Volumetric cloud generation using a Chinese brush calligraphy style

Includes bibliographical references.Clouds are an important feature of any real or simulated environment in which the sky is visible. Their amorphous, ever-changing and illuminated features make the sky vivid and beautiful. However, these features increase both the complexity of real time rendering and modelling. It is difficult to design and build volumetric clouds in an easy and intuitive way, particularly if the interface is intended for artists rather than programmers. We propose a novel modelling system motivated by an ancient painting style, Chinese Landscape Painting, to address this problem. With the use of only one brush and one colour, an artist can paint a vivid and detailed landscape efficiently. In this research, we develop three emulations of a Chinese brush: a skeleton-based brush, a 2D texture footprint and a dynamic 3D footprint, all driven by the motion and pressure of a stylus pen. We propose a hybrid mapping to generate both the body and surface of volumetric clouds from the brush footprints. Our interface integrates these components along with 3D canvas control and GPU-based volumetric rendering into an interactive cloud modelling system. Our cloud modelling system is able to create various types of clouds occurring in nature. User tests indicate that our brush calligraphy approach is preferred to conventional volumetric cloud modelling and that it produces convincing 3D cloud formations in an intuitive and interactive fashion. While traditional modelling systems focus on surface generation of 3D objects, our brush calligraphy technique constructs the interior structure. This forms the basis of a new modelling style for objects with amorphous shape

A framework for digital watercolor

This research develops an extendible framework for reproducing watercolor in a digital environment, with a focus on interactivity using the GPU. The framework uses the lattice Boltzmann method, a relatively new approach to fluid dynamics, and the Kubelka-Munk reflectance model to capture the optical properties of watercolor. The work is demonstrated through several paintings produced using the system

The hidden world of gaming: an exploration of pre-production design, hyperrealism, and its function in establishing conceptual and aesthetic visualisation, characterisation and narrative structure.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Pre-production design in the video game industry is an extremely important and fundamental part of the pipeline production as it impacts the production, post-production and distribution phases of game development. It is what sets the foundation for the visual and narrative style of the project and, if done incorrectly, it can have adverse effects on the other phases of production, ultimately wasting time, money and contributing to the failure of a project being executed efficiently. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of pre-production design on the video game industry as a whole and the effects that hyperrealism has had on the industry itself. To fully understand the context and importance of pre-production design, its history and origin will be explored. The two aspects of hyperrealism that I will be referring to and discussing are those of creating a reality that goes beyond true reality, and the integration of the constructed reality into one’s own natural reality. How does a game appear visually hyper-realistic. Where the visuals of the game can picture perfect and in fact sometime better than reality? Secondly, how does a game as a whole evoke the notion of hyperrealism as expressed by theorists like Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard where playing the game becomes a part of one’s life? The notion of leaving the game can be distressing as the player does not want to lose out on this aspect of the hyper-real simulation (or Simulacra) that has become a part of his life. As this study has a practice-based component, a set of character and creature designs will accompany my theoretical work as an exploration of pre-production design within the context of video games. This has been done in order to explore how design ties in with hyperrealism when looking at creature and character design. Gameplay mechanics have also been briefly considered as the character and creature designs will impact what is visually achievable in the game. Through investigation of both theoretical and practical applications, the study will conclude that pre-production design is imperative to the success of the making of a video game

Charged hadron beam therapy : fast computational physics methods

Charged hadron beams have been investigated for use in radiation therapy of cancer since the 1940s due to their unique potential to place tightly conformal radiation doses deep inside tissue. This is achieved by exploiting the phenomenon of the so-called Bragg peak. In both research and clinical settings, fast and accurate radiation calculations play a crucial role in charged hadron therapy physics. Unfortunately, physicists are often faced with the fundamental trade off of speed versus accuracy in their calculations. This dissertation addresses this trade off by presenting three computational physics methods for specific and general charged hadron beam therapy calculations. In this dissertation the pseudo-Monte Carlo method of track repeating is adapted for fast calculations of linear energy transfer (LET) and for fast estimation of dose in the peripheral regions of the target volume (i.e. secondary dose estimation). Additionally, the first proof-of-concept framework for carrying out massively distributed parallel Monte Carlo calculations for radiation therapy using cloud computing is presented. Performance and accuracy assessments of each calculation method are also presented

DeepKriging: Spatially Dependent Deep Neural Networks for Spatial Prediction

In spatial statistics, a common objective is to predict the values of a spatial process at unobserved locations by exploiting spatial dependence. In geostatistics, Kriging provides the best linear unbiased predictor using covariance functions and is often associated with Gaussian processes. However, when considering non-linear prediction for non-Gaussian and categorical data, the Kriging prediction is not necessarily optimal, and the associated variance is often overly optimistic. We propose to use deep neural networks (DNNs) for spatial prediction. Although DNNs are widely used for general classification and prediction, they have not been studied thoroughly for data with spatial dependence. In this work, we propose a novel neural network structure for spatial prediction by adding an embedding layer of spatial coordinates with basis functions. We show in theory that the proposed DeepKriging method has multiple advantages over Kriging and classical DNNs only with spatial coordinates as features. We also provide density prediction for uncertainty quantification without any distributional assumption and apply the method to PM$_{2.5}$ concentrations across the continental United States

A Study On Representing Cultural Heritage By Virtual and Augmented Reality

Bu çalışma, sanal ve güçlendirilmiş öğrenme yoluyla kültürel mirasın eğitimi, korunması ve sanal öğrenilmesine yönelik genel bir bakış sunmaktadır. Kültürel miras üzerine yapılan çalışmaların, sanal gerçeklik sunarak sanal bir ortamı çoğaltıp, görselleştirip temsil ederek, gerçek dünyadaymış hissi yaratma sorumlulukları vardır. Bu, kültürel mirasın öğrenme açısından önemli bir konu olduğunu ve öğrenmenin, sistemi geliştirenin ne istediğine değil, kullanıcının ne istediğine bağlı olduğunu ortaya koyar. Öte yandan, sanal ve güçlendirilmiş ortamların birçoğu, geliştirenin uygun gördüğü şeyden meydana gelmiş olsa da, öğrenme ortamı sunma ve kültürün korunması amaçlarına hizmet etmeye devam eder (Orta Avrupa Üniversitesi, 2017). Bunun nedeni, sanal ve artırılmış gerçekliğin, kişilerin kültürel ortama ulaşarak öğrenme deneyimi elde etmelerine yarayacak bir araç sunduğu gelişmiş teknoloji ortamında öğrenmenin gerçekleşebilecek olmasıdır. Ayrıca, sistem kullanıcılarının tam olarak neyi öğrenmek istediklerine ilişkin ihtiyaçlarının belirlenmesi ve sanal ortamın nasıl yaratıldığının görülmesi de, söz konusu sanal ortamın öğrenme ortamı sağlama konusundaki başarısının ortaya konulmasında önemlidir. Her ne kadar teknoloji, sanal ve artırılmış gerçekliğin kullanımını kolaylaştırmış olsa da, bu sanal ortamın kullandığı gelişmiş teknolojiye tüm kullanıcıların ulaşamıyor oluşu bir sorun teşkil etmektedir. Sanal ortam kullanıcılarının sanal ortamdaki objelerle etkileşime girme isteği de, sistem geliştiricilerinin çözmeleri gereken bir başka meseledir. Bu tezimde, sanal ve artırılmış gerçeklik ortamının kültürel açıdan eğitim, öğrenme ve koruma fırsatları sunulmasında önemli bir rolü olduğunu göstermeye çalıştım

2015 Annual Research Symposium Abstract Book

2015 annual volume of abstracts for science research projects conducted by students at Trinity Colleg

Photorealistic Texturing for Modern Video Games

Simulating realism has become a standard for many games in the industry. While real-time rendering requires considerable rendering resources, texturing defines the physical parameters of the surfaces with a lower computer power. The objective of this thesis was to study the evolution of Texture Mapping and define a workflow for approaching a photorealism with modern instruments for video game production. All the textures were created with the usage of Agisoft Photoscan, Substance Designer & Paintrer, Abode Photoshop and Pixologic Zbrush. With the aid of both the theory and practical approaches, this thesis explores the questions of how the textures are used and which applications can help to build them for a better result. Each workflow is introduced with the main points of their purposes as the author’s suggestion, which can be used as a guideline for many companies, including Ringtail Studios OÜ. In conclusion, the thesis summarizes the outcome of the textures and their workflow. The results are successfully established by the author with attendance to introduce methods for the material production