Short Presentations 2005
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Item Fast Body-Cloth simulation with moving humanoids(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Rodriguez-Navarro, Javier; Sainz, Miguel; Susin, Antonio; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn this paper we present a very fast method for body-cloth animation. The usual bottle-neck in cloth simulation performance is collision detection, which becomes more difficult to solve when a complex geometry, like a human body, is involved. Recent image based methods, that use depth images to detect collisions, usually relays on CPU for collision correction. In our work we implement a GPU based simulation that takes care both of cloth simulation and body-cloth collisions when the humanoid is moving. Our solution is based on a hierarchic depth map structure. A high frame rate is obtained with both structured and unstructured cloth meshes with thousands of particles.Item A Scalable Hardware and Software System for the Holographic Display of Interactive Graphics Applications(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Balogh, Tibor; Forgács, Tamás; Agács, Tibor; Balet, Olivier; Bouvier, Eric; Bettio, Fabio; Gobbetti, Enrico; Zanetti, Gianluigi; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliWe present a scalable holographic system design targeting multi-user interactive computer graphics applications. The display uses a specially arranged array of micro-displays and a holographic screen. Each point of the holographic screen emits light beams of different color and intensity to the various directions, in a controlled manner. The light beams are generated through a light modulation system arranged in a specific geometry and the holographic screen makes the necessary optical transformation to compose these beams into a perfectly continuous 3D view. With proper software control, the light beams leaving the various pixels can be made to propagate in multiple directions, as if they were emitted from physical objects at fixed spatial locations. The display is driven by DVI streams generated by multiple consumer level graphics boards and decoded in real-time by image processing units that feed the optical modules at high refresh rates. An OpenGL compliant library running on a client PC redefines the OpenGL behavior to multicast graphics commands to server PCs, where they are re-interpreted for implementing holographic rendering. The feasibility of the approach has been successfully evaluated with a working hardware and software 7.4M pixel prototype driven at 10-15Hz by three DVI streams.Item Rendering Realistic Trees and Forests in Real Time(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Candussi, Alberto; Canduss, Nicola; Höllerer, Tobias; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliReal-Time rendering of realistic trees on common graphics hardware represents a big challenge due to their inherent geometric complexity. In most cases, trees are composed of hundreds of thousands of leaves and branches with complex lighting interrelations. We present novel techniques to render and animate photorealistic trees in real-time. The described techniques are easily implemented with commonly available graphics cards, making them suitable to applications such as visual simulations and video games. Polygon counts are significantly reduced by the use of simplified textured geometry for minor branches and billboarded leaf textures. Fast and realistic lighting and shadowing of the leaves and surroundings enhances realism. We animate the tree branches and leaf textures using simple vertex shaders, creating a realistic effect of the tree swaying in the wind. Discrete levels of detail allow rendering of a large number of trees, making it possible to represent realistic forest scenes made of 1000-1500 trees.Item A 3D Perceptual Metric using Just-Noticeable-Difference(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Cheng, Irene; Boulanger, Pierre; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn multimedia applications, it is essential to distribute resources efficiently among different types of data in order to optimize overall quality. We propose a perceptual metric using Just-Noticeable-Difference (JND) to identify redundant mesh data so that available bandwidth can be allocated to improve texture resolution. Evaluation of perceptual impact during runtime is based on statistics in a lookup table generated during preprocessing. If the impact is less than the JND, no mesh refinement is performed. We apply Weber s fraction to compute the JND threshold, which is verified by perceptual evaluations. Experimental result shows that our JND model can accurately predict perceptual impact based on the human visual system.Item Video Textures Exploiting Symmetric Movements(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Haevre, William Van; Reeth, Frank Van; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn this paper, an extension to the traditional method for creating video textures is presented. By exploiting the symmetric properties of the frames in a given video sequence, a new endless video stream or video loop is generated by reversing video playback when appropriate. We aim at a larger set of possible input video's for video texture creation, including captured motions containing no smooth transitions (eg. turbulent plant movements). To achieve this, good turn points, instead of transitions are extracted from the video data, after which a simple algorithm synthesizes a new video sequence while optimally exploiting the original frame data. Visual artifacts caused by changed lighting conditions are reduced significantly.Item Fast and Controllable 3D Modelling From Silhouettes(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Prasad, Mukta; Fitzgibbon, Andrew; Zisserman, Andrew; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliWe show how a 3D model of a complex curved object can be easily extracted from a single 2D image. A userdefined silhouette is the key input; and we show that finding the smoothest 3D surface which projects exactly to this silhouette can be expressed as a quadratic optimization, a result which has not previously appeared in the large literature on the shape-from-silhouette problem. For simple models, this process can immediately yield a usable 3D model; but for more complex geometries the user will wish to further shape the surface. We show that a variety of editing operations which can be defined either in the image or in 3D can also be expressed as linear constraints on the 3D shape parameters. We extend the system to fit higher genus surfaces. Our method has several advantages over the system of Zhang et al. [ZDPSS01] and over systems such as SKETCH and Teddy.Item Facial Motion Cloning Using Global Shape Deformation(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Fratarcangeli, Marco; Schaerf, Marco; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliWe present a novel Facial Motion Cloning method relying on the combination of the radial basis functions (RBF) based scattered data interpolation with the encoding capabilities of the MPEG-4 Facial and Body Animation (FBA) international standard. Beside from an initial manual selection of feature points, our method works fully automatically without user interaction. The produced talking head is able to perform generic face animation which is stored in a MPEG-4 FBA data stream.Item A Sharpness Dependent Approach to 3D Polygon Mesh Hole Filling(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Chen, Chun-Yen; Cheng, Kuo-Young; Liao, H.Y. Mark; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliA sharpness dependent hole filling approach is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can fill the hole of a mesh-based model and recover its sharp feature located at the hole area. Interpolation based on radial basis function is applied to create a smooth implicit surface and this surface can approximate the shape of the missed data. Then, a regularized marching tetrahedral algorithm is adopted to triangulate the above implicit surface and to produce a polygonal hole patch. A repaired mesh model is obtained by stitching the hole patch and the hole boundary of the original model. Finally, a feature enhancement process is applied if there exists a sharp feature on the hole boundary of the original model. The introduction of a sharpness dependent filter enhances the sharp feature of a hole-filled model. Experiment results show that our approach can produce excellent reparation results especially for recovering sharp feature.Item Leaf Cluster Impostors for Tree Rendering with Parallax(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Garcia, Ismael; Sbert, Mateu; Szirmay-Kalos, László; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliThis paper presents a simple method to render complex trees on high frame rates while maintaining parallax effects. Based on the recognition that a planar impostor is accurate if the represented polygon is in its plane, we find an impostor for each of those groups of tree leaves that lie approximately in the same plane. The groups are built automatically by a clustering algorithm. Unlike billboards, these impostors are not rotated when the camera moves, thus the expected parallax effects are provided. On the other hand, clustering allows the replacement of a large number of leaves by a single semi-transparent quadrilateral, which improves rendering time considerably. Our impostors well represent the tree from any direction and provide accurate depth values, thus the method is also good for shadow computation.Item Estimating Mobile Memory Requirements and Rendering Time for Remote Execution of the Graphics Pipeline(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Banerjee, Kutty; Wu, Fan; Agu, Emmanuel; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliMobile devices have limited processing power, memory and battery power. Remote execution, wherein part or entire graphics pipeline is offloaded to a powerful surrogate server, is an attractive solution for low end mobile devices such as PDAs and cell phones that lack floating point units or GPUs. We have found that remote execution of floating-point-intensive pipeline stages such as transform and geometry operations can produce speedups of up to 10 times for a low-end mobile device. We introduce generalized pipeline-splitting, a paradigm whereby 15 sub-stages of the graphics pipeline are instrumented with networking code such that they can run either on a mobile client or a surrogate server. To validate our concepts, we create Remote Mesa (RMesa). As a foundation for deciding which stages of the pipeline would benefit from remote execution, this paper presents analytical models for the overall rendering time, memory requirements and roundtrip network delay incurred by RMesa.Item Carving, Painting, and Printing with a Pen Tablet(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Mizuno, Shinji; Kobayashi, Daigo; Okada, Minoru; Toriwaki, Junichiro; Yamamoto, Shinji; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliWe discuss on an interactive CG system with a pressure sensitive pen tablet. This system is based on the virtual sculpting and printing method which are simulations of real sculpting and woodblock printing. In the sculpting process, the user operates virtual chisels with a pen to carve a virtual wooden object which has a 3D shape. The user can control the carving depth and the carving angle to the surface of the object with the pressure applied to the pen. In the painting process, the user paints ink with a pen on a 3D virtual sculpture created in the sculpting process. The painting result is determined by the surface shape of the sculpture and the pressure to the pen. In the printing process, a pen is used to operate a Japanese printing squeegee, Baren. The user can control the thickness of the print by changing the thickness of ink on the virtual woodblock and the pressure of printing operation.Item Image Reconstruction Invariant to Relighting(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Georgiev, Todor; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliThis paper describes an improvement to the Poisson image editing method for seamless cloning. Our approach is based on minimizing an energy expression invariant to relighting. The improved method reconstructs seamlessly the selected region, matching both pixel values and texture contrast of the surrounding area, while previous algorithms matched pixel values only. Our algorithm solves a deeper problem: It performs reconstruction in terms of the internal working mechanisms of human visual system. Retinex-type effects of adaptation are built into the structure of the mathematical model, producing results that change covariantly with lighting.Item Improving the Experience of Scenes with a Large Field of View using Shift Lens Perspective(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Hoeben, Aldo; Stappers, Pieter Jan; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn interactive computer graphics such as games and interactive panoramic photos, users are often presented a view with a larger field of view than would correspond to the distance to and size of the screen on which the graphics are viewed. This makes looking at the scene a less claustrophobic experience, showing more of the environment than that which is strictly ahead. In many applications however, where the goal is to get a sense of presence and ambiance of the depicted scene, the large field of view distracts the observer with extreme converging lines when looking up or down. Even though these converging lines are perspectively correct, the resulting image does not match the way we normally perceive the world around us. In this paper we discuss modifying the perspective to reduce the distortions caused by the large field of view, to enhance the experience of these scenes.Item Walking with Pens(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Kolhoff, Philipp; Preuß, Jacqueline; Loviscach, Jörn; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliBelievable 3D animation of walking or running characters still requires complex motion capture technology or extensive skills in manual keyframing. We present an inexpensive, yet natural input method: The user walks on a digital graphics tablet, striding over the surface with two pens in his or her hands, where each pen represents one leg. This technique leverages the popular graphics tablets that can track two drawing tools at the same time. We implemented recording software and a plug-in to use the data in off-the-shelf 3D animation software.Item Proactive Steering Toward Oriented Targets(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Boulic, Ronan; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn this paper we introduce a real-time steering controller ensuring the reach of a (possible mobile) target position and orientation, without requiring to build/update the full trajectory to that target. We name it the funnelling control. The final orientation is achieved through the continuous adjustment of the heading direction. This control mode is proactive in the sense that it anticipates the success/failure of the reach and adjusts the desired speed accordingly. Both features rely on an heterogeneously sampled table of radial-tangential seek angles obtained when the controller reaches a desired position target without prescribed orientation. By construction, the control update has a constant computing cost, even with variable target characteristics. Its low update cost makes it particularly suited for controlling a large number of mobile entities in real-time. The present exposition is made for an obstacle-free context.Item Real-Time Marching Cubes on the Vertex Shader(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Goetz, Frank; Junklewitz, Theodor; Domik, Gitta; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn this paper we propose a new approach for visualizing volumetric datasets by their isosurfaces. For an interactive isosurface reconstruction an optimized version of the well-known marching cubes algorithm is used. We extend the original algorithm by an additional vertex shader program. Contrary to other hardware-accelerated solutions our program is not based on a tetrahedral algorithm and thus the implementation for structured grids is more effective. Furthermore, surfaces of time-varying datasets at distinguished threshold values can be extracted in real-time.Item Preface(The Eurographics Association, 2005) -; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliPreface and Table of ContentsItem Real-Time Rendering of Cloudy Natural Phenomena with Hierarchical Depth Impostors(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Ummenhoffer, Tamás; Szirmay-Kalos, László; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliThis paper presents a real-time method to realistically render dynamic participating media under changing lighting conditions. In order to cope with performance requirements, the volume is built of instances of particle blocks. The simulation and rendering happen on two levels, on the block level and on the volume level. On the volume level blocks are replaced by depth impostors, which allows for very fast recalculation of the cloud illumination. Including depth information into block impostors our technique also eliminates billboard clipping artifacts when the participating medium contains objects. The proposed method can render swirling clouds and smoke on high frame rates, and can be used in real-time applications.Item Real-time Upper Body 3D Pose Estimation from a Single Uncalibrated Camera(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Micilotta, Antonio Salvatore; Ong, Eng Jon; Bowden, Richard; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliIn this paper we introduce a real-time steering controller ensuring the reach of a (possible mobile) target position and orientation, without requiring to build/update the full trajectory to that target. We name it the funnelling control. The final orientation is achieved through the continuous adjustment of the heading direction. This control mode is proactive in the sense that it anticipates the success/failure of the reach and adjusts the desired speed accordingly. Both features rely on an heterogeneously sampled table of radial-tangential seek angles obtained when the controller reaches a desired position target without prescribed orientation. By construction, the control update has a constant computing cost, even with variable target characteristics. Its low update cost makes it particularly suited for controlling a large number of mobile entities in real-time. The present exposition is made for an obstacle-free context.This paper outlines a method of estimating the 3D pose of the upper human body from a single uncalibrated camera. The objective application lies in 3D Human Computer Interaction where hand depth information offers extended functionality when interacting with a 3D virtual environment, but it is equally suitable to animation and motion capture. A database of 3D body configurations is built from a variety of human movements using motion capture data. A hierarchical structure consisting of three subsidiary databases, namely the frontal-view Hand Position (top-level), Silhouette and Edge Map Databases, are pre-extracted from the 3D body configuration database. Using this hierarchy, subsets of the subsidiary databases are then matched to the subject in real-time. The examples of the subsidiary databases that yield the highest matching score are used to extract the corresponding 3D configuration from the motion capture data, thereby estimating the upper body 3D pose.Item Scalar Tagged PN Triangles(The Eurographics Association, 2005) Boubekeur, Tamy; Reuter, Patrick; Schlick, Christophe; John Dingliana and Fabio GanovelliThis paper presents a new technique to convert a coarse polygonal geometric model into a smooth surface interpolating the mesh vertices, by improving the principle proposed by Vlachos et al. in their "Curved PN-Triangles". The key idea is to assign to each mesh vertex, a set of three scalar tags that act as shape controllers. These scalar tags (called sharpness, bias, and tension) are used to compute a procedural displacement map that enriches the geometry, and a procedural normal map that enriches the shading. The resulting technique offers two majors features: First, it can be applied on meshes of arbitrary topology while always generating surfaces with consistent behaviors across edge and vertex boundaries, second, it only involves operations that are purely local to each polygon, which means that it is very well suited for hardware implementations.