New Models for High-Quality Surface Reconstruction and Rendering

The efficient reconstruction and artifact-free visualization of surfaces from measured real-world data is an important issue in various applications, such as medical and scientific visualization, quality control, and the media-related industry. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of the first efficient GPU-based reconstruction and visualization methods using trivariate splines, i.e., splines defined on tetrahedral partitions. Our methods show that these models are very well-suited for real-time reconstruction and high-quality visualizations of surfaces from volume data. We create a new quasi-interpolating operator which for the first time solves the problem of finding a globally C1-smooth quadratic spline approximating data and where no tetrahedra need to be further subdivided. In addition, we devise a new projection method for point sets arising from a sufficiently dense sampling of objects. Compared with existing approaches, high-quality surface triangulations can be generated with guaranteed numerical stability. Keywords. Piecewise polynomials; trivariate splines; quasi-interpolation; volume data; GPU ray casting; surface reconstruction; point set surface

New Models for High-Quality Surface Reconstruction and Rendering

The efficient reconstruction and artifact-free visualization of surfaces from measured real-world data is an important issue in various applications, such as medical and scientific visualization, quality control, and the media-related industry. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of the first efficient GPU-based reconstruction and visualization methods using trivariate splines, i.e., splines defined on tetrahedral partitions. Our methods show that these models are very well-suited for real-time reconstruction and high-quality visualizations of surfaces from volume data. We create a new quasi-interpolating operator which for the first time solves the problem of finding a globally C1-smooth quadratic spline approximating data and where no tetrahedra need to be further subdivided. In addition, we devise a new projection method for point sets arising from a sufficiently dense sampling of objects. Compared with existing approaches, high-quality surface triangulations can be generated with guaranteed numerical stability. Keywords. Piecewise polynomials; trivariate splines; quasi-interpolation; volume data; GPU ray casting; surface reconstruction; point set surface

A general approach to transforming finite elements

The use of a reference element on which a finite element basis is constructed once and mapped to each cell in a mesh greatly expedites the structure and efficiency of finite element codes. However, many famous finite elements such as Hermite, Morley, Argyris, and Bell, do not possess the kind of equivalence needed to work with a reference element in the standard way. This paper gives a generalizated approach to mapping bases for such finite elements by means of studying relationships between the finite element nodes under push-forward.Comment: 28 page

New Techniques for the Modeling, Processing and Visualization of Surfaces and Volumes

With the advent of powerful 3D acquisition technology, there is a growing demand for the modeling, processing, and visualization of surfaces and volumes. The proposed methods must be efficient and robust, and they must be able to extract the essential structure of the data and to easily and quickly convey the most significant information to a human observer. Independent of the specific nature of the data, the following fundamental problems can be identified: shape reconstruction from discrete samples, data analysis, and data compression. This thesis presents several novel solutions to these problems for surfaces (Part I) and volumes (Part II). For surfaces, we adopt the well-known triangle mesh representation and develop new algorithms for discrete curvature estimation,detection of feature lines, and line-art rendering (Chapter 3), for connectivity encoding (Chapter 4), and for topology preserving compression of 2D vector fields (Chapter 5). For volumes, that are often given as discrete samples, we base our approach for reconstruction and visualization on the use of new trivariate spline spaces on a certain tetrahedral partition. We study the properties of the new spline spaces (Chapter 7) and present efficient algorithms for reconstruction and visualization by iso-surface rendering for both, regularly (Chapter 8) and irregularly (Chapter 9) distributed data samples

Hybrid Symbolic-Numeric Computing in Linear and Polynomial Algebra

In this thesis, we introduce hybrid symbolic-numeric methods for solving problems in linear and polynomial algebra. We mainly address the approximate GCD problem for polynomials, and problems related to parametric and polynomial matrices. For symbolic methods, our main concern is their complexity and for the numerical methods we are more concerned about their stability. The thesis consists of 5 articles which are presented in the following order: Chapter 1, deals with the fundamental notions of conditioning and backward error. Although our results are not novel, this chapter is a novel explication of conditioning and backward error that underpins the rest of the thesis. In Chapter 2, we adapt Victor Y. Pan\u27s root-based algorithm for finding approximate GCD to the case where the polynomials are expressed in Bernstein bases. We use the numerically stable companion pencil of G. F. Jónsson to compute the roots, and the Hopcroft-Karp bipartite matching method to find the degree of the approximate GCD. We offer some refinements to improve the process. In Chapter 3, we give an algorithm with similar idea to Chapter 2, which finds an approximate GCD for a pair of approximate polynomials given in a Lagrange basis. More precisely, we suppose that these polynomials are given by their approximate values at distinct known points. We first find each of their roots by using a Lagrange basis companion matrix for each polynomial. We introduce new clustering algorithms and use them to cluster the roots of each polynomial to identify multiple roots, and then marry the two polynomials using a Maximum Weight Matching (MWM) algorithm, to find their GCD. In Chapter 4, we define ``generalized standard triples\u27\u27 X, zC1 - C0, Y of regular matrix polynomials P(z) in order to use the representation X(zC1 - C0)-1 Y=P-1(z). This representation can be used in constructing algebraic linearizations; for example, for H(z) = z A(z)B(z) + C from linearizations for A(z) and B(z). This can be done even if A(z) and B(z) are expressed in differing polynomial bases. Our main theorem is that X can be expressed using the coefficients of 1 in terms of the relevant polynomial basis. For convenience we tabulate generalized standard triples for orthogonal polynomial bases, the monomial basis, and Newton interpolational bases; for the Bernstein basis; for Lagrange interpolational bases; and for Hermite interpolational bases. We account for the possibility of common similarity transformations. We give explicit proofs for the less familiar bases. Chapter 5 is devoted to parametric linear systems (PLS) and related problems, from a symbolic computational point of view. PLS are linear systems of equations in which some symbolic parameters, that is, symbols that are not considered to be candidates for elimination or solution in the course of analyzing the problem, appear in the coefficients of the system. We assume that the symbolic parameters appear polynomially in the coefficients and that the only variables to be solved for are those of the linear system. It is well-known that it is possible to specify a covering set of regimes, each of which is a semi-algebraic condition on the parameters together with a solution description valid under that condition.We provide a method of solution that requires time polynomial in the matrix dimension and the degrees of the polynomials when there are up to three parameters. Our approach exploits the Hermite and Smith normal forms that may be computed when the system coefficient domain is mapped to the univariate polynomial domain over suitably constructed fields. Our approach effectively identifies intrinsic singularities and ramification points where the algebraic and geometric structure of the matrix changes. Specially parametric eigenvalue problems can be addressed as well. Although we do not directly address the problem of computing the Jordan form, our approach allows the construction of the algebraic and geometric eigenvalue multiplicities revealed by the Frobenius form, which is a key step in the construction of the Jordan form of a matrix

Approximate Reachability Computation for Polynomial Systems

Abstract. In this paper we propose an algorithm for approximating the reachable sets of systems defined by polynomial differential equations. Such systems can be used to model a variety of physical phenomena. We first derive an integration scheme that approximates the state reachable in one time step by applying some polynomial map to the current state. In order to use this scheme to compute all the states reachable by the system starting from some initial set, we then consider the problem of computing the image of a set by a multivariate polynomial. We propose a method to do so using the Bézier control net of the polynomial map and the blossoming technique to compute this control net. We also prove that our overall method is of order 2. In addition, we have successfully applied our reachability algorithm to two models of a biological system.

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