intersection points, determining edgemost intersection points; wherein the bounding polygon is defined by a set of points created from the edgemost intersection points for each bisector.