Architectural rendering and 3D visualization

The following thesis, “Architectural Render and 3D Visualization,” describes the process of creating, rendering, and optimizing an Interior Design using a 3D Engine as the principal tool. The tool used during the development is “Unreal Engine,” which allows rendering and interaction in real-time with the scene. At the end of the process, we can obtain an interactive scene rendered with highquality materials trying to reach a realistic real-time scene by mixing modeling, texturing, and illumination techniques. Furthermore, scripting is contemplated in the project scope, looking to optimize the environment where we will be developing the scene, and developing some tools

Creation of modular 3D assets for videogames

Hráči počítačových her mají stále vyšší a vyšší nároky na grafické zpracování herního světa a jeho detaily. Aby jim mohlo být vyhověno, grafici musí neustále upravovat svůj přístup a používané modelovací techniky. Jeden z moderních a populárních přístupů je založen na modularitě a modulárním designu. Přestože tento přístup má spoustu benefitů, přesný popis technik a znalostí spojených s tímto konceptem není stále pevně definovaný. Tato práce poskytuje náhled na různé modelovací techniky, software pro 3D modelování a detailní popis modulárního přístupu aplikovaného v aktuálních počítačových hrách. Kombinací procedurálních modelovacích technik a modulárního designu jsme v programu Houdini připravili několik assetů už pouze čekajících na reálné využití. Dále jsme v Unreal Enginu poskládali testovací scénu a tím získali hlubší přehled o výhodách a nevýhodách použitého přístupu k tvorbě grafiky počítačových her.In order to keep up with the ever-increasing player's demand for higher visual fidelity of game environments, artists are continually implementing new modelling techniques and production methods into their workflow. One popular contemporary approach that has emerged is based on the notion of modular design. Although it offers many benefits for production workflow, the particular techniques and skills associated with this concept are still not well defined. This thesis provides an overview of various modelling techniques, 3D modelling software and thorough discussion of the modular design paradigm applied in computer games. We have combined procedural modelling techniques with the concept of modular design to create several game-ready assets in Houdini. We then assembled a simple test scene in Unreal Engine in order to gain a more in-depth insight into the advantages and disadvantages of the discussed workflow

Mobile graphics: SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 course

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Procedural Modeling and Physically Based Rendering for Synthetic Data Generation in Automotive Applications

We present an overview and evaluation of a new, systematic approach for generation of highly realistic, annotated synthetic data for training of deep neural networks in computer vision tasks. The main contribution is a procedural world modeling approach enabling high variability coupled with physically accurate image synthesis, and is a departure from the hand-modeled virtual worlds and approximate image synthesis methods used in real-time applications. The benefits of our approach include flexible, physically accurate and scalable image synthesis, implicit wide coverage of classes and features, and complete data introspection for annotations, which all contribute to quality and cost efficiency. To evaluate our approach and the efficacy of the resulting data, we use semantic segmentation for autonomous vehicles and robotic navigation as the main application, and we train multiple deep learning architectures using synthetic data with and without fine tuning on organic (i.e. real-world) data. The evaluation shows that our approach improves the neural network's performance and that even modest implementation efforts produce state-of-the-art results.Comment: The project web page at http://vcl.itn.liu.se/publications/2017/TKWU17/ contains a version of the paper with high-resolution images as well as additional materia

Silvan: An Immersive Software for Visualization and Mensuration of 3D LiDAR Point Clouds

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds, data representations composed of a collectionof 3D positioned points each with location and intensity data embedded, have numerous applications particularly in the fields of Forestry, Environmental Science, and Remote Sensing. This thesis introduces Silvan, an immersive forestry research software designed for point cloud visualization, segmentation, and mensuration. The main design goals of Silvan are to provide an immersive 3D environment for research in Forestry and Remote Sensing and to provide a mensuration and visualization pipeline for extracting tree metrics including coordinates, tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), height to live crown, and crown spread. This thesis surveys the current state of research in immersive software for analyzing and visualizing 3D point clouds and focuses on discussing the software implementation details of Silvan and how each feature addresses a limitation of current tree mensuration techniques. This thesis then describes an experimental methodology for gathering and analyzing user feedback and discusses the experimental feedback before finally concluding with discussion of future extensions of Silvan

Realtime 3d Mapping, Optimization, and Rendering Based on a Depth Sensor

This thesis provides a method for using a portable scanner to create an optimized 3D map for real time rendering. This thesis uses a cloud computing software as a service architecture which allows for a portable scanner to acquire depth maps. Using a portable scanner allows for the mapping of large areas. It will then send the depth maps to a server for a 3D map to be created in real time. This thesis discusses the acquisition of the point cloud using an open source program for 3D mapping with a depth sensor. It then covers the triangulation into a mesh using the marching cubes algorithm. The optimization of the mesh to allow real time rendering is then introduced. Finally the mesh is imported and rendered in the Unreal Engine 3 for an interactive and intuitive display.School of Electrical & Computer Engineerin

Spatial Mapping Using HoloLens 2. A Proposal for Improvement and an Analysis of Inner Workings

In this thesis we focus on improving the spatial mapping of Microsoft's augmented reality glasses HoloLens 2. Firstly, an in depth analysis of inner workings and limitations, based on public resources, is conducted. This is then followed by a series of experiments in a small and simple indoor environment, the experiments are designed to extract additional information about the mapping which could not be found through public resources. Some of the experiments have also been conducted with a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) device of the type Velodyne VLP-16. A comparison between the two indicate that HoloLens 2 is able to perform at the same level. The information from the analysis and experiments provide a strong foundation for improvement of the mapping. Only a simple algorithm have been implemented and tested, but in chapter 6 a series of recommendations and ideas for how to proceed with this project are listed. The implemented algorithm uses plane fitting to "pull" points within a certain distance onto the plane. This helps to improve structures that were originally flat, such as walls and floors

Atmospheric cloud representation methods in computer graphics: A review

Cloud representation is one of the important components in the atmospheric cloud visualization system. Lack of review papers on the cloud representation methods available in the area of computer graphics has directed towards the difficulty for researchers to understand the appropriate solutions. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the atmospheric cloud representation methods that have been proposed in the computer graphics domain, involving the classical and the current state-of-the-art approaches. The reviewing process was conducted by searching, selecting, and analyzing the prominent articles collected from online digital libraries and search engines. We highlighted the taxonomic classification of the existing cloud representation methods in solving the atmospheric cloud-related problems. Finally, research issues and directions in the area of cloud representations and visualization have been discussed. This review would be significantly beneficial for researchers to clearly understand the general picture of the existing methods and thus helping them in choosing the best-suited approach for their future research and development

GaussianHair: Hair Modeling and Rendering with Light-aware Gaussians

Hairstyle reflects culture and ethnicity at first glance. In the digital era, various realistic human hairstyles are also critical to high-fidelity digital human assets for beauty and inclusivity. Yet, realistic hair modeling and real-time rendering for animation is a formidable challenge due to its sheer number of strands, complicated structures of geometry, and sophisticated interaction with light. This paper presents GaussianHair, a novel explicit hair representation. It enables comprehensive modeling of hair geometry and appearance from images, fostering innovative illumination effects and dynamic animation capabilities. At the heart of GaussianHair is the novel concept of representing each hair strand as a sequence of connected cylindrical 3D Gaussian primitives. This approach not only retains the hair's geometric structure and appearance but also allows for efficient rasterization onto a 2D image plane, facilitating differentiable volumetric rendering. We further enhance this model with the "GaussianHair Scattering Model", adept at recreating the slender structure of hair strands and accurately capturing their local diffuse color in uniform lighting. Through extensive experiments, we substantiate that GaussianHair achieves breakthroughs in both geometric and appearance fidelity, transcending the limitations encountered in state-of-the-art methods for hair reconstruction. Beyond representation, GaussianHair extends to support editing, relighting, and dynamic rendering of hair, offering seamless integration with conventional CG pipeline workflows. Complementing these advancements, we have compiled an extensive dataset of real human hair, each with meticulously detailed strand geometry, to propel further research in this field

CADSim: Robust and Scalable in-the-wild 3D Reconstruction for Controllable Sensor Simulation

Realistic simulation is key to enabling safe and scalable development of % self-driving vehicles. A core component is simulating the sensors so that the entire autonomy system can be tested in simulation. Sensor simulation involves modeling traffic participants, such as vehicles, with high quality appearance and articulated geometry, and rendering them in real time. The self-driving industry has typically employed artists to build these assets. However, this is expensive, slow, and may not reflect reality. Instead, reconstructing assets automatically from sensor data collected in the wild would provide a better path to generating a diverse and large set with good real-world coverage. Nevertheless, current reconstruction approaches struggle on in-the-wild sensor data, due to its sparsity and noise. To tackle these issues, we present CADSim, which combines part-aware object-class priors via a small set of CAD models with differentiable rendering to automatically reconstruct vehicle geometry, including articulated wheels, with high-quality appearance. Our experiments show our method recovers more accurate shapes from sparse data compared to existing approaches. Importantly, it also trains and renders efficiently. We demonstrate our reconstructed vehicles in several applications, including accurate testing of autonomy perception systems.Comment: CoRL 2022. Project page: https://waabi.ai/cadsim