Environmental Objects for Authoring Procedural Scenes

International audienceWe propose a novel approach for authoring large scenes with automatic enhancement of objects to create geometric decoration details such as snow cover, icicles, fallen leaves, grass tufts or even trash. We introduce environmental objects that extend an input object geometry with a set of procedural effects that defines how the object reacts to the environment, and by a set of scalar fields that defines the influence of the object over of the environment. The user controls the scene by modifying environmental variables, such as temperature or humidity fields. The scene definition is hierarchical: objects can be grouped and their behaviours can be set at each level of the hierarchy. Our per object definition allows us to optimize and accelerate the effects computation, which also enables us to generate large scenes with many geometric details at a very high level of detail. In our implementation, a complex urban scene of 10 000 m², represented with details of less than 1 cm, can be locally modified and entirely regenerated in a few seconds

Modélisation de terrains par primitives

National audienceNous proposons un modèle de terrain hiérarchique et compact permettant de représenter des scènes complexes. Ce modèle de représentation s'inspire des surfaces implicites à squelettes et définit une fonction d'élévation sous la forme d'un arbre de construction. Les feuilles sont des primitives décrivant des morceaux de terrains à différentes échelles (montagnes, fleuves, ...) et les noeuds internes sont des opérateurs de combinaison. L'élévation d'un point est calculée en traversant la structure d'arbre et en combinant les contributions de chaque primitive. La définition des feuilles et des opérateurs garantit que la fonction d'élévation résultante est Lipschitzienne, ce qui permet d'accélérer les calculs de visualisation en utilisant un algorithme de sphere tracing. Mots Clés : modélisation de terrains, phénomènes naturels, modélisation procédurale, surface implicite We propose a compact hierarchical procedural model that combines feature-based primitives to create complex continuous terrains. Our model is inspired by skeletal implicit surfaces and defines the terrain elevation by using a construction tree whose leaves are primitives describing terrain fragments, and whose inner nodes include operations that combine its sub-trees. The elevation of a point is evaluated by traversing the tree and by combining the contributions of each primitive. The definition of both leaves and operators guarantees that the resulting elevation function is Lipschitz which enables us to speed up sphere tracing and surface adaptive tesselation algorithms

Efficient modeling of entangled details for natural scenes

Proceedings of Pacific Graphics 2016 (Okinawa)International audienceDigital landscape realism often comes from the multitude of details that are hard to model such as fallen leaves, rock piles orentangled fallen branches. In this article, we present a method for augmenting natural scenes with a huge amount of details suchas grass tufts, stones, leaves or twigs. Our approach takes advantage of the observation that those details can be approximatedby replications of a few similar objects and therefore relies on mass-instancing. We propose an original structure, the GhostTile, that stores a huge number of overlapping candidate objects in a tile, along with a pre-computed collision graph. Detailsare created by traversing the scene with the Ghost Tile and generating instances according to user-defined density fields thatallow to sculpt layers and piles of entangled objects while providing control over their density and distribution

The circadian clock, metabolism and obesity

In the last decades, obesity has been on the rise becoming a burden for health care systems. The reasons behind this rise are most likely caused by lifestyle rather than by an increase in gene mutations, because manifestations of genetic alterations would take longer than just a few decades. Lifestyle has a great impact on the circadian system and therefore on the body internal organization of physiological and biochemical processes, regulating various aspects of behavior and metabolism. In the following, I will discuss recent studies delineating relationships between metabolic processes and the circadian system, how metabolites and nutrients regulate the circadian clock and how nuclear receptors can act as metabolic sensors and clock regulators. Finally, I will discuss how clock modulation and feeding patterns influence the development of obesity

Relations réciproques entre perturbations circadiennes et troubles métaboliques

Tous les organismes présentent des rythmes biologiques sous le contrôle d’horloges internes synchronisées sur le cycle jour-nuit. La perturbation des horloges (travail posté chez l’homme) conduit souvent à des troubles métaboliques. A l’inverse, obésité et diabète sont associés à des perturbations circadiennes. Mon but est de comprendre les mécanismes impliqués dans le lien réciproque entre perturbations circadiennes et troubles métaboliques. Une première partie révèle le rôle de la leptine dans les troubles circadiens de souris génétiquement obèses, au niveau central et périphérique. Dans une seconde partie, nous montrons que l’altération des cycles jour-nuit induit une désynchronisation circadienne chez un rongeur diurne, entraînant un état pré-diabétique et un vieillissement prématuré des cellules hépatiques. Nos résultats ouvrent la voie à des traitements préventifs visant à diminuer les troubles circadiens des patients obèses et les troubles métaboliques des travailleurs postés.Most organisms exhibit biological rhythms, generated endogenously by circadian clocks, which are synchronized on the light-dark cycle. Disrupting circadian clocks (e.g, shiftwork) lead in most cases to the occurrence of metabolic disorders. Conversely, obesity and diabetes are associated with circadian disruptions. The aim of my project is to provide new insights in the understanding of mechanisms underlying the reciprocal relationships between circadian disruptions and metabolic disorders. We show in a first part that leptin is involved in circadian disturbances of genetically obese mice, at both central and peripheral levels. In a second part, by altering the light-dark cycle, we induce the circadian desynchronization of a diurnal rodent, which leads in turn to a pre-diabetic state associated with accelerated aging of hepatic cells. Our results pave the road to preventive treatments aiming at reducing circadian disruptions in obese patients and metabolic disorders in shiftworkers