59,509 research outputs found
Surface Networks
We study data-driven representations for three-dimensional triangle meshes,
which are one of the prevalent objects used to represent 3D geometry. Recent
works have developed models that exploit the intrinsic geometry of manifolds
and graphs, namely the Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) and its spectral variants,
which learn from the local metric tensor via the Laplacian operator. Despite
offering excellent sample complexity and built-in invariances, intrinsic
geometry alone is invariant to isometric deformations, making it unsuitable for
many applications. To overcome this limitation, we propose several upgrades to
GNNs to leverage extrinsic differential geometry properties of
three-dimensional surfaces, increasing its modeling power.
In particular, we propose to exploit the Dirac operator, whose spectrum
detects principal curvature directions --- this is in stark contrast with the
classical Laplace operator, which directly measures mean curvature. We coin the
resulting models \emph{Surface Networks (SN)}. We prove that these models
define shape representations that are stable to deformation and to
discretization, and we demonstrate the efficiency and versatility of SNs on two
challenging tasks: temporal prediction of mesh deformations under non-linear
dynamics and generative models using a variational autoencoder framework with
encoders/decoders given by SNs
Contact Representations of Graphs in 3D
We study contact representations of graphs in which vertices are represented
by axis-aligned polyhedra in 3D and edges are realized by non-zero area common
boundaries between corresponding polyhedra. We show that for every 3-connected
planar graph, there exists a simultaneous representation of the graph and its
dual with 3D boxes. We give a linear-time algorithm for constructing such a
representation. This result extends the existing primal-dual contact
representations of planar graphs in 2D using circles and triangles. While
contact graphs in 2D directly correspond to planar graphs, we next study
representations of non-planar graphs in 3D. In particular we consider
representations of optimal 1-planar graphs. A graph is 1-planar if there exists
a drawing in the plane where each edge is crossed at most once, and an optimal
n-vertex 1-planar graph has the maximum (4n - 8) number of edges. We describe a
linear-time algorithm for representing optimal 1-planar graphs without
separating 4-cycles with 3D boxes. However, not every optimal 1-planar graph
admits a representation with boxes. Hence, we consider contact representations
with the next simplest axis-aligned 3D object, L-shaped polyhedra. We provide a
quadratic-time algorithm for representing optimal 1-planar graph with L-shaped
polyhedra
The Virtue of Defects in 4D Gauge Theories and 2D CFTs
We advance a correspondence between the topological defect operators in
Liouville and Toda conformal field theories - which we construct - and loop
operators and domain wall operators in four dimensional N=2 supersymmetric
gauge theories on S^4. Our computation of the correlation functions in
Liouville/Toda theory in the presence of topological defect operators, which
are supported on curves on the Riemann surface, yields the exact answer for the
partition function of four dimensional gauge theories in the presence of
various walls and loop operators; results which we can quantitatively
substantiate with an independent gauge theory analysis. As an interesting
outcome of this work for two dimensional conformal field theories, we prove
that topological defect operators and the Verlinde loop operators are different
descriptions of the same operators.Comment: 59 pages, latex; v2 corrections to some formula
Reconstructing Quantum Geometry from Quantum Information: Spin Networks as Harmonic Oscillators
Loop Quantum Gravity defines the quantum states of space geometry as spin
networks and describes their evolution in time. We reformulate spin networks in
terms of harmonic oscillators and show how the holographic degrees of freedom
of the theory are described as matrix models. This allow us to make a link with
non-commutative geometry and to look at the issue of the semi-classical limit
of LQG from a new perspective. This work is thought as part of a bigger project
of describing quantum geometry in quantum information terms.Comment: 16 pages, revtex, 3 figure
Object recognition using shape-from-shading
This paper investigates whether surface topography information extracted from intensity images using a recently reported shape-from-shading (SFS) algorithm can be used for the purposes of 3D object recognition. We consider how curvature and shape-index information delivered by this algorithm can be used to recognize objects based on their surface topography. We explore two contrasting object recognition strategies. The first of these is based on a low-level attribute summary and uses histograms of curvature and orientation measurements. The second approach is based on the structural arrangement of constant shape-index maximal patches and their associated region attributes. We show that region curvedness and a string ordering of the regions according to size provides recognition accuracy of about 96 percent. By polling various recognition schemes. including a graph matching method. we show that a recognition rate of 98-99 percent is achievable
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