Issue 3
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Item Physically-Based Patination for Underground Objects(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Chang, Yao-Xun; Shih, Zen-ChungAlthough current photorealistic rendering techniques can produce very impressive images, the rendered objects are often too clean and shiny. Thus, the resulting images look unnatural. This paper proposes a physically-based model to simulate the appearance of patinas on ancient Chinese bronzes. Buried in the soil for thousands of years, many patinas are found on the surface of ancient bronzes as a result of the aging process and the physical and chemical conditions of the soil environment. The development of patinas is modulated herein by L-systems according to tendencies based on the environmental factors and object geometry. The tendencies are employed to represent the accumulative effect of all factors on patination. The proposed model can be extended to simulate a variety of metallic patinas including the ancient Chinese bronzes discovered at San-hsing-tui, Sichuan, China.Item Motion Balance Filtering(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Tak, Seyoon; Song, Oh-young; Ko, Hyeong-SeokThis paper presents a new technique called motion balance filtering, which corrects an unbalanced motion to a balanced one while preserving the original motion characteristics as much as possible. Differently from previous approaches that deal only with the balance of static posture, we solve the problem of balancing a dynamic motion. We achieve dynamic balance by analyzing and controlling the trajectory of the zero moment point (ZMP). Our algorithm consists of three steps. First, it analyzes the ZMP trajectory to find out the duration in which dynamic balance is violated. Dynamic imbalance is identified by the ZMP trajectory segments lying out of the supporting area. Next, the algorithm modifies the ZMP trajectory by projecting it into the supporting area. Finally, it generates the balanced motion that satisfies the new ZMP constraint. This process is formulated as a constrained optimization problem so that the new motion resembles the original motion as much as possible. Experiments prove that our motion balance filtering algorithm is a useful method to add physical realism to a kinematically edited motion.Item Efficient Algorithms for Computing Conservative Portal Visibility Information(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Jimenez, W. F. H.; Esperanca, C.; Oliveira, A. A. F.The number of polygons in realistic architectural models is many more than can be rendered at interactive frame rates. Typically, however, due to occlusion by opaque surfaces (e.g., walls), only small fractions of such models are visible from most viewpoints. This fact is used in many popular methods for preprocessing visibility information which assume a scene model subdivided into convex cells connected through convex portals. These methods need to establish which cells or parts thereof are visible to a generalized observer located within each cell. The geometry of this information is termed a 'visibility volume' and its computation is usually quite complex. Conservative approximations of viewing volumes, however, are simpler and less expensive to compute. In this paper we present techniques and algorithms which permit the computation of conservative viewing volumes incrementally. In particular, we describe an algorithm for computing the viewing volumes for a given cell through a sequence of 'm' portals containing a total of 'n' edges in Omn time.Item Realistic Collision Avoidance of Upper Limbs Based on Neuroscience Models(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Nebel, Jean-ChristopheItem An Adaptive Spectral Rendering with a Perceptual Control(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Claude Iehl, Jean; Peroche, BernardIn this paper, we present a spectral rendering method based on a ray tracing algorithm and guided by a perceptual control of the error made. An adaptive representation of spectral data for light sources and materials is used and induces, for each pixel, the evaluation of an algebraic expression. For each visible wavelength, the computations of complex spread in refractive and dispersive materials, based on several photon maps, are locally restricted by an adaptive evaluation of the expression. This method allows to simulate high quality physically-based pictures and, in particular, some specific phenomena like dispersion in transparent objects, scattered caustics,. . .Item Direct Manipulation and Interactive Sculpting of PDE Surfaces(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Du, Haixia; Qin, HongThis paper presents an integrated approach and a unified algorithm that combine the benefits of PDE surfaces and powerful physics-based modeling techniques within one single modeling framework, in order to realize the full potential of PDE surfaces. We have developed a novel system that allows direct manipulation and interactive sculpting of PDE surfaces at arbitrary location, hence supporting various interactive techniques beyond the conventional boundary control. Our prototype software affords users to interactively modify point, normal, curvature, and arbitrary region of PDE surfaces in a predictable way. We employ several simple, yet effective numerical techniques including the finite-difference discretization of the PDE surface, the multigrid-like subdivision on the PDE surface, the mass-spring approximation of the elastic PDE surface, etc. to achieve real-time performance. In addition, our dynamic PDE surfaces can also be approximated using standard bivariate B-spline finite elements, which can subsequently be sculpted and deformed directly in real-time subject to intrinsic PDE constraints. Our experiments demonstrate many attractive advantages of our dynamic PDE formulation such as intuitive control, real-time feedback, and usability to the general public.Item Graceful Degradation of Collision Handling in Physically Based Animation(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Dingliana, John; O'Sullivan, CarolInteractive simulation is made possible in many applications by simplifying or culling the finer details that would make real-time performance impossible. This paper examines detail simplification in the specific problem of collision handling for rigid body animation. We present an automated method for calculating consistent collision response at different levels of detail. The mechanism works closely with a system which uses a pre-computed hierarchical volume model for collision detection.Item Multiresolution Shape Deformations for Meshes with Dynamic Vertex Connectivity(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Kobbelt, Leif P.; Bareuther, Thilo; Seidel, Hans-PeterMultiresolution shape representation is a very effective way to decompose surface geometry into several levels of detail. Geometric modeling with such representations enables flexible modifications of the global shape while preserving the detail information. Many schemes for modeling with multiresolution decompositions based on splines, polygonal meshes and subdivision surfaces have been proposed recently. In this paper we modify the classical concept of multiresolution representation by no longer requiring a global hierarchical structure that links the different levels of detail. Instead we represent the detail information implicitly by the geometric difference between independent meshes. The detail function is evaluated by shooting rays in normal direction from one surface to the other without assuming a consistent tesselation. In the context of multiresolution shape deformation, we propose a dynamic mesh representation which adapts the connectivity during the modification in order to maintain a prescribed mesh quality. Combining the two techniques leads to an efficient mechanism which enables extreme deformations of the global shape while preventing the mesh from degenerating. During the deformation, the detail is reconstructed in a natural and robust way. The key to the intuitive detail preservation is a transformation map which associates points on the original and the modified geometry with minimum distortion. We show several examples which demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our approach including the editing of multiresolution models and models with texture.Item Virtual Dunhuang Mural Restoration System in Collaborative Network Environment(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Li, Xiangyang; Lu, Dongming; Pan, YunheThis paper introduces a virtual Dunhuang mural restoration system in collaborative network environment. It describes the style of Dunhuang mural, analyzes the reasons of mural spoilage, and presents the necessity to develop a collaborative mural restoration GroupWare. It describes the components and the workflow of mural restoration in detail, solves some key technologies in the system. In the end, it introduces the system architecture, and presents the system interface and some restored results.Item Using an Intermediate Skeleton and Inverse Kinematics for Motion Retargeting(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Monzani, Jean-Sebastien; Baerlocher, Paolo; Boulic, Ronan; Thalmann, DanielIn this paper, we present a new method for solving the Motion Retargeting Problem, by using an intermediate skeleton. This allows us to convert movements between hierarchically and geometrically different characters. An Inverse Kinematics engine is then used to enforce Cartesian constraints while staying as close as possible to the captured motion.Item Priority-Driven Acoustic Modeling for Virtual Environments(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Min, Patrick; Funkhouser, ThomasGeometric acoustic modeling systems spatialize sounds according to reverberation paths from a sound source to a receiver to give an auditory impression of a virtual 3D environment. These systems are useful for concert hall design, teleconferencing, training and simulation, and interactive virtual environments. In many cases, such as in an interactive walkthrough program, the reverberation paths must be updated within strict timing constraints - e.g., as the sound receiver moves under interactive control by a user. In this paper, we describe a geometric acoustic modeling algorithm that uses a priority queue to trace polyhedral beams representing reverberation paths in best-first order up to some termination criteria (e.g., expired time-slice). The advantage of this algorithm is that it is more likely to find the highest priority reverberation paths within a fixed time-slice, avoiding many geometric computations for lower-priority beams. Yet, there is overhead in computing priorities and managing the priority queue. The focus of this paper is to study the trade-offs of the priority-driven beam tracing algorithm with different priority functions. During experiments computing reverberation paths between a source and a receiver in a 3D building environment, we find that priority functions incorporating more accurate estimates of source-to-receiver path length are more likely to find early reverberation paths useful for spatialization, especially in situations where the source and receiver cannot reach each other through trivial reverberation paths. However, when receivers are added to the environment such that it becomes more densely and evenly populated, this advantage diminishes.Item Web-Based Remote Renderingwith IBRAC (Image-Based Rendering Acceleration and Compression)(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Yoon, I.; Neumann, U.Recent advances in Internet and computer graphics stimulate intensive use and development of 3D graphics on the World Wide Web. To increase efficiency of systems using 3D graphics on the web, the presented method utilizes previously rendered and transmitted images to accelerate the rendering and compression of new synthetic scene images. The algorithm employs ray casting and epipolar constraints to exploit spatial and temporal coherence between the current and previously rendered images. The reprojection of color and visibility data accelerates the computation of new images. The rendering method intrinsically computes a residual image, based on a user specified error tolerance that balances image quality against computation time and bandwidth. Encoding and decoding uses the same algorithm, so the transmitted residual image consists only of significant data without addresses or offsets. We measure rendering speed-ups of four to seven without visible degradation. Compression ratios per frame are a factor of two to ten better than MPEG2 in our test cases. There is no transmission of 3D scene data to delay the first image. The efficiency of the server and client generally increases with scene complexity or data size since the rendering time is predominantly a function of image size. This approach is attractive for remote rendering applications such as web-based scientific visualization where a client system may be a relatively low-performance machine and limited network bandwidth makes transmission of large 3D data impractical.Item Gradient Estimation in Volume Data using 4D Linear Regression(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Neumann, Laszlo; Csebfalvi, Balazs; Konig, Andreas; Groller, EduardIn this paper a new gradient estimation method is presented which is based on linear regression. Previous contextual shading techniques try to fit an approximate function to a set of surface points in the neighborhood of a given voxel. Therefore a system of linear equations has to be solved using the computationally expensive Gaussian elimination. In contrast, our method approximates the density function itself in a local neighborhood with a 3D regression hyperplane. This approach also leads to a system of linear equations but we will show that it can be solved with an efficient convolution. Our method provides at each voxel location the normal vector and the translation of the regression hyperplane which are considered as a gradient and a filtered density value respectively. Therefore this technique can be used for surface smoothing and gradient estimation at the same time.Item External Memory View-Dependent Simplification(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) El-Sana, Jihad; Chiang, Yi-JenIn this paper, we propose a novel external-memory algorithm to support view-dependent simplification for datasets much larger than main memory. In the preprocessing phase, we use a new spanned sub-meshes simplification technique to build view-dependence trees I/O-efficiently, which preserves the correct edge collapsing order and thus assures the run-time image quality. We further process the resulting view-dependence trees to build the meta-node trees, which can facilitate the run-time level-of-detail rendering and is kept in disk. During run-time navigation, we keep in main memory only the portions of the meta-node trees that are necessary to render the current level of details, plus some prefetched portions that are likely to be needed in the near future. The prefetching prediction takes advantage of the nature of the run-time traversal of the meta-node trees, and is both simple and accurate. We also employ the implicit dependencies for preventing incorrect foldovers, as well as main-memory buffer management and parallel processes scheme to separate the disk accesses from the navigation operations, all in an integrated manner. The experiments show that our approach scales well with respect to the main memory size available, with encouraging preprocessing and run-time rendering speeds and without sacrificing the image quality.Item A Novel Approach Makes Higher Order Wavelets Really Efficient for Radiosity(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Cuny, Francois; Alonso, Laurent; Holzschuch, NicolasSince wavelets were introduced in the radiosity algorithm 5, surprisingly little research has been devoted to higher order wavelets and their use in radiosity algorithms. A previous study 13 has shown that wavelet radiosity, and especially higher order wavelet radiosity was not bringing significant improvements over hierarchical radiosity and was having a very important extra memory cost, thus prohibiting any effective computation. In this paper, we present a new implementation of wavelets in the radiosity algorithm, that is substantially different from previous implementations in several key areas (refinement oracle, link storage, resolution algorithm). We show that, with this implementation, higher order wavelets are actually bringing an improvement over standard hierarchical radiosity and lower order wavelets.Item LCTS: Ray Shooting using Longest Common Traversal Sequences(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Havran, V.; Bittner, J.We describe two new techniques of ray shooting acceleration that exploit the traversal coherence of a spatial hierarchy. The first technique determines a sequence of adjacent leaf-cells of the hierarchy that is pierced by all rays contained within a certain convex shaft. This sequence is used to accelerate ray shooting for all remaining rays within the shaft. The second technique establishes a cut of the hierarchy that contains nodes where the hierarchy traversal can no longer be predetermined for all rays contained within a given shaft. This cut is used to initiate the traversal for all remaining rays contained in the shaft. The description of the methods is followed by results evaluated by their practical implementation.Item Interpolatory ?3-Subdivision(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Labsik, U.; Greiner, G.We present a new interpolatory subdivision scheme for triangle meshes. Instead of splitting each edge and performing a 1-to-4 split for every triangle we compute a new vertex for every triangle and retriangulate the old and the new vertices. Using this refinement operator the number of triangles only triples in each step. New vertices are computed with a Butterfly like scheme. In order to obtain overall smooth surfaces special rules are necessary in the neighborhood of extraordinary vertices. The scheme is suitable for adaptive refinement by using an easy forward strategy. No temporary triangles are produced here which allows simpler data structures and makes the scheme easy to implement.Item Integrating Occlusion Culling and Levels of Detail through Hardly-Visible Sets(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Andujar, Carlos; Saona-Vazquez, Carlos; Navazo, Isabel; Brunet, PereOcclusion culling and level-of-detail rendering have become two powerful tools for accelerating the handling of very large models in real-time visualization applications. We present a framework that combines both techniques to improve rendering times. Classical occlusion culling algorithms compute potentially visible sets (PVS), which are supersets of the sets of visible polygons. The novelty of our approach is to estimate the degree of visibility of each object of the PVS using synthesized coarse occluders. This allows to arrange the objects of each PVS into several Hardly-Visible Sets (HVS) with similar occlusion degree. According to image accuracy and frame rate requirements, HVS provide a way to avoid sending to the graphics pipeline those objects whose pixel contribution is low due to partial occlusion. The image error can be bounded by the user at navigation time. On the other hand, as HVS offer a tighter estimation of the pixel contribution for each scene object, it can be used for a more convenient selection of the level-of-detail at which objects are rendered. In this paper, we describe the new framework technique, provide details of its implementation using a visibility octree as the chosen occlusion culling data structure and show some experimental results on the image quality.Item Color Distribution - A New Approach to Texture Compression(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Ivanov, Denis V.; Kuzmin, Yevgeniy P.Texture compression is recently one of the most important topics of 3D scene rendering techniques, because it allows rendering more complicated high-resolution scenes. However, because of some special requirements for these type of techniques, the commonly used block decomposition approach may introduce visual degradation of image details due to lack of colors. We present here a new approach to texture compression, which allows sharing of one color by several blocks providing a larger number of unique colors in each particular block and the best compression ratio. We also present an iterative algorithm for obtaining distributed colors on a texture, and discuss some advantages of our approach. The paper concludes with comparison of our technique with S3TC and other block decomposition methods.Item Subdivision Surface Tesselation on the Fly using a versatile Mesh Data Structure(Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the Eurographics Association, 2000) Muller, Kerstin; Havemann, SvenSubdivision surfaces have become a standard technique for freeform shape modeling. They are intuitive to use and permit designers to flexibly add detail. But with larger control meshes, efficient adaptive rendering techniques are indispensable for interactive visualization and shape modeling. In this paper, we present a realization of tesselation-on-the-fly for Loop subdivision surfaces as part of a framework for interactive visualization.