Implicit Brushes for Stylized Line-based Rendering

International audienceWe introduce a new technique called Implicit Brushes to render animated 3D scenes with stylized lines in real-time with temporal coherence. An Implicit Brush is defined at a given pixel by the convolution of a brush footprint along a feature skeleton; the skeleton itself is obtained by locating surface features in the pixel neighborhood. Features are identified via image-space fitting techniques that not only extract their location, but also their profile, which permits to distinguish between sharp and smooth features. Profile parameters are then mapped to stylistic parameters such as brush orientation, size or opacity to give rise to a wide range of line-based styles

Analysis of 3D objects at multiple scales (application to shape matching)

Depuis quelques années, l évolution des techniques d acquisition a entraîné une généralisation de l utilisation d objets 3D très dense, représentés par des nuages de points de plusieurs millions de sommets. Au vu de la complexité de ces données, il est souvent nécessaire de les analyser pour en extraire les structures les plus pertinentes, potentiellement définies à plusieurs échelles. Parmi les nombreuses méthodes traditionnellement utilisées pour analyser des signaux numériques, l analyse dite scale-space est aujourd hui un standard pour l étude des courbes et des images. Cependant, son adaptation aux données 3D pose des problèmes d instabilité et nécessite une information de connectivité, qui n est pas directement définie dans les cas des nuages de points. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons une suite d outils mathématiques pour l analyse des objets 3D, sous le nom de Growing Least Squares (GLS). Nous proposons de représenter la géométrie décrite par un nuage de points via une primitive du second ordre ajustée par une minimisation aux moindres carrés, et cela à pour plusieurs échelles. Cette description est ensuite derivée analytiquement pour extraire de manière continue les structures les plus pertinentes à la fois en espace et en échelle. Nous montrons par plusieurs exemples et comparaisons que cette représentation et les outils associés définissent une solution efficace pour l analyse des nuages de points à plusieurs échelles. Un défi intéressant est l analyse d objets 3D acquis dans le cadre de l étude du patrimoine culturel. Dans cette thèse, nous nous étudions les données générées par l acquisition des fragments des statues entourant par le passé le Phare d Alexandrie, Septième Merveille du Monde. Plus précisément, nous nous intéressons au réassemblage d objets fracturés en peu de fragments (une dizaine), mais avec de nombreuses parties manquantes ou fortement dégradées par l action du temps. Nous proposons un formalisme pour la conception de systèmes d assemblage virtuel semi-automatiques, permettant de combiner à la fois les connaissances des archéologues et la précision des algorithmes d assemblage. Nous présentons deux systèmes basés sur cette conception, et nous montrons leur efficacité dans des cas concrets.Over the last decades, the evolution of acquisition techniques yields the generalization of detailed 3D objects, represented as huge point sets composed of millions of vertices. The complexity of the involved data often requires to analyze them for the extraction and characterization of pertinent structures, which are potentially defined at multiple scales. Amongthe wide variety of methods proposed to analyze digital signals, the scale-space analysis istoday a standard for the study of 2D curves and images. However, its adaptation to 3D dataleads to instabilities and requires connectivity information, which is not directly availablewhen dealing with point sets.In this thesis, we present a new multi-scale analysis framework that we call the GrowingLeast Squares (GLS). It consists of a robust local geometric descriptor that can be evaluatedon point sets at multiple scales using an efficient second-order fitting procedure. We proposeto analytically differentiate this descriptor to extract continuously the pertinent structuresin scale-space. We show that this representation and the associated toolbox define an effi-cient way to analyze 3D objects represented as point sets at multiple scales. To this end, we demonstrate its relevance in various application scenarios.A challenging application is the analysis of acquired 3D objects coming from the CulturalHeritage field. In this thesis, we study a real-world dataset composed of the fragments ofthe statues that were surrounding the legendary Alexandria Lighthouse. In particular, wefocus on the problem of fractured object reassembly, consisting of few fragments (up to aboutten), but with missing parts due to erosion or deterioration. We propose a semi-automaticformalism to combine both the archaeologist s knowledge and the accuracy of geometricmatching algorithms during the reassembly process. We use it to design two systems, andwe show their efficiency in concrete cases.BORDEAUX1-Bib.electronique (335229901) / SudocSudocFranceF

The Computation of Surface Lightness in Simple and Complex Scenes

The present thesis examined how reflectance properties and the complexity of surface mesostructure (small-scale surface relief) influence perceived lightness in centresurround displays. Chapters 2 and 3 evaluated the role of surface relief, gloss, and interreflections on lightness constancy, which was examined across changes in background albedo and illumination level. For surfaces with visible mesostructure (“rocky” surfaces), lightness constancy across changes in background albedo was better for targets embedded in glossy versus matte surfaces. However, this improved lightness constancy for gloss was not observed when illumination varied. Control experiments compared the matte and glossy rocky surrounds to two control displays, which matched either pixel histograms or a phase-scrambled power spectrum. Lightness constancy was improved for rocky glossy displays over the histogram-matched displays, but not compared to phase-scrambled variants of these images with equated power spectrums. The results were similar for surfaces rendered with 1, 2, 3 and 4 interreflections. These results suggest that lightness perception in complex centre-surround displays can be explained by the distribution of contrast across space and scale, independently of explicit information about surface shading or specularity. The results for surfaces without surface relief (“homogeneous” surfaces) differed qualitatively to rocky surfaces, exhibiting abrupt steps in perceived lightness at points at which the targets transitioned from being increments to decrements. Chapter 4 examined whether homogeneous displays evoke more complex mid-level representations similar to conditions of transparency. Matching target lightness in a homogeneous display to that in a textured or rocky display required varying both lightness and transmittance of the test patch on the textured display to obtain the most satisfactory matches. However, transmittance was only varied to match the contrast of targets against homogeneous surrounds, and not to explicitly match the amount of transparency perceived in the displays. The results suggest perceived target-surround edge contrast differs between homogeneous and textured displays. Varying the mid-level property of transparency in textured displays provides a natural means for equating both target lightness and the unique appearance of the edge contrast in homogeneous displays