View generated database

This document represents the final report for the View Generated Database (VGD) project, NAS7-1066. It documents the work done on the project up to the point at which all project work was terminated due to lack of project funds. The VGD was to provide the capability to accurately represent any real-world object or scene as a computer model. Such models include both an accurate spatial/geometric representation of surfaces of the object or scene, as well as any surface detail present on the object. Applications of such models are numerous, including acquisition and maintenance of work models for tele-autonomous systems, generation of accurate 3-D geometric/photometric models for various 3-D vision systems, and graphical models for realistic rendering of 3-D scenes via computer graphics

The development of GIS to aid conservation of architectural and archaeological sites using digital terrestrial photogrammetry

This thesis is concerned with the creation and implementation of an Architectural/Archaeological information System (A/AIS) by integrating digital terrestrial photogrammetry and CAD facilities as applicable to the requirements of architects, archaeologists and civil engineers. Architects and archaeologists are involved with the measurement, analysis and recording of the historical buildings and monuments. Hard-copy photogrammetric methods supporting such analyses and documentation are well established. But the requirement to interpret, classify and quantitatively process photographs can be time consuming. Also, they have limited application and cannot be re-examined if the information desired is not directly presented and a much more challenging extraction of 3-D coordinates than in a digital photogrammetric environment. The A/AIS has been developed to the point that it can provide a precise and reliable technique for non-contact 3-D measurements. The speed of on-line data acquisition, high degree of automation and adaptability has made this technique a powerful measurement tool with a great number of applications for architectural or archaeological sites. The designed tool (A/AIS) has been successful in producing the expected results in tasks examined for St. Avit Senieur Abbey in France, Strome Castle in Scotland, Gilbert Scott Building of Glasgow University, Hunter Memorial in Glasgow University and Anobanini Rock in Iran. The goals of this research were: to extract, using digital photogrammetric digitising, 3-D coordinates of architectural/archaeological features, to identify an appropriate 3-D model, to import 3-D points/lines into an appropriate 3-D modeller, to generate 3-D objects. to design and implement a prototype architectural Information System using the above 3-D model, to compare this approach to traditional approaches of measuring and archiving required information. An assessment of the contribution of digital photogrammetry, GIS and CAD to the surveying, conservation, recording and documentation of historical buildings and cultural monuments include digital rectification and restitution, feature extraction for the creation of 3-D digital models and the computer visualisation are the focus of this research

Overview of database projects

The use of entity and object oriented data modeling techniques for managing Computer Aided Design (CAD) is explored

Degree-Driven Design of Geometric Algorithms for Point Location, Proximity, and Volume Calculation

Correct implementation of published geometric algorithms is surprisingly difficult. Geometric algorithms are often designed for Real-RAM, a computational model that provides arbitrary precision arithmetic operations at unit cost. Actual commodity hardware provides only finite precision and may result in arithmetic errors. While the errors may seem small, if ignored, they may cause incorrect branching, which may cause an implementation to reach an undefined state, produce erroneous output, or crash. In 1999 Liotta, Preparata and Tamassia proposed that in addition to considering the resources of time and space, an algorithm designer should also consider the arithmetic precision necessary to guarantee a correct implementation. They called this design technique degree-driven algorithm design. Designers who consider the time, space, and precision for a problem up-front arrive at new solutions, gain further insight, and find simpler representations. In this thesis, I show that degree-driven design supports the development of new and robust geometric algorithms. I demonstrate this claim via several new algorithms. For n point sites on a UxU grid I consider three problems. First, I show how to compute the nearest neighbor transform in O(U^2) expected time, O(U^2) space, and double precision. Second, I show how to create a data structure in O(n log Un) expected time, O(n) expected space, and triple precision that supports O(log n) time and double precision post-office queries. Third, I show how to compute the Gabriel graph in O(n^2) time, O(n^2) space and double precision. For computing volumes of CSG models, I describe a framework that uses a minimal set of predicates that use at most five-fold precision. The framework is over 500x faster and two orders of magnitude more accurate than a Monte Carlo volume calculation algorithm.Doctor of Philosoph

Voxel octree intersection based 3D scanning

Recent developments in the field of three dimensional (3D) printing have resulted in widely available low-cost 3D printers. These printers require 3D models, which are traditionally created in 3D modeling software or are created from 3D scans of existing objects. To be printable, these models must exhibit the property of being watertight. In this thesis, a technique is developed, which, in combination with a custom built low-cost 3D scanner, produces watertight 3D models. Models produced by this technique - the voxel octree intersection technique - do not require any additional processing prior to 3D printing. Results from using this technique with the custom built scanner are examined, and along with the effects of changing various parameters to the technique

Solveur Parallèle pour l'Equation de Poisson sur Mailles Superposées et Hiérarchiques, dans le Cadre du Langage Python

Adaptive discretizations are important in compressible/incompressible flow problems since it is often necessary to resolve details on multiple levels, allowing large regions of space to be modeled using a reduced number of degrees of freedom (reducing the computational time). There are a wide variety of methods for adaptively discretizing space, but Cartesian grids have often outperformed them even at high resolutions due to their simple and accurate numerical stencils and their superior parallel performances. Such performance and simplicity are in general obtained applying a finite-difference scheme for the resolution of the problems involved, but this discretization approach does not present, by contrast, an easy adapting path. In a finite-volume scheme, instead, we can incorporate different types of grids, more suitable for adaptive refinements, increasing the complexity on the stencils and getting a greater flexibility. The Laplace operator is an essential building block of the Navier-Stokes equations, a model that governs fluid flows, but it occurs also in differential equations that describe many other physical phenomena, such as electric and gravitational potentials, and quantum mechanics. So, it is a very important differential operator, and all the studies carried out on it, prove its relevance. In this work will be presented 2D finite-difference and finite-volume approaches to solve the Laplacian operator, applying patches of overlapping grids where a more fined level is needed, leaving coarsermeshes in the rest of the computational domain. These overlapping grids will have generic quadrilateral shapes. Specifically, the topics covered will be: 1) introduction to the finite difference method, finite volume method, domain partitioning, solution approximation; 2)overview of different types of meshes to represent in a discrete way the geometry involved in a problem, with a focus on the octree data structure, presenting PABLO and PABLitO. The first one is an external library used to manage each single grid’s creation, load balancing andinternal communications, while the second one is the Python API of that library written ad hoc for the current project; 3) presentation of the algorithm used to communicate data between meshes (being all of them unaware of each other’s existence) using MPI inter-communicators and clarification of the monolithic approach applied building the final matrix for the system to solve, taking into account diagonal, restriction and prolongation blocks; 4) presentation of some results; conclusions, references. It is important to underline that everything is done under Python as programming framework, using Cython for the writing of PABLitO, MPI4Py for the communications between grids, PETSc4py for the assembling and resolution parts of the system of unknowns, NumPy for contiguous memory buffer objects. The choice of this programming language has been made because Python, easy to learn and understand, is today a significant contender for the numerical computing and HPC ecosystem, thanks to its clean style, its packages, its compilers and, why not, its specific architecture optimized versions.Les discrétisations adaptatives sont importantes dans les problèmes de flux compressible/incompressible puisqu'il est souvent nécessaire de résoudre des détails sur plusieurs niveaux, en permettant de modéliser de grandes régions d'espace en utilisant un nombre réduit de degrés de liberté (et en réduisant le temps de calcul). Il existe une grande variété de méthodes de discrétisation adaptative, mais les grilles cartésiennes sont les plus efficaces, grâce à leurs stencils numériques simples et précis et à leurs performances parallèles supérieures. Et telles performance et simplicité sont généralement obtenues en appliquant un schéma de différences finies pour la résolution des problèmes, mais cette approche de discrétisation ne présente pas, au contraire, un chemin facile d'adaptation.Dans un schéma de volumes finis, en revanche, nous pouvons incorporer différents types de maillages, plus appropriées aux raffinements adaptatifs, en augmentant la complexité sur les stencils et en obtenant une plus grande flexibilité. L'opérateur de Laplace est un élémentessentiel des équations de Navier-Stokes, un modèle qui gouverne les écoulements de fluides, mais il se produit également dans des équations différentielles qui décrivent de nombreux autres phénomènes physiques, tels que les potentiels électriques et gravitationnels. Il s'agit donc d'un opérateur différentiel très important, et toutes les études qui ont été effectuées sur celui-ci, prouvent sa pertinence. Dans ce travail seront présentés des approches de différences finies et de volumes finis 2D pour résoudre l'opérateur laplacien, en appliquant des patchs de grilles superposées où un niveau plus fin est nécessaire, en laissant des maillages plus grossiers dans le reste du domaine de calcul. Ces grilles superposées auront des formes quadrilatérales génériques. Plus précisément, les sujets abordés seront les suivants: 1) introduction à la méthode des différences finies, méthode des volumes finis, partitionnement des domaines, approximation de la solution; 2)récapitulatif des différents types de maillages pour représenter de façon discrète la géométrie impliquée dans un problème, avec un focus sur la structure de données octree, présentant PABLO et PABLitO. Le premier est une bibliothèque externe utilisée pour gérer la création de chaque grille, l'équilibrage de charge et les communications internes, tandis que la seconde est l'API Python de cette bibliothèque, écrite ad hoc pour le projet en cours; 3) la présentation de l'algorithme utilisé pour communiquer les données entre les maillages (en ignorant chacune l'existence de l'autre) en utilisant les intercommunicateurs MPI et la clarification de l'approche monolithique appliquée à la construction finale de la matrice pour résoudre le système, en tenant compte des blocs diagonaux, de restriction et de prolongement; 4) la présentation de certains résultats; conclusions, références. Il est important de souligner que tout est fait sous Python comme framework de programmation, en utilisant Cython pour l'écriture de PABLitO, MPI4Py pour les communications entre grilles, PETSc4py pour les parties assemblage et résolution du système d'inconnues, NumPy pour les objets à mémoire continue. Le choix de ce langage de programmation a été fait car Python, facile à apprendre et à comprendre, est aujourd'hui un concurrent significatif pour l'informatique numérique et l'écosystème HPC, grâce à son style épuré, ses packages, ses compilateurs et pourquoi pas ses versions optimisées pour des architectures spécifiques

Modeling and rendering for development of a virtual bone surgery system

A virtual bone surgery system is developed to provide the potential of a realistic, safe, and controllable environment for surgical education. It can be used for training in orthopedic surgery, as well as for planning and rehearsal of bone surgery procedures...Using the developed system, the user can perform virtual bone surgery by simultaneously seeing bone material removal through a graphic display device, feeling the force via a haptic deice, and hearing the sound of tool-bone interaction --Abstract, page iii