GARField: Group Anything with Radiance Fields

Grouping is inherently ambiguous due to the multiple levels of granularity in which one can decompose a scene -- should the wheels of an excavator be considered separate or part of the whole? We present Group Anything with Radiance Fields (GARField), an approach for decomposing 3D scenes into a hierarchy of semantically meaningful groups from posed image inputs. To do this we embrace group ambiguity through physical scale: by optimizing a scale-conditioned 3D affinity feature field, a point in the world can belong to different groups of different sizes. We optimize this field from a set of 2D masks provided by Segment Anything (SAM) in a way that respects coarse-to-fine hierarchy, using scale to consistently fuse conflicting masks from different viewpoints. From this field we can derive a hierarchy of possible groupings via automatic tree construction or user interaction. We evaluate GARField on a variety of in-the-wild scenes and find it effectively extracts groups at many levels: clusters of objects, objects, and various subparts. GARField inherently represents multi-view consistent groupings and produces higher fidelity groups than the input SAM masks. GARField's hierarchical grouping could have exciting downstream applications such as 3D asset extraction or dynamic scene understanding. See the project website at https://www.garfield.studio/Comment: Project site: https://www.garfield.studio/ First three authors contributed equall

Extract and Characterize Hairpin Vortices in Turbulent Flows

Hairpin vortices are one of the most important vortical structures in turbulent flows. Extracting and characterizing hairpin vortices provides useful insight into many behaviors in turbulent flows. However, hairpin vortices have complex configurations and might be entangled with other vortices, making their extraction difficult. In this work, we introduce a framework to extract and separate hairpin vortices in shear driven turbulent flows for their study. Our method first extracts general vortical regions with a region-growing strategy based on certain vortex criteria (e.g., $\lambda_2$) and then separates those vortices with the help of progressive extraction of ($\lambda_2$) iso-surfaces in a top-down fashion. This leads to a hierarchical tree representing the spatial proximity and merging relation of vortices. After separating individual vortices, their shape and orientation information is extracted. Candidate hairpin vortices are identified based on their shape and orientation information as well as their physical characteristics. An interactive visualization system is developed to aid the exploration, classification, and analysis of hairpin vortices based on their geometric and physical attributes. We also present additional use cases of the proposed system for the analysis and study of general vortices in other types of flows.Comment: Accepted for presentation at IEEE VIS 2023. The paper will appear in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphic

Algorithms for the reconstruction, analysis, repairing and enhancement of 3D urban models from multiple data sources

Over the last few years, there has been a notorious growth in the field of digitization of 3D buildings and urban environments. The substantial improvement of both scanning hardware and reconstruction algorithms has led to the development of representations of buildings and cities that can be remotely transmitted and inspected in real-time. Among the applications that implement these technologies are several GPS navigators and virtual globes such as Google Earth or the tools provided by the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya. In particular, in this thesis, we conceptualize cities as a collection of individual buildings. Hence, we focus on the individual processing of one structure at a time, rather than on the larger-scale processing of urban environments. Nowadays, there is a wide diversity of digitization technologies, and the choice of the appropriate one is key for each particular application. Roughly, these techniques can be grouped around three main families: - Time-of-flight (terrestrial and aerial LiDAR). - Photogrammetry (street-level, satellite, and aerial imagery). - Human-edited vector data (cadastre and other map sources). Each of these has its advantages in terms of covered area, data quality, economic cost, and processing effort. Plane and car-mounted LiDAR devices are optimal for sweeping huge areas, but acquiring and calibrating such devices is not a trivial task. Moreover, the capturing process is done by scan lines, which need to be registered using GPS and inertial data. As an alternative, terrestrial LiDAR devices are more accessible but cover smaller areas, and their sampling strategy usually produces massive point clouds with over-represented plain regions. A more inexpensive option is street-level imagery. A dense set of images captured with a commodity camera can be fed to state-of-the-art multi-view stereo algorithms to produce realistic-enough reconstructions. One other advantage of this approach is capturing high-quality color data, whereas the geometric information is usually lacking. In this thesis, we analyze in-depth some of the shortcomings of these data-acquisition methods and propose new ways to overcome them. Mainly, we focus on the technologies that allow high-quality digitization of individual buildings. These are terrestrial LiDAR for geometric information and street-level imagery for color information. Our main goal is the processing and completion of detailed 3D urban representations. For this, we will work with multiple data sources and combine them when possible to produce models that can be inspected in real-time. Our research has focused on the following contributions: - Effective and feature-preserving simplification of massive point clouds. - Developing normal estimation algorithms explicitly designed for LiDAR data. - Low-stretch panoramic representation for point clouds. - Semantic analysis of street-level imagery for improved multi-view stereo reconstruction. - Color improvement through heuristic techniques and the registration of LiDAR and imagery data. - Efficient and faithful visualization of massive point clouds using image-based techniques.Durant els darrers anys, hi ha hagut un creixement notori en el camp de la digitalització d'edificis en 3D i entorns urbans. La millora substancial tant del maquinari d'escaneig com dels algorismes de reconstrucció ha portat al desenvolupament de representacions d'edificis i ciutats que es poden transmetre i inspeccionar remotament en temps real. Entre les aplicacions que implementen aquestes tecnologies hi ha diversos navegadors GPS i globus virtuals com Google Earth o les eines proporcionades per l'Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya. En particular, en aquesta tesi, conceptualitzem les ciutats com una col·lecció d'edificis individuals. Per tant, ens centrem en el processament individual d'una estructura a la vegada, en lloc del processament a gran escala d'entorns urbans. Avui en dia, hi ha una àmplia diversitat de tecnologies de digitalització i la selecció de l'adequada és clau per a cada aplicació particular. Aproximadament, aquestes tècniques es poden agrupar en tres famílies principals: - Temps de vol (LiDAR terrestre i aeri). - Fotogrametria (imatges a escala de carrer, de satèl·lit i aèries). - Dades vectorials editades per humans (cadastre i altres fonts de mapes). Cadascun d'ells presenta els seus avantatges en termes d'àrea coberta, qualitat de les dades, cost econòmic i esforç de processament. Els dispositius LiDAR muntats en avió i en cotxe són òptims per escombrar àrees enormes, però adquirir i calibrar aquests dispositius no és una tasca trivial. A més, el procés de captura es realitza mitjançant línies d'escaneig, que cal registrar mitjançant GPS i dades inercials. Com a alternativa, els dispositius terrestres de LiDAR són més accessibles, però cobreixen àrees més petites, i la seva estratègia de mostreig sol produir núvols de punts massius amb regions planes sobrerepresentades. Una opció més barata són les imatges a escala de carrer. Es pot fer servir un conjunt dens d'imatges capturades amb una càmera de qualitat mitjana per obtenir reconstruccions prou realistes mitjançant algorismes estèreo d'última generació per produir. Un altre avantatge d'aquest mètode és la captura de dades de color d'alta qualitat. Tanmateix, la informació geomètrica resultant sol ser de baixa qualitat. En aquesta tesi, analitzem en profunditat algunes de les mancances d'aquests mètodes d'adquisició de dades i proposem noves maneres de superar-les. Principalment, ens centrem en les tecnologies que permeten una digitalització d'alta qualitat d'edificis individuals. Es tracta de LiDAR terrestre per obtenir informació geomètrica i imatges a escala de carrer per obtenir informació sobre colors. El nostre objectiu principal és el processament i la millora de representacions urbanes 3D amb molt detall. Per a això, treballarem amb diverses fonts de dades i les combinarem quan sigui possible per produir models que es puguin inspeccionar en temps real. La nostra investigació s'ha centrat en les següents contribucions: - Simplificació eficaç de núvols de punts massius, preservant detalls d'alta resolució. - Desenvolupament d'algoritmes d'estimació normal dissenyats explícitament per a dades LiDAR. - Representació panoràmica de baixa distorsió per a núvols de punts. - Anàlisi semàntica d'imatges a escala de carrer per millorar la reconstrucció estèreo de façanes. - Millora del color mitjançant tècniques heurístiques i el registre de dades LiDAR i imatge. - Visualització eficient i fidel de núvols de punts massius mitjançant tècniques basades en imatges

HPLFlowNet: Hierarchical Permutohedral Lattice FlowNet for Scene Flow Estimation on Large-scale Point Clouds

We present a novel deep neural network architecture for end-to-end scene flow estimation that directly operates on large-scale 3D point clouds. Inspired by Bilateral Convolutional Layers (BCL), we propose novel DownBCL, UpBCL, and CorrBCL operations that restore structural information from unstructured point clouds, and fuse information from two consecutive point clouds. Operating on discrete and sparse permutohedral lattice points, our architectural design is parsimonious in computational cost. Our model can efficiently process a pair of point cloud frames at once with a maximum of 86K points per frame. Our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on the FlyingThings3D and KITTI Scene Flow 2015 datasets. Moreover, trained on synthetic data, our approach shows great generalization ability on real-world data and on different point densities without fine-tuning

Deep Learning Applications in Medical Image and Shape Analysis

Deep learning is one of the most rapidly growing fields in computer and data science in the past few years. It has been widely used for feature extraction and recognition in various applications. The training process as a black-box utilizes deep neural networks, whose parameters are adjusted by minimizing the difference between the predicted feedback and labeled data (so-called training dataset). The trained model is then applied to unknown inputs to predict the results that mimic human\u27s decision-making. This technology has found tremendous success in many fields involving data analysis such as images, shapes, texts, audio and video signals and so on. In medical applications, images have been regularly used by physicians for diagnosis of diseases, making treatment plans, and tracking progress of patient treatment. One of the most challenging and common problems in image processing is segmentation of features of interest, so-called feature extraction. To this end, we aim to develop a deep learning framework in the current thesis to extract regions of interest in wound images. In addition, we investigate deep learning approaches for segmentation of 3D surface shapes as a potential tool for surface analysis in our future work. Experiments are presented and discussed for both 2D image and 3D shape analysis using deep learning networks

Deep Learning Applications in Medical Image and Shape Analysis

Deep learning is one of the most rapidly growing fields in computer and data science in the past few years. It has been widely used for feature extraction and recognition in various applications. The training process as a black-box utilizes deep neural networks, whose parameters are adjusted by minimizing the difference between the predicted feedback and labeled data (so-called training dataset). The trained model is then applied to unknown inputs to predict the results that mimic human\u27s decision-making. This technology has found tremendous success in many fields involving data analysis such as images, shapes, texts, audio and video signals and so on. In medical applications, images have been regularly used by physicians for diagnosis of diseases, making treatment plans, and tracking progress of patient treatment. One of the most challenging and common problems in image processing is segmentation of features of interest, so-called feature extraction. To this end, we aim to develop a deep learning framework in the current thesis to extract regions of interest in wound images. In addition, we investigate deep learning approaches for segmentation of 3D surface shapes as a potential tool for surface analysis in our future work. Experiments are presented and discussed for both 2D image and 3D shape analysis using deep learning networks

Semantic Segmentation of Human Model Using Heat Kernel and Geodesic Distance

A novel approach of 3D human model segmentation is proposed, which is based on heat kernel signature and geodesic distance. Through calculating the heat kernel signature of the point clouds of human body model, the local maxima of thermal energy distribution of the model is found, and the set of feature points of the model is obtained. Heat kernel signature has affine invariability which can be used to extract the correct feature points of the human model in different postures. We adopt the method of geodesic distance to realize the hierarchical segmentation of human model after obtaining the semantic feature points of human model. The experimental results show that the method can overcome the defect of geodesic distance feature extraction. The human body models with different postures can be obtained with the model segmentation results of human semantic characteristics

Error-aware construction and rendering of multi-scan panoramas from massive point clouds

Obtaining 3D realistic models of urban scenes from accurate range data is nowadays an important research topic, with applications in a variety of fields ranging from Cultural Heritage and digital 3D archiving to monitoring of public works. Processing massive point clouds acquired from laser scanners involves a number of challenges, from data management to noise removal, model compression and interactive visualization and inspection. In this paper, we present a new methodology for the reconstruction of 3D scenes from massive point clouds coming from range lidar sensors. Our proposal includes a panorama-based compact reconstruction where colors and normals are estimated robustly through an error-aware algorithm that takes into account the variance of expected errors in depth measurements. Our representation supports efficient, GPU-based visualization with advanced lighting effects. We discuss the proposed algorithms in a practical application on urban and historical preservation, described by a massive point cloud of 3.5 billion points. We show that we can achieve compression rates higher than 97% with good visual quality during interactive inspections.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft