Visual Prototyping of Cloth

Realistic visualization of cloth has many applications in computer graphics. An ongoing research problem is how to best represent and capture appearance models of cloth, especially when considering computer aided design of cloth. Previous methods can be used to produce highly realistic images, however, possibilities for cloth-editing are either restricted or require the measurement of large material databases to capture all variations of cloth samples. We propose a pipeline for designing the appearance of cloth directly based on those elements that can be changed within the production process. These are optical properties of fibers, geometrical properties of yarns and compositional elements such as weave patterns. We introduce a geometric yarn model, integrating state-of-the-art textile research. We further present an approach to reverse engineer cloth and estimate parameters for a procedural cloth model from single images. This includes the automatic estimation of yarn paths, yarn widths, their variation and a weave pattern. We demonstrate that we are able to match the appearance of original cloth samples in an input photograph for several examples. Parameters of our model are fully editable, enabling intuitive appearance design. Unfortunately, such explicit fiber-based models can only be used to render small cloth samples, due to large storage requirements. Recently, bidirectional texture functions (BTFs) have become popular for efficient photo-realistic rendering of materials. We present a rendering approach combining the strength of a procedural model of micro-geometry with the efficiency of BTFs. We propose a method for the computation of synthetic BTFs using Monte Carlo path tracing of micro-geometry. We observe that BTFs usually consist of many similar apparent bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (ABRDFs). By exploiting structural self-similarity, we can reduce rendering times by one order of magnitude. This is done in a process we call non-local image reconstruction, which has been inspired by non-local means filtering. Our results indicate that synthesizing BTFs is highly practical and may currently only take a few minutes for small BTFs. We finally propose a novel and general approach to physically accurate rendering of large cloth samples. By using a statistical volumetric model, approximating the distribution of yarn fibers, a prohibitively costly, explicit geometric representation is avoided. As a result, accurate rendering of even large pieces of fabrics becomes practical without sacrificing much generality compared to fiber-based techniques

A 3D garment design and simulation system

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this thesis study, a 3D graphics environment for virtual garment design and simulation is presented. The proposed system enables the three dimensional construction of a garment from its two dimensional cloth panels, for which the underlying structure is a mass-spring model. Construction of the garment is performed through cutting, boundary smoothing , seaming and scaling. Afterwards, it is possible to do fitting on virtual mannequins like in the real life as if in a tailor’s workshop. The behavior of cloth under different environmental conditions is implemented applying a physically-based approach. As well as the simulation of the draping of garments, efficient and realistic visualization of garments is an important issue in cloth modelling. There are various material types and reflectance properties for fabrics. We have implemented a number of material and rendering options such as knitwear, woven cloth and standard shading methods such as Gouraud shading. Performance results of the system are presented at the end.Durupınar, FundaM.S

View-dependent adaptive cloth simulation

This paper describes a method for view-dependent cloth simulation using dynamically adaptive mesh refinement and coarsening. Given a prescribed camera motion, the method adjusts the criteria controlling refinement to account for visibility and apparent size in the camera's view. Objectionable dynamic artifacts are avoided by anticipative refinement and smoothed coarsening. This approach preserves the appearance of detailed cloth throughout the animation while avoiding the wasted effort of simulating details that would not be discernible to the viewer. The computational savings realized by this method increase as scene complexity grows, producing a 2× speed-up for a single character and more than 4× for a small group

A survey of real-time crowd rendering

In this survey we review, classify and compare existing approaches for real-time crowd rendering. We first overview character animation techniques, as they are highly tied to crowd rendering performance, and then we analyze the state of the art in crowd rendering. We discuss different representations for level-of-detail (LoD) rendering of animated characters, including polygon-based, point-based, and image-based techniques, and review different criteria for runtime LoD selection. Besides LoD approaches, we review classic acceleration schemes, such as frustum culling and occlusion culling, and describe how they can be adapted to handle crowds of animated characters. We also discuss specific acceleration techniques for crowd rendering, such as primitive pseudo-instancing, palette skinning, and dynamic key-pose caching, which benefit from current graphics hardware. We also address other factors affecting performance and realism of crowds such as lighting, shadowing, clothing and variability. Finally we provide an exhaustive comparison of the most relevant approaches in the field.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Design and Evaluation of Menu Systems for Immersive Virtual Environments

Interfaces for system control tasks in virtual environments (VEs) have not been extensively studied. This paper focuses on various types of menu systems to be used in such environments. We describe the design of the TULIP menu, a menu system using Pinch Gloves™, and compare it to two common alternatives: floating menus and pen and tablet menus. These three menus were compared in an empirical evaluation. The pen and tablet menu was found to be significantly faster, while users had a preference for TULIP. Subjective discomfort levels were also higher with the floating menus and pen and tablet

Efficient light scattering through thin semi-transparent objects

This paper concerns real-time rendering of thin semi-transparent objects. An object in this category could be a piece of cloth, eg. a curtain. Semi-transparent objects are visualized most correctly using volume rendering techniques. In general such techniques are, however, intractable for real-time applications. Surface rendering is more efficient, but also inadequate since semi-transparent objects should have a different appearance depending on whether they are front-lit or back-lit. The back-lit side of a curtain, for example, often seems quite transparent while the front-lit side seems brighter and almost opaque. To capture such visual effects in the standard rendering pipeline, Blinn [1982] proposed an efficient local illumination model based on radiative transfer theory. He assumed media of low density, hence, his equations can render media such as clouds, smoke, and dusty surfaces. Our observation is that Chandrasekhar [1960] has derived the same equations from a different set of assumptions. This alternative derivation makes the theory useful for realistic real-time rendering of dense, but thin, semitransparent objects such as cloth. We demonstrate that application of the theory in this new area gives far better results than what is obtainable with a traditional real-time rendering scheme using a constant factor for alpha blending