PDE-based Facial Animation: Making the Complex Simple

YesDirect parameterisation is among the most widely used facial animation techniques but requires complicated ways to animate face models which have complex topology. This paper develops a simple solution by introducing a PDE-based facial animation scheme. Using a PDE face model means we only need to animate a group of boundary curves without using any other conventional surface interpolation algorithms. We describe the basis of the method and show results from a practical implementation.EPSR

PDE Face: A Novel 3D Face Model

YesWe introduce a novel approach to face models, which exploits the use of Partial Differential Equations (PDE) to generate the 3D face. This addresses some common problems of existing face models. The PDE face benefits from seamless merging of surface patches by using only a relatively small number of parameters based on boundary curves. The PDE face also provides users with a great degree of freedom to individualise the 3D face by adjusting a set of facial boundary curves. Furthermore, we introduce a uv-mesh texture mapping method. By associating the texels of the texture map with the vertices of the uv mesh in the PDE face, the new texture mapping method eliminates the 3D-to-2D association routine in texture mapping. Any specific PDE face can be textured without the need for the facial expression in the texture map to match exactly that of the 3D face model

Modelling facial action units using partial differential equations.

This thesis discusses a novel method for modelling facial action units. It presents facial action units model based on boundary value problems for accurate representation of human facial expression in three-dimensions. In particular, a solution to a fourth order elliptic Partial Differential Equation (PDE) subject to suitable boundary conditions is utilized, where the chosen boundary curves are based on muscles movement defined by Facial Action Coding System (FACS). This study involved three stages: modelling faces, manipulating faces and application to simple facial animation. In the first stage, PDE method is used in modelling and generating a smooth 3D face. The PDE formulation using small sets of parameters contributes to the efficiency of human face representation. In the manipulation stage, a generic PDE face of neutral expression is manipulated to a face with expression using PDE descriptors that uniquely represents an action unit. A combination of the PDE descriptor results in a generic PDE face having an expression, which successfully modelled four basic expressions: happy, sad, fear and disgust. An example of application is given using simple animation technique called blendshapes. This technique uses generic PDE face in animating basic expressions.Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Terenggan

Interactive surface design and manipulation using PDE-method through Autodesk Maya plug-in.

This paper aims to propose a method for geometric design, modelling and shape manipulation using minimum input design parameters. Here, we address the method for the construction of 3D geometry based on the use of Elliptic Partial Differential Equations (PDE). The geometry corresponding to an object is treated as a set of surface patches, whereby each surface patch is represented using four boundary curves in the 3D space that formulate the appropriate boundary conditions for the chosen PDE. We present our methodology using a plugin that was developed utilizing Maya API. The plug-in provides the user with tools that could be used easily and effectively for designing purposes. Maya is a popular 3D modelling tool. Various types of shapes with different complexities are presented here. Our proposed method allow the designer to utilize the Maya functionality for sketching curves in the 3D space that represents the outline of arbitrary shapes, construct the corresponding model using the PDE method, deform and sculpt these models interactively by editing the boundary curves

Partial differential equations for function based geometry modelling within visual cyberworlds

We propose the use of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) for shape modelling within visual cyberworlds. PDEs, especially those that are elliptic in nature, enable surface modelling to be defined as boundary-value problems. Here we show how the PDE based on the Biharmonic equation subject to suitable boundary conditions can be used for shape modelling within visual cyberworlds. We discuss an analytic solution formulation for the Biharmonic equation which allows us to define a function based geometry whereby the resulting geometry can be visualised efficiently at arbitrary levels of shape resolutions. In particular, we discuss how function based PDE surfaces can be readily integrated within VRML and X3D environment

Advanced ODE Based Head Modelling for Chinese Marionette Art Preservation

Puppetry has been a popular art form for many centuries in different cultures, which becomes a valuable and fascinating heritage assert. Traditional Chinese marionette art with over 2,000 years history is one of the most representative forms offering a mixture of stage performance of singing, dancing, music, poem, opera, story narrative and action. Apart from a set of string rules which controls the dynamics, head carving skill is another important pillar in this art form. This paper addresses the heritage preservation of the marionette head carving by digitalizing the head models with a novel modelling technique using ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The technique has been specially tailored to suit the modelling complexity and the need of accurate description of shapes. It offers smoothly sewing ODE swept patches to represent the distinct features of a marionette head with sharp variance of local geometry. Such features otherwise are difficult to model and capture accurately, which may require a great effort and tedious hand-crafting of an experienced modeller, when using other representation forms like polygons

Scalable Dense Non-rigid Structure-from-Motion: A Grassmannian Perspective

This paper addresses the task of dense non-rigid structure-from-motion (NRSfM) using multiple images. State-of-the-art methods to this problem are often hurdled by scalability, expensive computations, and noisy measurements. Further, recent methods to NRSfM usually either assume a small number of sparse feature points or ignore local non-linearities of shape deformations, and thus cannot reliably model complex non-rigid deformations. To address these issues, in this paper, we propose a new approach for dense NRSfM by modeling the problem on a Grassmann manifold. Specifically, we assume the complex non-rigid deformations lie on a union of local linear subspaces both spatially and temporally. This naturally allows for a compact representation of the complex non-rigid deformation over frames. We provide experimental results on several synthetic and real benchmark datasets. The procured results clearly demonstrate that our method, apart from being scalable and more accurate than state-of-the-art methods, is also more robust to noise and generalizes to highly non-linear deformations.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2018, typos fixed and acknowledgement adde

Optimal NURBS conversion of PDE surface-represented high-speed train heads

© 2019, The Author(s). The head shape of high-speed trains has become a critical factor in boosting the speed further. Aerodynamic simulation-based optimization is a dominant method to obtain the optimal head shape which relies on detailed train head models defined by a lot of design variables. Since aerodynamic simulation-based optimization involves heavy calculations, too many design variables not only causes high computational costs, but also makes the optimal solution difficult to obtain. Therefore, how to use few design variables to define detailed train head model is the key to success. Partial differential equation (PDE)-based geometric modelling which creates a complicated PDE patch with few design variables provides an effective solution to this problem. In addition, it also has the advantage of naturally maintaining any high-order continuities between two adjacent surfaces which is very important in designing highly smooth train heads to achieve excellent aerodynamic performance. At the present time, PDE-based geometric modelling cannot be directly applied in computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and computer-aided engineering (CAE) since it has not become an industrial standard. In contrast, non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) are commonly used in CAD, CAM, CAE, and many other engineering fields. They have already become part of industry wide standards. In order to apply PDE-based geometric modelling in shape design of high-speed train heads for CAD etc., how to optimally convert PDE surfaces into NURBS surfaces must be addressed. In this paper, a new method of achieving optimal conversion of PDE surfaces representing high-speed train heads into NURBS surfaces is developed. It takes control points and weight deformations of NURBS surfaces to be design variables, and the error between NURBS surfaces and PDE surfaces as the objective function. The least squares fitting and the genetic algorithm are combined to obtain the optimal conversion between PDE surfaces and NURBS surfaces. The application examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed method

Pde surface-represented facial blendshapes

Partial differential equation (PDE)-based geometric modelling and computer animation has been extensively investigated in the last three decades. However, the PDE surface-represented facial blendshapes have not been investigated. In this paper, we propose a new method of facial blendshapes by using curve-defined and Fourier series-represented PDE surfaces. In order to develop this new method, first, we design a curve template and use it to extract curves from polygon facial models. Then, we propose a second-order partial differential equation and combine it with the constraints of the extracted curves as boundary curves to develop a mathematical model of curve-defined PDE surfaces. After that, we introduce a generalized Fourier series representation to solve the second-order partial differential equation subjected to the constraints of the extracted boundary curves and obtain an analytical mathematical expression of curve-defined and Fourier series-represented PDE surfaces. The mathematical expression is used to develop a new PDE surface-based interpolation method of creating new facial models from one source facial model and one target facial model and a new PDE surface-based blending method of creating more new facial models from one source facial model and many target facial models. Some examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applications of the proposed method in 3D facial blendshapes

Improving Realism of Facial Interpolation and Blendshapes with Analytical Partial Differential Equation-Represented Physics

How to create realistic shapes by interpolating two known shapes for facial blendshapes has not been investigated in the existing literature. In this paper, we propose a physics-based mathematical model and its analytical solutions to obtain more realistic facial shape changes. To this end, we first introduce the internal force of elastic beam bending into the equation of motion and integrate it with the constraints of two known shapes to develop the physics-based mathematical model represented with dynamic partial differential equations (PDEs). Second, we propose a unified mathematical expression of the external force represented with linear and various nonlinear time-dependent Fourier series, introduce it into the mathematical model to create linear and various nonlinear dynamic deformations of the curves defining a human face model, and derive analytical solutions of the mathematical model. Third, we evaluate the realism of the obtained analytical solutions in interpolating two known shapes to create new shape changes by comparing the shape changes calculated with the obtained analytical solutions and geometric linear interpolation to the ground-truth shape changes and conclude that among linear and various nonlinear PDE-based analytical solutions named as linear, quadratic, and cubic PDE-based interpolation, quadratic PDE-based interpolation creates the most realistic shape changes, which are more realistic than those obtained with the geometric linear interpolation. Finally, we use the quadratic PDE-based interpolation to develop a facial blendshape method and demonstrate that the proposed approach is more efficient than numerical physics-based facial blendshapes