Skeleton based cage generation guided by harmonic fields

International audienceWe propose a novel user-assisted cage generation tool. We start from a digital character and its skeleton, and create a coarse control cage for its animation. Our method requires minimal interaction to select bending points on the skeleton, and computes the corresponding cage automatically. The key contribution is a volumetric field defined in the interior of the character and embedding the skeleton. The integral lines of such field are used to propagate cutting surfaces from the interior of the character to its skin, and allow us to robustly trace non-planar cross sections that adapt to the local shape of the character. Our method overcomes previous approaches that rely on the popular (but tedious and limiting) cutting planes. We validated our software on a variety of digital characters. Our final cages are coarse yet entirely compliant with the structure induced by the underlying skeleton, enriched with the semantics provided by the bending points selected by the user. Automatic placement of bending nodes for a fully automatic caging pipeline is also supported

Exploring Language Pedagogy with Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence

The manuscript and video of the presentation are available online at https://diglib.eg.org/xmlui/handle/10.2312/cgvc20231201Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Virtual Reality (VR) is a highly immersive and interactive experience that renders users to be engrossed in a 3D virtual environment. The recent technological advancements with high-resolution headset display, and accurate tracking of six degrees of freedom paired with controllers allow life-like renditions of real-world scenarios as well as fictional scenarios without potential environmental risks. This paper explores the usage of Virtual Reality in education by incorporating current pedagogical approaches into an interactive 3D virtual environment. The focus of this study revolves around language pedagogy, in specific, the tool developed allows teach users fundamental Mandarin Chinese. This educational VR application enables users to practice their reading and writing skills through a calligraphy lesson and engages users in a listening and speaking lesson through natural conversation. To achieve an organic dialogue, phrases spoken by the user in a lesson are validated immediately through an intuitive phrase recognition system developed using machine learning. The developed prototype has undergone testing to ensure its efficacy. An initial investigation into this prototype found that the majority of participants were supportive of this concept and believe that it would improve the engagement of digital education

Skeleton based cage generation guided by harmonic fields

We propose a novel user-assisted cage generation tool. We start from a digital character and its skeleton, and create a coarse control cage for its animation. Our method requires minimal interaction to select bending points on the skeleton, and computes the corresponding cage automatically. The key contribution is a volumetric field defined in the interior of the character and embedding the skeleton. The integral lines of such field are used to propagate cutting surfaces from the interior of the character to its skin, and allow us to robustly trace non-planar cross sections that adapt to the local shape of the character. Our method overcomes previous approaches that rely on the popular (but tedious and limiting) cutting planes. We validated our software on a variety of digital characters. Our final cages are coarse yet entirely compliant with the structure induced by the underlying skeleton, enriched with the semantics provided by the bending points selected by the user. Automatic placement of bending nodes for a fully automatic caging pipeline is also supported