Active modelling of virtual humans

This thesis provides a complete framework that enables the creation of photorealistic 3D human models in real-world environments. The approach allows a non-expert user to use any digital capture device to obtain four images of an individual and create a personalised 3D model, for multimedia applications. To achieve this, it is necessary that the system is automatic and that the reconstruction process is flexible to account for information that is not available or incorrectly captured. In this approach the individual is automatically extracted from the environment using constrained active B-spline templates that are scaled and automatically initialised using only image information. These templates incorporate the energy minimising framework for Active Contour Models, providing a suitable and flexible method to deal with the adjustments in pose an individual can adopt. The final states of the templates describe the individual’s shape. The contours in each view are combined to form a 3D B-spline surface that characterises an individual’s maximal silhouette equivalent. The surface provides a mould that contains sufficient information to allow for the active deformation of an underlying generic human model. This modelling approach is performed using a novel technique that evolves active-meshes to 3D for deforming the underlying human model, while adaptively constraining it to preserve its existing structure. The active-mesh approach incorporates internal constraints that maintain the structural relationship of the vertices of the human model, while external forces deform the model congruous to the 3D surface mould. The strength of the internal constraints can be reduced to allow the model to adopt the exact shape of the bounding volume or strengthened to preserve the internal structure, particularly in areas of high detail. This novel implementation provides a uniform framework that can be simply and automatically applied to the entire human model

MPEG-4 content creation: integration of MPEG-4 content creation tools into an existing animation tool

This thesis provides a complete framework that enables the creation of photorealistic 3D human models in real-world environments. The approach allows a non-expert user to use any digital capture device to obtain four images of an individual and create a personalised 3D model, for multimedia applications. To achieve this, it is necessary that the system is automatic and that the reconstruction process is flexible to account for information that is not available or incorrectly captured. In this approach the individual is automatically extracted from the environment using constrained active B-spline templates that are scaled and automatically initialised using only image information. These templates incorporate the energy minimising framework for Active Contour Models, providing a suitable and flexible method to deal with the adjustments in pose an individual can adopt. The final states o f the templates describe the individual’s shape. The contours in each view are combined to form a 3D B-spline surface that characterises an individual’s maximal silhouette equivalent. The surface provides a mould that contains sufficient information to allow for the active deformation of an underlying generic human model. This modelling approach is performed using a novel technique that evolves active-meshes to 3D for deforming the underlying human model, while adaptively constraining it to preserve its existing structure. The active-mesh approach incorporates internal constraints that maintain the structural relationship of the vertices of the human model, while external forces deform the model congruous to the 3D surface mould. The strength of the internal constraints can be reduced to allow the model to adopt the exact shape o f the bounding volume or strengthened to preserve the internal structure, particularly in areas of high detail. This novel implementation provides a uniform framework that can be simply and automatically applied to the entire human model