Adaptive isocurves based rendering for freeform surfaces

Journal ArticleFreeform surface rendering is traditionally performed by approximating the surface with polygons and then rendering the polygons. This approach is extremely common because of the complexity in accurately rendering the surfaces directly. Recently, several papers presented methods to render surfaces as sequences of isocurves. Unfortunately, these methods start by assuming that an appropriate collection of isocurves has already been derived. The algorithms themselves neither automatically create an optimal or almost optimal set of isocurves so t h e whole surface would be correctly rendered without having pixels redundantly visited nor automatically compute the parameter spacing required between isocurves to guarantee such coverage. In this paper, a new algorithm is developed to fill these needs. An algorithm is introduced that automatically computes a set of almost optimal isocurves covering the entire surface area. This algorithm can be combined with a fast curve rendering method, to make surface rendering without polygonal approximation practical

Font Rasterization, the State of Art

Modern personal computers and workstations enable text, graphics and images to be visualized in a resolution independent manner. Office documents can be visualized and printed in the same way on displays, page-printers and photocomposers. Personal computers like the PC and the MacIntosh incorporate advanced rasterization algorithms for the rendering of outline characters and graphics. In the nineties, advanced workstations will provide facilities for the generation of finely tuned gray-scale characters. This tutorial provides a survey of the basic algorithms for representing and rendering outline characters. Fast scan-conversion and filling algorithms as well as basic and advanced character outline grid-fitting techniques are presented. The philosophy and functionality of Adobe's Type 1 and Apple's TrueType typographic rendering systems are discussed

Resource optimization and dynamic state management in a collaborative virtual environment.

Yim-Pan Chui.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-132).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Abstract --- p.iiAcknowledgments --- p.vChapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction to Collaborative Virtual Environments --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- Barriers to Resource Management and Optimization --- p.3Chapter 1.3 --- Thesis Contributions --- p.5Chapter 1.4 --- Application of this Research Work --- p.6Chapter 1.5 --- Thesis Organization --- p.6Chapter 2 --- Resource Optimization - Intelligent Server Partitioning --- p.9Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.9Chapter 2.2 --- Server Partitioning --- p.13Chapter 2.2.1 --- Related Works --- p.15Chapter 2.2.2 --- Global Optimization Approaches --- p.17Chapter 2.3 --- Hybrid Genetic Algorithm Paradigm --- p.17Chapter 2.3.1 --- Drawbacks of traditional GA --- p.18Chapter 2.3.2 --- Problem Modeling --- p.19Chapter 2.3.3 --- Discussion --- p.24Chapter 2.4 --- Results --- p.25Chapter 2.5 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.28Chapter 3 --- Dynamic State Management - Dead Reckoning of Attitude --- p.32Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction to Dynamic State Management --- p.32Chapter 3.2 --- The Dead Reckoning Approach --- p.35Chapter 3.3 --- Attitude Dead Reckoning by Quaternion --- p.37Chapter 3.3.1 --- Modeling of the Paradigm --- p.38Chapter 3.3.2 --- Prediction Step --- p.39Chapter 3.3.3 --- Convergence Step --- p.40Chapter 3.3.4 --- Overall Algorithm --- p.46Chapter 3.4 --- Results --- p.47Chapter 3.5 --- Conclusion --- p.51Chapter 4 --- Polynomial Attitude Extrapolation --- p.52Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.52Chapter 4.2 --- Related Works on Kalman Filtering --- p.53Chapter 4.3 --- Historical Propagation of Quaternion --- p.54Chapter 4.3.1 --- Cumulative Extrapolation --- p.54Chapter 4.3.2 --- Method I. Vandemonde Approach --- p.55Chapter 4.3.3 --- Method II. Lagrangian Approach --- p.58Chapter 4.4 --- History-Based Attitude Management --- p.60Chapter 4.4.1 --- Multi-order Prediction --- p.60Chapter 4.4.2 --- Adaptive Attitude Convergence --- p.63Chapter 4.4.3 --- Overall Algorithm --- p.67Chapter 4.5 --- Results --- p.69Chapter 4.6 --- Conclusion --- p.77Chapter 5 --- Forward Difference Approach on State Estimation --- p.78Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.78Chapter 5.2 --- Positional Forward Differencing --- p.79Chapter 5.3 --- Forward Difference on Quaternion Space --- p.80Chapter 5.3.1 --- Attitude Forward Differencing --- p.83Chapter 5.3.2 --- Trajectory Blending --- p.84Chapter 5.4 --- State Estimation --- p.86Chapter 5.5 --- Computational Efficiency --- p.87Chapter 5.6 --- Results --- p.88Chapter 5.7 --- Conclusion --- p.96Chapter 6 --- Predictive Multibody Kinematics --- p.98Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.98Chapter 6.2 --- Dynamic Management of Multibody System --- p.100Chapter 6.2.1 --- Multibody Representation --- p.100Chapter 6.2.2 --- Paradigm Overview --- p.101Chapter 6.3 --- Motion Estimation by Joint Extrapolation --- p.102Chapter 6.3.1 --- Individual Joint Extrapolation --- p.102Chapter 6.3.2 --- Forward Propagation of Joint State --- p.104Chapter 6.3.3 --- Pose Correction --- p.107Chapter 6.4 --- Limitations on Predictive Articulated State Management --- p.108Chapter 6.5 --- Implementation and Results --- p.109Chapter 6.6 --- Conclusion --- p.112Chapter 7 --- Complete System Architecture --- p.113Chapter 7.1 --- Server Cluster Model --- p.113Chapter 7.1.1 --- Peer-Server Systems --- p.114Chapter 7.1.2 --- Server Hierarchies --- p.114Chapter 7.2 --- Multi-Level Resource Management --- p.115Chapter 7.3 --- Aggregation of State Updates --- p.116Chapter 7.4 --- Implementation Issues --- p.117Chapter 7.4.1 --- Medical Visualization --- p.117Chapter 7.4.2 --- Virtual Walkthrough Application --- p.118Chapter 7.5 --- Conclusion --- p.119Chapter 8 --- Conclusions and Future directions --- p.121Chapter 8.1 --- Conclusion --- p.121Chapter 8.2 --- Future Research Directions --- p.122Chapter A --- Quaternion Basis --- p.124Chapter A.1 --- Basic Quaternion Mathematics --- p.124Chapter A.2 --- The Exponential and Logarithmic Maps --- p.125Bibliography --- p.12

Generating Distance Fields from Parametric Plane Curves

Distance fields have been presented as a general representation for both curves and surfaces [4]. Using space partitioning, adaptive distance fields (ADF) found their way into various applications, such as real-time font rendering [5]. Computing approximate distance fields for implicit representations and mesh objects received much attention. Parametric curves and surfaces, however, are usually not part of the discussion directly. There are several algorithms that can be used for their conversion into distance fields. However, most of these are based converting parametric representations to piecewise linear approximations [7]. This paper presents two algorithms to directly compute distance fields from arbitrary parametric plane curves. One method is based on the rasterization of general parametric curves, followed by a distance propagation using fast marching. The second proposed algorithm uses the differential geometric properties of the curve to generate simple geometric proxies, segments of osculating circles, that are used to approximate the distance from the original curve

Subdivision Surface based One-Piece Representation

Subdivision surfaces are capable of modeling and representing complex shapes of arbi-trary topology. However, methods on how to build the control mesh of a complex surfaceare not studied much. Currently, most meshes of complicated objects come from trian-gulation and simplification of raster scanned data points, like the Stanford 3D ScanningRepository. This approach is costly and leads to very dense meshes.Subdivision surface based one-piece representation means to represent the final objectin a design process with only one subdivision surface, no matter how complicated theobject\u27s topology or shape. Hence the number of parts in the final representation isalways one.In this dissertation we present necessary mathematical theories and geometric algo-rithms to support subdivision surface based one-piece representation. First, an explicitparametrization method is presented for exact evaluation of Catmull-Clark subdivisionsurfaces. Based on it, two approaches are proposed for constructing the one-piece rep-resentation of a given object with arbitrary topology. One approach is to construct theone-piece representation by using the interpolation technique. Interpolation is a naturalway to build models, but the fairness of the interpolating surface is a big concern inprevious methods. With similarity based interpolation technique, we can obtain bet-ter modeling results with less undesired artifacts and undulations. Another approachis through performing Boolean operations. Up to this point, accurate Boolean oper-ations over subdivision surfaces are not approached yet in the literature. We presenta robust and error controllable Boolean operation method which results in a one-piecerepresentation. Because one-piece representations resulting from the above two methodsare usually dense, error controllable simplification of one-piece representations is needed.Two methods are presented for this purpose: adaptive tessellation and multiresolutionanalysis. Both methods can significantly reduce the complexity of a one-piece represen-tation and while having accurate error estimation.A system that performs subdivision surface based one-piece representation was im-plemented and a lot of examples have been tested. All the examples show that our ap-proaches can obtain very good subdivision based one-piece representation results. Eventhough our methods are based on Catmull-Clark subdivision scheme, we believe they canbe adapted to other subdivision schemes as well with small modifications

High-order adaptive methods for computing invariant manifolds of maps

The author presents efficient and accurate numerical methods for computing invariant manifolds of maps which arise in the study of dynamical systems. In order to decrease the number of points needed to compute a given curve/surface, he proposes using higher-order interpolation/approximation techniques from geometric modeling. He uses B´ezier curves/triangles, fundamental objects in curve/surface design, to create adaptive methods. The methods are based on tolerance conditions derived from properties of B´ezier curves/triangles. The author develops and tests the methods for an ordinary parametric curve; then he adapts these methods to invariant manifolds of planar maps. Next, he develops and tests the method for parametric surfaces and then he adapts this method to invariant manifolds of three-dimensional maps

Higher level techniques for the artistic rendering of images and video

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Comparison of RANS Modeling to Dual-Plane PIV Measurements of the Turbulent Tip Vortex Trailed from a Hovering Rotor

Numerical simulations using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations were conducted to study the development and turbulent decay of the tip vortices in the wake produced by a hovering rotor. The computational results were compared to detailed, dual plane Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements of a turbulent tip vortex trailed from a single-bladed rotor. The work investigated both the required mesh resolution and most suitable turbulence closure models with rotational/curvature corrections by assessing their predictions of the tip vortex properties and the overall physical nature of the rotor wake. It was found that even when using a higher-order accurate central differencing scheme, a minimum off-body grid spacing equal to 0.625% of the chord length was required to accurately predict the core dimension, peak swirl velocity and strength of the tip vortex. The rotational/curvature corrections applied to the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model better preserved the vortex characteristics to longer wake ages than the same corrections applied to the k-ω SST model. In both cases, the correction proposed by Spalart and Shur outperformed the simplified correction proposed by Dacles-Mariani et al., with the latter providing little impact on the k-ωSST model. Lastly, Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) of the wake was studied in addition to the various RANS models with corrections to assess the effect of modeling anisotropic turbulence in the tip vortex

Towards a High Quality Real-Time Graphics Pipeline

Modern graphics hardware pipelines create photorealistic images with high geometric complexity in real time. The quality is constantly improving and advanced techniques from feature film visual effects, such as high dynamic range images and support for higher-order surface primitives, have recently been adopted. Visual effect techniques have large computational costs and significant memory bandwidth usage. In this thesis, we identify three problem areas and propose new algorithms that increase the performance of a set of computer graphics techniques. Our main focus is on efficient algorithms for the real-time graphics pipeline, but parts of our research are equally applicable to offline rendering. Our first focus is texture compression, which is a technique to reduce the memory bandwidth usage. The core idea is to store images in small compressed blocks which are sent over the memory bus and are decompressed on-the-fly when accessed. We present compression algorithms for two types of texture formats. High dynamic range images capture environment lighting with luminance differences over a wide intensity range. Normal maps store perturbation vectors for local surface normals, and give the illusion of high geometric surface detail. Our compression formats are tailored to these texture types and have compression ratios of 6:1, high visual fidelity, and low-cost decompression logic. Our second focus is tessellation culling. Culling is a commonly used technique in computer graphics for removing work that does not contribute to the final image, such as completely hidden geometry. By discarding rendering primitives from further processing, substantial arithmetic computations and memory bandwidth can be saved. Modern graphics processing units include flexible tessellation stages, where rendering primitives are subdivided for increased geometric detail. Images with highly detailed models can be synthesized, but the incurred cost is significant. We have devised a simple remapping technique that allowsfor better tessellation distribution in screen space. Furthermore, we present programmable tessellation culling, where bounding volumes for displaced geometry are computed and used to conservatively test if a primitive can be discarded before tessellation. We introduce a general tessellation culling framework, and an optimized algorithm for rendering of displaced Bézier patches, which is expected to be a common use case for graphics hardware tessellation. Our third and final focus is forward-looking, and relates to efficient algorithms for stochastic rasterization, a rendering technique where camera effects such as depth of field and motion blur can be faithfully simulated. We extend a graphics pipeline with stochastic rasterization in spatio-temporal space and show that stochastic motion blur can be rendered with rather modest pipeline modifications. Furthermore, backface culling algorithms for motion blur and depth of field rendering are presented, which are directly applicable to stochastic rasterization. Hopefully, our work in this field brings us closer to high quality real-time stochastic rendering