Visual saliency guided textured model simplification

Mesh geometry can be used to model both object shape and details. If texture maps are involved, it is common to let mesh geometry mainly model object shapes and let the texture maps model the most object details, optimising data size and complexity of an object. To support efficient object rendering and transmission, model simplification can be applied to reduce the modelling data. However, existing methods do not well consider how object features are jointly represented by mesh geometry and texture maps, having problems in identifying and preserving important features for simplified objects. To address this, we propose a visual saliency detection method for simplifying textured 3D models. We produce good simplification results by jointly processing mesh geometry and texture map to produce a unified saliency map for identifying visually important object features. Results show that our method offers a better object rendering quality than existing methods

A Tool for the Creation and management of level-of-detail models for 3D applications

Real-time visualization of 3D scenes is a very important feature of many computer graphics solutions. Current environments require complex scenes which contain an increasing number of objects composed of thousands or even millions of polygons. Nevertheless, this complexity poses a problem for achieving interactive rendering. Among the possible solutions, stripification, simplification and level of detail techniques are very common approaches to reduce the rendering cost. In this paper, we present set of techniques which have been developed for offering higher performance when rendering 3D models in real-time applications. Furthermore, we also present a standalone application useful to quickly simplify and generate multiresolution models for arbitrary geometry and for tree

Space Carving multi-view video plus depth sequences for representation and transmission of 3DTV and FTV contents

La vidéo 3D a suscité un intérêt croissant durant ces dernières années. Grâce au développement récent des écrans stéréoscopiques et auto-stéréoscopiques, la vidéo 3D fournit une sensation réaliste de profondeur à l'utilisateur et une navigation virtuelle autour de la scène observée. Cependant de nombreux défis techniques existent encore. Ces défis peuvent être liés à l'acquisition de la scène et à sa représentation d'une part ou à la transmission des données d'autre part. Dans le contexte de la représentation de scènes naturelles, de nombreux efforts ont été fournis afin de surmonter ces difficultés. Les méthodes proposées dans la littérature peuvent être basées image, géométrie ou faire appel à des représentations combinant image et géométrie. L'approche adoptée dans cette thèse consiste en une méthode hybride s'appuyant sur l'utilisation des séquences multi-vues plus profondeur MVD (Multi-view Video plus Depth) afin de conserver le photo-réalisme de la scène observée, combinée avec un modèle géométrique, à base de maillage triangulaire, renforçant ainsi la compacité de la représentation. Nous supposons que les cartes de profondeur des données MVD fournies sont fiables et que les caméras utilisées durant l'acquisition sont calibrées, les paramètres caméras sont donc connus, mais les images correspondantes ne sont pas nécessairement rectifiées. Nous considérerons ainsi le cas général où les caméras peuvent être parallèles ou convergentes. Les contributions de cette thèse sont les suivantes. D'abord, un schéma volumétrique dédié à la fusion des cartes de profondeur en une surface maillée est proposé. Ensuite, un nouveau schéma de plaquage de texture multi-vues est proposé. Finalement, nous abordons à l'issue ce ces deux étapes de modélisation, la transmission proprement dite et comparons les performances de notre schéma de modélisation avec un schéma basé sur le standard MPEG-MVC, état de l'art dans la compression de vidéos multi-vues.3D videos have witnessed a growing interest in the last few years. Due to the recent development ofstereoscopic and auto-stereoscopic displays, 3D videos provide a realistic depth perception to the user and allows a virtual navigation around the scene. Nevertheless, several technical challenges are still remaining. Such challenges are either related to scene acquisition and representation on the one hand or to data transmission on the other hand. In the context of natural scene representation, research activities have been strengthened worldwide in order to handle these issues. The proposed methods for scene representation can be image-based, geometry based or methods combining both image and geometry. In this thesis, we take advantage of image based representations, thanks to the use of Multi-view Video plus Depth representation, in order to preserve the photorealism of the observed scene, and geometric based representations in order to enforce the compactness ofthe proposed scene representation. We assume the provided depth maps to be reliable.Besides, the considered cameras are calibrated so that the cameras parameters are known but thecorresponding images are not necessarily rectified. We consider, therefore, the general framework where cameras can be either convergent or parallel. The contributions of this thesis are the following. First, a new volumetric framework is proposed in order to mergethe input depth maps into a single and compact surface mesh. Second, a new algorithm for multi-texturing the surface mesh is proposed. Finally, we address the transmission issue and compare the performance of the proposed modeling scheme with the current standard MPEG-MVC, that is the state of the art of multi-view video compression.RENNES-INSA (352382210) / SudocSudocFranceF

Cost-driven framework for progressive compression of textured meshes

International audienceRecent advances in digitization of geometry and radiometry generate in routine massive amounts of surface meshes with texture or color attributes. This large amount of data can be compressed using a progressive approach which provides at decoding low complexity levels of details (LoDs) that are continuously refined until retrieving the original model. The goal of such a progressive mesh compression algorithm is to improve the overall quality of the transmission for the user, by optimizing the rate-distortion trade-off. In this paper, we introduce a novel meaningful measure for the cost of a progressive transmission of a textured mesh by observing that the rate-distortion curve is in fact a staircase, which enables an effective comparison and optimization of progressive transmissions in the first place. We contribute a novel generic framework which utilizes the cost function to encode triangle surface meshes via multiplexing several geometry reduction steps (mesh decimation via half-edge or full-edge collapse operators, xyz quantization reduction and uv quantization reduction). This framework can also deal with textures by multiplexing an additional texture reduction step. We also design a texture atlas that enables us to preserve texture seams during decimation while not impairing the quality of resulting LODs. For encoding the inverse mesh decimation steps we further contribute a significant improvement over the state-of-the-art in terms of rate-distortion performance and yields a compression-rate of 22:1, on average. Finally, we propose a unique single-rate alternative solution using a selection scheme of a subset among LODs, optimized for our cost function, and provided with our atlas that enables interleaved progressive texture refinements

Streaming of Plants in Distributed Virtual Environments

International audienceJust as in the real world, plants are important objects in virtual world for creating pleasant and realistic environments, especially those involving natural scenes. As such, much effort has been made in realistic modeling of plants. As the trend moves towards networked and distributed virtual environment, however, the current models are inadequate as they are not designed for progressive transmissions. In this paper, we fill in this gap by proposing a progressive representation for plants based on generalized cylinders. To facilitate the transmission of the plants, we quantify the visual contribution of each branch and use this weight in packet scheduling. We show the efficiency of our representations and effectiveness of our packet scheduler through simulations

Methods for Real-time Visualization and Interaction with Landforms

This thesis presents methods to enrich data modeling and analysis in the geoscience domain with a particular focus on geomorphological applications. First, a short overview of the relevant characteristics of the used remote sensing data and basics of its processing and visualization are provided. Then, two new methods for the visualization of vector-based maps on digital elevation models (DEMs) are presented. The first method uses a texture-based approach that generates a texture from the input maps at runtime taking into account the current viewpoint. In contrast to that, the second method utilizes the stencil buffer to create a mask in image space that is then used to render the map on top of the DEM. A particular challenge in this context is posed by the view-dependent level-of-detail representation of the terrain geometry. After suitable visualization methods for vector-based maps have been investigated, two landform mapping tools for the interactive generation of such maps are presented. The user can carry out the mapping directly on the textured digital elevation model and thus benefit from the 3D visualization of the relief. Additionally, semi-automatic image segmentation techniques are applied in order to reduce the amount of user interaction required and thus make the mapping process more efficient and convenient. The challenge in the adaption of the methods lies in the transfer of the algorithms to the quadtree representation of the data and in the application of out-of-core and hierarchical methods to ensure interactive performance. Although high-resolution remote sensing data are often available today, their effective resolution at steep slopes is rather low due to the oblique acquisition angle. For this reason, remote sensing data are suitable to only a limited extent for visualization as well as landform mapping purposes. To provide an easy way to supply additional imagery, an algorithm for registering uncalibrated photos to a textured digital elevation model is presented. A particular challenge in registering the images is posed by large variations in the photos concerning resolution, lighting conditions, seasonal changes, etc. The registered photos can be used to increase the visual quality of the textured DEM, in particular at steep slopes. To this end, a method is presented that combines several georegistered photos to textures for the DEM. The difficulty in this compositing process is to create a consistent appearance and avoid visible seams between the photos. In addition to that, the photos also provide valuable means to improve landform mapping. To this end, an extension of the landform mapping methods is presented that allows the utilization of the registered photos during mapping. This way, a detailed and exact mapping becomes feasible even at steep slopes

Multiresolution Techniques for Real–Time Visualization of Urban Environments and Terrains

In recent times we are witnessing a steep increase in the availability of data coming from real–life environments. Nowadays, virtually everyone connected to the Internet may have instant access to a tremendous amount of data coming from satellite elevation maps, airborne time-of-flight scanners and digital cameras, street–level photographs and even cadastral maps. As for other, more traditional types of media such as pictures and videos, users of digital exploration softwares expect commodity hardware to exhibit good performance for interactive purposes, regardless of the dataset size. In this thesis we propose novel solutions to the problem of rendering large terrain and urban models on commodity platforms, both for local and remote exploration. Our solutions build on the concept of multiresolution representation, where alternative representations of the same data with different accuracy are used to selectively distribute the computational power, and consequently the visual accuracy, where it is more needed on the base of the user’s point of view. In particular, we will introduce an efficient multiresolution data compression technique for planar and spherical surfaces applied to terrain datasets which is able to handle huge amount of information at a planetary scale. We will also describe a novel data structure for compact storage and rendering of urban entities such as buildings to allow real–time exploration of cityscapes from a remote online repository. Moreover, we will show how recent technologies can be exploited to transparently integrate virtual exploration and general computer graphics techniques with web applications