Pose selection for animated scenes and a case study of bas-relief generation

This paper aims to automate the process of generating a meaningful single still image from a temporal input of scene sequences. The success of our extraction relies on evaluating the optimal pose of characters selection, which should maximize the information conveyed. We define the information entropy of the still image candidates as the evaluation criteria. To validate our method and to demonstrate its effectiveness, we generated a relief (as a unique form of art creation) to narrate given temporal action scenes. A user study was conducted to experimentally compare the computer-selected poses with those selected by human participants. The results show that the proposed method can assist the selection of informative pose of character effectively

3D sunken relief generation from a single image by feature line enhancement

Sunken relief is an art form whereby the depicted shapes are sunk into a given flat plane with a shallow overall depth. In this paper, we propose an efficient sunken relief generation algorithm based on a single image by the technique of feature line enhancement. Our method starts from a single image. First, we smoothen the image with morphological operations such as opening and closing operations and extract the feature lines by comparing the values of adjacent pixels. Then we apply unsharp masking to sharpen the feature lines. After that, we enhance and smoothen the local information to obtain an image with less burrs and jaggies. Differential operations are applied to produce the perceptive relief-like images. Finally, we construct the sunken relief surface by triangularization which transforms two-dimensional information into a three-dimensional model. The experimental results demonstrate that our method is simple and efficient

Action snapshot with single pose and viewpoint

Many art forms present visual content as a single image captured from a particular viewpoint. How to select a meaningful representative moment from an action performance is difficult, even for an experienced artist. Often, a well-picked image can tell a story properly. This is important for a range of narrative scenarios, such as journalists reporting breaking news, scholars presenting their research, or artists crafting artworks. We address the underlying structures and mechanisms of a pictorial narrative with a new concept, called the action snapshot, which automates the process of generating a meaningful snapshot (a single still image) from an input of scene sequences. The input of dynamic scenes could include several interactive characters who are fully animated. We propose a novel method based on information theory to quantitatively evaluate the information contained in a pose. Taking the selected top postures as input, a convolutional neural network is constructed and trained with the method of deep reinforcement learning to select a single viewpoint, which maximally conveys the information of the sequence. User studies are conducted to experimentally compare the computer-selected poses and viewpoints with those selected by human participants. The results show that the proposed method can assist the selection of the most informative snapshot effectively from animation-intensive scenarios

Of assembling small sculptures and disassembling large geometry

This thesis describes the research results and contributions that have been achieved during the author’s doctoral work. It is divided into two independent parts, each of which is devoted to a particular research aspect. The first part covers the true-to-detail creation of digital pieces of art, so-called relief sculptures, from given 3D models. The main goal is to limit the depth of the contained objects with respect to a certain perspective without compromising the initial three-dimensional impression. Here, the preservation of significant features and especially their sharpness is crucial. Therefore, it is necessary to overemphasize fine surface details to ensure their perceptibility in the more complanate relief. Our developments are aimed at amending the flexibility and user-friendliness during the generation process. The main focus is on providing real-time solutions with intuitive usability that make it possible to create precise, lifelike and aesthetic results. These goals are reached by a GPU implementation, the use of efficient filtering techniques, and the replacement of user defined parameters by adaptive values. Our methods are capable of processing dynamic scenes and allow the generation of seamless artistic reliefs which can be composed of multiple elements. The second part addresses the analysis of repetitive structures, so-called symmetries, within very large data sets. The automatic recognition of components and their patterns is a complex correspondence problem which has numerous applications ranging from information visualization over compression to automatic scene understanding. Recent algorithms reach their limits with a growing amount of data, since their runtimes rise quadratically. Our aim is to make even massive data sets manageable. Therefore, it is necessary to abstract features and to develop a suitable, low-dimensional descriptor which ensures an efficient, robust, and purposive search. A simple inspection of the proximity within the descriptor space helps to significantly reduce the number of necessary pairwise comparisons. Our method scales quasi-linearly and allows a rapid analysis of data sets which could not be handled by prior approaches because of their size.Die vorgelegte Arbeit beschreibt die wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse und Beiträge, die während der vergangenen Promotionsphase entstanden sind. Sie gliedert sich in zwei voneinander unabhängige Teile, von denen jeder einem eigenen Forschungsschwerpunkt gewidmet ist. Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit der detailgetreuen Erzeugung digitaler Kunstwerke, sogenannter Reliefplastiken, aus gegebenen 3D-Modellen. Das Ziel ist es, die Objekte, abhängig von der Perspektive, stark in ihrer Tiefe zu limitieren, ohne dass der Eindruck der räumlichen Ausdehnung verloren geht. Hierbei kommt dem Aufrechterhalten der Schärfe signifikanter Merkmale besondere Bedeutung zu. Dafür ist es notwendig, die feinen Details der Objektoberfläche überzubetonen, um ihre Sichtbarkeit im flacheren Relief zu gewährleisten. Unsere Weiterentwicklungen zielen auf die Verbesserung der Flexibilität und Benutzerfreundlichkeit während des Enstehungsprozesses ab. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf dem Bereitstellen intuitiv bedienbarer Echtzeitlösungen, die die Erzeugung präziser, naturgetreuer und visuell ansprechender Resultate ermöglichen. Diese Ziele werden durch eine GPU-Implementierung, den Einsatz effizienter Filtertechniken sowie das Ersetzen benutzergesteuerter Parameter durch adaptive Werte erreicht. Unsere Methoden erlauben das Verarbeiten dynamischer Szenen und die Erstellung nahtloser, kunstvoller Reliefs, die aus mehreren Elementen und Perspektiven zusammengesetzt sein können. Der zweite Teil behandelt die Analyse wiederkehrender Stukturen, sogenannter Symmetrien, innerhalb sehr großer Datensätze. Das automatische Erkennen von Komponenten und deren Muster ist ein komplexes Korrespondenzproblem mit zahlreichen Anwendungen, von der Informationsvisualisierung über Kompression bis hin zum automatischen Verstehen. Mit zunehmender Datenmenge geraten die etablierten Algorithmen an ihre Grenzen, da ihre Laufzeiten quadratisch ansteigen. Unser Ziel ist es, auch massive Datensätze handhabbar zu machen. Dazu ist es notwendig, Merkmale zu abstrahieren und einen passenden niedrigdimensionalen Deskriptor zu entwickeln, der eine effiziente, robuste und zielführende Suche erlaubt. Eine simple Betrachtung der Nachbarschaft innerhalb der Deskriptoren hilft dabei, die Anzahl notwendiger paarweiser Vergleiche signifikant zu reduzieren. Unser Verfahren skaliert quasi-linear und ermöglicht somit eine rasche Auswertung auch auf Daten, die für bisherige Methoden zu groß waren

Hairstyle modelling based on a single image.

Hair is an important feature to form character appearance in both film and video game industry. Hair grooming and combing for virtual characters was traditionally an exclusive task for professional designers because of its requirements for both technical manipulation and artistic inspiration. However, this manual process is time-consuming and further limits the flexibility of customised hairstyle modelling. In addition, it is hard to manipulate virtual hairstyle due to intrinsic hair shape. The fast development of related industrial applications demand an intuitive tool for efficiently creating realistic hairstyle for non-professional users. Recently, image-based hair modelling has been investigated for generating realistic hairstyle. This thesis demonstrates a framework Struct2Hair that robustly captures a hairstyle from a single portrait input. Specifically, the 2D hair strands are traced from the input with the help of image processing enhancement first. Then the 2D hair sketch of a hairstyle on a coarse level is extracted from generated 2D hair strands by clustering. To solve the inherently ill-posed single-view reconstruction problem, a critical hair shape database has been built by analysing an existing hairstyle model database. The critical hair shapes is a group of hair strands which possess similar shape appearance and close space location. Once the prior shape knowledge is prepared, the hair shape descriptor (HSD) is introduced to encode the structure of the target hairstyle. The HSD is constructed by retrieving and matching corresponding critical hair shape centres in the database. The full-head hairstyle is reconstructed by uniformly diffusing the hair strands on the scalp surface under the guidance of extracted HSD. The produced results are evaluated and compared with the state-of-the-art image based hair modelling methods. The findings of this thesis lead to some promising applications such as blending hairstyles to populate novel hair model, editing hairstyle (adding fringe hair, curling and cutting/extending hairstyle) and a case study of Bas-relief hair modelling on pre-processed hair images

The Agency of Art Objects in Northern Europe, 1380–1520

This monograph book offers a new interpretation of northern European art of the fifteenth century. The author presents it as a conglomerate of objects-things which act on the recipient in a specific – material and spatial – way. He analyzes macro-scale objects that impose movement on the viewer, and micro-scale objects that encourage manipulation. Inspired by the anti-anthropocentric concept of “returning to things” (B. Latour, A. Gell and others), the author searches for the “agency of things” in late-medieval art objects, which evoke specific liturgical, devotional, propaganda-political behaviors, or establish the status of social owner of the object that once co-created the network of material and spiritual culture. This methodologically innovative approach is part of the latest research in early art in Western Europe and the United States

Sculpture and the contested ground of public and private space

Through applied practice and historical research, this studio-led doctoral project seeks to identify the intrinsic differences and mutual interdependencies of private and public art.  By analysing the tensions between the rigid constraints of sculpture in the public sphere and the aesthetic flexibility and freedom of the private studio - this research shows how sculpture creates spaces for innovation and reflection in complex and contested urban sites.  In this context art has the potential to act as a conduit between individuals and their community, as a material site of social communication across time and place in which ancient antecedents of the sacred and profane remain, to this day, detectable and relevant.   The research follows a studio process-driven framework, narrating how I have negotiated the contested ground of public and private space. It follows the design and production of specific artworks for both domains, with each process analysed in the five chapters of the dissertation. Starting with a small sculptural work depicting an event in social history, my findings on context and the social, material fabric of the city, lead in the next chapter to the development and completion of a major site-specific, public sculptural relief.  Designed to commemorate the personal and public social achievement of those who engaged with the site, it is also representative of wider social contexts. The social complexities of relations between local use of the site and the broader historical context were explored in a public work that I examine from its design and commission, through to its completion.  From the models used for this larger public work, questions arose concerning art-based solutions to figural representation at key intersections of everyday exchanges between the individual and society. These were explored in an extended series of personal, and experimental figurative sketch models.  In many ways, the intimacy of these maquettes, as well as research on votive practices, became fundamental to the design for a final major commission for Cabrini Hospital, commemorating St Frances Xavier Cabrini, in which the `contested ground' was the sense of sacred and the body, in both the public and private realms.  Finally, the research takes a wider perspective through comparative analysis of two contemporary public sculptures in urban contexts: Callum Morton's Monument Park of 2015, and Gillian Wearing's Statue of Dame Millicent Fawcett, 2018. These large-scale works are analysed in relation to research for my own small studio works and to a number of small scaled works by the Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss Suddenly This Overview, completed between 1981-2012 This research has revealed that the ground of contestation between private and public domains is not simply an actual, material, and spatial one, but also a complex socio-political domain.  I position art as an intermediary in this field of production and social meaning as a process which not only simply reveals the contested ground of sculpture but also requires negotiation within it.  This innovative perspective provides a significant contribution to art in the contemporary field, and particularly to the potential of sculpture and its contribution to urban life

Myth In Reception: Insights From Stourhead Gardens

The focus of my thesis is the reception of classical myth in Georgian Britain as exemplified by responses to the garden imagery at Stourhead, Wiltshire. Previous explanations have tended to the view that the gardens were designed to recapitulate Virgil’s Aeneid. However, the garden owner, Henry Hoare II, left no record to substantiate this, or any other theme, and it is not mentioned in the many extant visitor accounts from the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. My approach to understanding the garden began with the systematic collection of information on the garden’s content and evolution. This endeavour yielded more than 20 further visitor reports, as well as visual and literary sources not considered in previous secondary accounts. This research has shown that the garden included a number of artefacts unknown to previous theorists. It has also shown that the true provenance and acquisition of extant garden elements is often different to that listed in the Stourhead secondary literature. I conclude that visitor reception of the gardens yields highly idiosyncratic interpretation, the emotional and cognitive content of which was largely determined by information obtained from published literature, garden guides and fellow visitors. A strong further influence on the interpretation of the gardens by some visitors was familiarity with the Roman and wider Italian influences on the garden content. I have especially considered visitor experience of the Grand Tour in this context. I propose that visits to Stourhead elicited emotional and cognitive responses from visitors. An effect of encountering the garden edifices and artefacts was to prompt memories, particularly of prior visits to the original Roman or Italian buildings and artefacts, but also of copies encountered in English landscape gardens and elsewhere

Faces of Cambodia: Buddhism(s), Portraiture and Images of Kings

In the late twelfth-century the face dominated the visual landscape of the Angkor Empire, appearing at the Mahāyānist Bayon temple in the form of monumental ‘face towers’, a distinctive architectural-cum-sculptural feature of the reign of Jayavarman VII, the first Buddhist king of Cambodia. Together with statues apparently sculpted as a physical likeness of the king, this artistic output probed the conceptual contours of the face and the scope of portraiture. Since the twelfth century the face, primarily in a four-faced configuration, has continued as a uniquely Cambodian trope, cited and revived in changing politico-cultural contexts. The monumental visages of Angkor have been the subject of a wealth of scholarship over the last century and a half, yet there has been a lack of consideration of the Cambodian faces as faces from a phenomenological perspective. Neither has there been a thorough interrogation of the precise mechanisms by which the faces ‘reappeared’ in twentieth-century Cambodia. Therefore, this thesis addresses questions of the face and portraiture within a multi-layered Buddhist-Brahmānic complex, in order to counter hegemonies which persist in art historical scholarship on the Bayon. This examination of the face is primarily formulated on three levels of interrogation: the face as portrait, the face as the locus of personhood or subjectivity, and historiographies associated with the face. Due to the subsequent, and indeed on-going, appropriation of the Bayon faces, the final chapters give critical emphasis to the face of the king in the contemporary visual landscape of Cambodia