2.5D cartoon models

We present a way to bring cartoon objects and characters into the third dimension, by giving them the ability to rotate and be viewed from any angle. We show how 2D vector art drawings of a cartoon from different views can be used to generate a novel structure, the 2.5D cartoon model, which can be used to simulate 3D rotations and generate plausible renderings of the cartoon from any view. 2.5D cartoon models are easier to create than a full 3D model, and retain the 2D nature of hand-drawn vector art, supporting a wide range of stylizations that need not correspond to any real 3D shape.MathWorks, Inc. (Fellowship

Vector Graphics Animation with Time-Varying Topology

International audienceWe introduce the Vector Animation Complex (VAC), a novel data structure for vector graphics animation, designed to support themodeling of time-continuous topological events. This allows features of a connected drawing to merge, split, appear, or disappear atdesired times via keyframes that introduce the desired topological change. Because the resulting space-time complex directly capturesthe time-varying topological structure, features are readily edited in both space and time in a way that reflects the intent of the drawing.A formal description of the data structure is provided, along with topological and geometric invariants. We illustrate our modelingparadigm with experimental results on various examples

Mesh modification using deformation gradients

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-131).Computer-generated character animation, where human or anthropomorphic characters are animated to tell a story, holds tremendous potential to enrich education, human communication, perception, and entertainment. However, current animation procedures rely on a time consuming and difficult process that requires both artistic talent and technical expertise. Despite the tremendous amount of artistry, skill, and time dedicated to the animation process, there are few techniques to help with reuse. Although individual aspects of animation are well explored, there is little work that extends beyond the boundaries of any one area. As a consequence, the same procedure must be followed for each new character without the opportunity to generalize or reuse technical components. This dissertation describes techniques that ease the animation process by offering opportunities for reuse and a more intuitive animation formulation. A differential specification of arbitrary deformation provides a general representation for adapting deformation to different shapes, computing semantic correspondence between two shapes, and extrapolating natural deformation from a finite set of examples.(cont.) Deformation transfer adds a general-purpose reuse mechanism to the animation pipeline by transferring any deformation of a source triangle mesh onto a different target mesh. The transfer system uses a correspondence algorithm to build a discrete many-to-many mapping between the source and target triangles that permits transfer between meshes of different topology. Results demonstrate retargeting both kinematic poses and non-rigid deformations, as well as transfer between characters of different topological and anatomical structure. Mesh-based inverse kinematics extends the idea of traditional skeleton-based inverse kinematics to meshes by allowing the user to pose a mesh via direct manipulation. The user indicates the dass of meaningful deformations by supplying examples that can be created automatically with deformation transfer, sculpted, scanned, or produced by any other means. This technique is distinguished from traditional animation methods since it avoids the expensive character setup stage. It is distinguished from existing mesh editing algorithms since the user retains the freedom to specify the class of meaningful deformations. Results demonstrate an intuitive interface for posing meshes that requires only a small amount of user effort.by Robert Walker Sumner.Ph.D

Semantics for virtual humans

Population of Virtual Worlds with Virtual Humans is increasing rapidly by people who want to create a virtual life parallel to the real one (i.e. Second Life). The evolution of technology is smoothly providing the necessary elements to increase realism within these virtual worlds by creating believable Virtual Humans. However, creating the amount of resources needed to succeed this believability is a difficult task, mainly because of the complexity of the creation process of Virtual Humans. Even though there are many existing available resources, their reusability is difficult because there is not enough information provided to evaluate if a model contains the desired characteristics to be reused. Additionally, the knowledge involved in the creation of Virtual Humans is not well known, nor well disseminated. There are several different creation techniques, different software components, and several processes to carry out before having a Virtual Human capable of populating a virtual environment. The creation of Virtual Humans involves: a geometrical representation with an internal control structure, the motion synthesis with different animation techniques, higher level controllers and descriptors to simulate human-like behavior such individuality, cognition, interaction capabilities, etc. All these processes require the expertise from different fields of knowledge such as mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, design, etc. Furthermore, there is neither common framework nor common understanding of how elements involved in the creation, development, and interaction of Virtual Humans features are done. Therefore, there is a need for describing (1) existing resources, (2) Virtual Human's composition and features, (3) a creation pipeline and (4) the different levels/fields of knowledge comprehended. This thesis presents an explicit representation of the Virtual Humans and their features to provide a conceptual framework that will interest to all people involved in the creation and development of these characters. This dissertation focuses in a semantic description of Virtual Humans. The creation of a semantic description involves gathering related knowledge, agreement among experts in the definition of concepts, validation of the ontology design, etc. In this dissertation all these procedures are presented, and an Ontology for Virtual Humans is described in detail together with the validations that conducted to the resulted ontology. The goal of creating such ontology is to promote reusability of existing resources; to create a shared knowledge of the creation and composition of Virtual Humans; and to support new research of the fields involved in the development of believable Virtual Humans and virtual environments. Finally, this thesis presents several developments that aim to demonstrate the ontology usability and reusability. These developments serve particularly to support the research on specialized knowledge of Virtual Humans, the population of virtual environments, and improve the believability of these characters

Department of Computer Science Activity 1998-2004

This report summarizes much of the research and teaching activity of the Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College between late 1998 and late 2004. The material for this report was collected as part of the final report for NSF Institutional Infrastructure award EIA-9802068, which funded equipment and technical staff during that six-year period. This equipment and staff supported essentially all of the department\u27s research activity during that period

Generative Mesh Modeling

Generative Modeling is an alternative approach for the description of three-dimensional shape. The basic idea is to represent a model not as usual by an agglomeration of geometric primitives (triangles, point clouds, NURBS patches), but by functions. The paradigm change from objects to operations allows for a procedural representation of procedural shapes, such as most man-made objects. Instead of storing only the result of a 3D construction, the construction process itself is stored in a model file. The generative approach opens truly new perspectives in many ways, among others also for 3D knowledge management. It permits for instance to resort to a repository of already solved modeling problems, in order to re-use this knowledge also in different, slightly varied situations. The construction knowledge can be collected in digital libraries containing domain-specific parametric modeling tools. A concrete realization of this approach is a new general description language for 3D models, the "Generative Modeling Language" GML. As a Turing-complete "shape programming language" it is a basis of existing, primitv based 3D model formats. Together with its Runtime engine the GML permits - to store highly complex 3D models in a compact form, - to evaluate the description within fractions of a second, - to adaptively tesselate and to interactively display the model, - and even to change the models high-level parameters at runtime.Die generative Modellierung ist ein alternativer Ansatz zur Beschreibung von dreidimensionaler Form. Zugrunde liegt die Idee, ein Modell nicht wie üblich durch eine Ansammlung geometrischer Primitive (Dreiecke, Punkte, NURBS-Patches) zu beschreiben, sondern durch Funktionen. Der Paradigmenwechsel von Objekten zu Geometrie-erzeugenden Operationen ermöglicht es, prozedurale Modelle auch prozedural zu repräsentieren. Statt das Resultat eines 3D-Konstruktionsprozesses zu speichern, kann so der Konstruktionsprozess selber repräsentiert werden. Der generative Ansatz eröffnet unter anderem gänzlich neue Perspektiven für das Wissensmanagement im 3D-Bereich. Er ermöglicht etwa, auf einen Fundus bereits gelöster Konstruktions-Aufgaben zurückzugreifen, um sie in ähnlichen, aber leicht variierten Situationen wiederverwenden zu können. Das Konstruktions-Wissen kann dazu in Form von Bibliotheken parametrisierter, Domänen-spezifischer Modellier-Werkzeuge gesammelt werden. Konkret wird dazu eine neue allgemeine Modell-Beschreibungs-Sprache vorgeschlagen, die "Generative Modeling Language" GML. Als Turing-mächtige "Programmiersprache für Form" stellt sie eine echte Verallgemeinerung existierender Primitiv-basierter 3D-Modellformate dar. Zusammen mit ihrer Runtime-Engine erlaubt die GML, - hochkomplexe 3D-Objekte extrem kompakt zu beschreiben, - die Beschreibung innerhalb von Sekundenbruchteilen auszuwerten, - das Modell adaptiv darzustellen und interaktiv zu betrachten, - und die Modell-Parameter interaktiv zu verändern

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2015

The Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) of Old Dominion University hosted the 2015 Modeling, Simulation, & Visualization Student capstone Conference on April 16th. The Capstone Conference features students in Modeling and Simulation, undergraduates and graduate degree programs, and fields from many colleges and/or universities. Students present their research to an audience of fellow students, faculty, judges, and other distinguished guests. For the students, these presentations afford them the opportunity to impart their innovative research to members of the M&S community from academic, industry, and government backgrounds. Also participating in the conference are faculty and judges who have volunteered their time to impart direct support to their students’ research, facilitate the various conference tracks, serve as judges for each of the tracks, and provide overall assistance to this conference. 2015 marks the ninth year of the VMASC Capstone Conference for Modeling, Simulation and Visualization. This year our conference attracted a number of fine student written papers and presentations, resulting in a total of 51 research works that were presented. This year’s conference had record attendance thanks to the support from the various different departments at Old Dominion University, other local Universities, and the United States Military Academy, at West Point. We greatly appreciated all of the work and energy that has gone into this year’s conference, it truly was a highly collaborative effort that has resulted in a very successful symposium for the M&S community and all of those involved. Below you will find a brief summary of the best papers and best presentations with some simple statistics of the overall conference contribution. Followed by that is a table of contents that breaks down by conference track category with a copy of each included body of work. Thank you again for your time and your contribution as this conference is designed to continuously evolve and adapt to better suit the authors and M&S supporters. Dr.Yuzhong Shen Graduate Program Director, MSVE Capstone Conference Chair John ShullGraduate Student, MSVE Capstone Conference Student Chai