Using facial feature extraction to enhance the creation of 3D human models

The creation of personalised 3D characters has evolved to provide a high degree of realism in both appearance and animation. Further to the creation of generic characters the capabilities exist to create a personalised character from images of an individual. This provides the possibility of immersing an individual into a virtual world. Feature detection, particularly on the face, can be used to greatly enhance the realism of the model. To address this innovative contour based templates are used to extract an individual from four orthogonal views providing localisation of the face. Then adaptive facial feature extraction from multiple views is used to enhance the realism of the model

PDE Face: A Novel 3D Face Model

YesWe introduce a novel approach to face models, which exploits the use of Partial Differential Equations (PDE) to generate the 3D face. This addresses some common problems of existing face models. The PDE face benefits from seamless merging of surface patches by using only a relatively small number of parameters based on boundary curves. The PDE face also provides users with a great degree of freedom to individualise the 3D face by adjusting a set of facial boundary curves. Furthermore, we introduce a uv-mesh texture mapping method. By associating the texels of the texture map with the vertices of the uv mesh in the PDE face, the new texture mapping method eliminates the 3D-to-2D association routine in texture mapping. Any specific PDE face can be textured without the need for the facial expression in the texture map to match exactly that of the 3D face model

Htex: Per-Halfedge Texturing for Arbitrary Mesh Topologies

We introduce per-halfedge texturing (Htex) a GPU-friendly method for texturing arbitrary polygon-meshes without an explicit parameterization. Htex builds upon the insight that halfedges encode an intrinsic triangulation for polygon meshes, where each halfedge spans a unique triangle with direct adjacency information. Rather than storing a separate texture per face of the input mesh as is done by previous parameterization-free texturing methods, Htex stores a square texture for each halfedge and its twin. We show that this simple change from face to halfedge induces two important properties for high performance parameterization-free texturing. First, Htex natively supports arbitrary polygons without requiring dedicated code for, e.g, non-quad faces. Second, Htex leads to a straightforward and efficient GPU implementation that uses only three texture-fetches per halfedge to produce continuous texturing across the entire mesh. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Htex by rendering production assets in real time

A Textured Silicon Calorimetric Light Detector

We apply the standard photovoltaic technique of texturing to reduce the reflectivity of silicon cryogenic calorimetric light detectors. In the case of photons with random incidence angles, absorption is compatible with the increase in surface area. For the geometrically thin detectors studied, energy resolution from athermal phonons, dominated by position dependence, is proportional to the surface-to-volume ratio. With the CaWO4 scintillating crystal used as light source, the time constants of the calorimeter should be adapted to the relatively slow light-emission times.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Applied Physic

Ion sputter textured graphite

A specially textured surface of pyrolytic graphite exhibits extremely low yields of secondary electrons and reduced numbers of reflected primary electrons after impingement of high energy primary electrons. An ion flux having an energy between 500 eV and 1000 eV and a current density between 1.0 mA/sq cm and 6.0 mA/sq cm produces surface roughening or texturing which is in the form of needles or spines. Such textured surfaces are especially useful as anode collector plates in high efficiency electron tube devices

High-speed Fabrication of Micro-channels using Line-based Laser Induced Plasma Micromachining (L-LIPMM)

Micro-texturing of surfaces has various applications that often involve texturing over large (macro-scale) areas with high precision and resolution. This demands scalability and speed of texturing while retaining feature sizes on the order of a few ?m. Moreover, micro-channels are a versatile micro-feature that are often used in microfluidic devices and can be arrayed or joined to form patterns and free-form geometries. We present a technique to fabricate micro-channels on surfaces with high-speed and by using a multi-materials process, namely Laser Induced Plasma Micromachining (LIPMM). The process has the potential to machine metals, ceramics, polymers and other transparent, brittle and hard-to-machine materials. The presented technique uses an optical system to modify the laser spot into the shape of a line, to fabricate micro-channels directly without scanning as in the case of a regular circular spot. The process schematics are shown, and micro-machining experiments on polished Aluminum are discussed. Moreover, it is shown that the depth and width of the channels may be varied by changing the process parameters like the pulse energy, pulse frequency and number of exposures

Nanosecond laser texturing for high friction applications

AbstractA nanosecond pulsed Nd:YAG fibre laser with wavelength of 1064nm was used to texture several different steels, including grade 304 stainless steel, grade 316 stainless steel, Cr–Mo–Al ‘nitriding’ steel and low alloy carbon steel, in order to generate surfaces with a high static friction coefficient. Such surfaces have applications, for example, in large engines to reduce the tightening forces required for a joint or to secure precision fittings easily. For the generation of high friction textures, a hexagonal arrangement of laser pulses was used with various pulse overlaps and pulse energies. Friction testing of the samples suggests that the pulse energy should be high (around 0.8mJ) and the laser pulse overlap should be higher than 50% in order to achieve a static friction coefficient of more than 0.5. It was also noted that laser processing increases the surface hardness of samples which appears to correlate with the increase in friction. Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) measurements indicate that this hardness is caused by the formation of hard metal-oxides at the material surface

Sliver Solar Cells

Sliver solar cells are thin, mono-crystalline silicon solar cells, fabricated using micro-machining techniques combined with standard solar cell fabrication technology. Sliver solar modules can be efficient, low cost, bifacial, transparent, flexible, shadow-tolerant, and lightweight. Sliver modules require only 5 to 10% of the pure silicon and less than 5% of the wafer starts per MWp of factory output when compared with conventional photovoltaic modules. At ANU, we have produced 20% efficient Sliver solar cells using a robust, optimised cell fabrication process described in this paper. We have devised a rapid, reliable and simple method for extracting Sliver cells from a Sliver wafer, and methods for assembling modularised Sliver cell sub-modules. The method for forming these Sliver sub-modules, along with a low-cost method for rapidly forming reliable electrical interconnections, are presented. Using the sub-module approach, we describe low-cost methods for assembling and encapsulating Sliver cells into a range of module designs