State of the Art in Skinning Techniques for Articulated Deformable Characters

Skinning is an indispensable component of the content creation pipeline for character animation in the context of feature films, video games, and in the special effects industry. Skinning techniques define the deformation of the character skin for every animation frame according to the current state of skeletal joints. In this state of the art report, we focus on the existing research in the areas of skeleton-based deformation, volume preserving techniques and physically based skinning methods. We also summarize the recent research in deformable and soft bodies simulations for articulated characters, and discuss various geometric and examples-based approaches

Position based skinning of skeleton-driven deformable characters

© ACM, 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in SCCG '14: Proceedings of the 30th Spring Conference on Computer Graphics, 9781450330701, May 2014 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2643188.2643194 ; Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected] Universit

Robust digital watermarking for compressed 3D models based on polygonal representation

Multimedia has recently played an increasingly important role in various domains, including Web applications, movies, video game and medical visualization. The rapid growth of digital media data over the Internet, on the other hand, makes it easy for anyone to access, copy, edit and distribute digital contents such as electronic documents, images, sounds and videos. Motivated by this, much research work has been dedicated to develop methods for digital data copyright protection, tracing the ownership, and preventing illegal duplication or tampering. This paper introduces a methodology of robust digital watermarking based on a well-known spherical wavelet transformation, applied to 3D compressed model based on polygonal representation using a neural network. It will be demonstrated in this work that applying a watermarking algorithm on a compressed domain of a 3D object is more effective, efficient, and robust than when applied on a normal domain

Transpiration of Eucalyptus woodlands across a natural gradient of depth-to-groundwater

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]. Water resources and their management present social, economic and environmental challenges, with demand for human consumptive, industrial and environmental uses increasing globally. However, environmental water requirements, that is, the allocation of water to the maintenance of ecosystem health, are often neglected or poorly quantified. Further, transpiration by trees is commonly a major determinant of the hydrological balance of woodlands but recognition of the role of groundwater in hydrological balances of woodlands remains inadequate, particularly in mesic climates. In this study, we measured rates of tree water-use and sapwood 13C isotopic ratio in a mesic, temperate Eucalypt woodland along a naturally occurring gradient of depth-to-groundwater (DGW), to examine daily, seasonal and annual patterns of transpiration. We found that: (i) the maximum rate of stand transpiration was observed at the second shallowest site (4.3 m) rather than the shallowest (2.4 m); (ii) as DGW increased from 4.3 to 37.5 m, stand transpiration declined; (iii) the smallest rate of stand transpiration was observed at the deepest (37.5 m) site; (iv) intrinsic water-use efficiency was smallest at the two intermediate DGW sites as reflected in the Δ13C of the most recently formed sapwood and largest at the deepest and shallowest DGW sites, reflecting the imposition of flooding at the shallowest site and the inaccessibility of groundwater at the deepest site; and (v) there was no evidence of convergence in rates of water-use for co-occurring species at any site. We conclude that even in mesic environments groundwater can be utilized by trees. We further conclude that these forests are facultatively groundwater-dependent when groundwater depth is <9 m and suggest that during drier-than-average years the contribution of groundwater to stand transpiration is likely to increase significantly at the three shallowest DGW sites

Skin Deformation Methods for Interactive Character Animation

Character animation is a vital component of contemporary computer games, animated feature films and virtual reality applications. The problem of creating appealing character animation can best be described by the title of the animation bible: “The Illusion of Life”. The focus is not on completing a given motion task, but more importantly on how this motion task is performed by the character. This does not necessarily require realistic behavior, but behavior that is believable. This of course includes the skin deformations when the character is moving. In this paper, we focus on the existing research in the area of skin deformation, ranging from skeleton-based deformation and volume preserving techniques to physically based skinning methods. We also summarize the recent contributions in deformable and soft body simulations for articulated characters, and discuss various geometric and example-based approaches

Soil moisture controls on phenology and productivity in a semi-arid critical zone

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. The Earth's Critical Zone, where physical, chemical and biological systems interact, extends from the top of the canopy to the underlying bedrock. In this study, we investigated soil moisture controls on phenology and productivity of an Acacia woodland in semi-arid central Australia. Situated on an extensive sand plain with negligible runoff and drainage, the carry-over of soil moisture content (θ) in the rhizosphere enabled the delay of phenology and productivity across seasons, until conditions were favourable for transpiration of that water to prevent overheating in the canopy. Storage of soil moisture near the surface (in the top few metres) was promoted by a siliceous hardpan. Pulsed recharge of θ above the hardpan was rapid and depended upon precipitation amount: 150 mm storm− 1 resulted in saturation of θ above the hardpan (i.e., formation of a temporary, discontinuous perched aquifer above the hardpan in unconsolidated soil) and immediate carbon uptake by the vegetation. During dry and inter-storm periods, we inferred the presence of hydraulic lift from soil storage above the hardpan to the surface due to (i) regular daily drawdown of θ in the reservoir that accumulates above the hardpan in the absence of drainage and evapotranspiration; (ii) the dimorphic root distribution wherein most roots were found in dry soil near the surface, but with significant root just above the hardpan; and (iii) synchronisation of phenology amongst trees and grasses in the dry season. We propose that hydraulic redistribution provides a small amount of moisture that maintains functioning of the shallow roots during long periods when the surface soil layer was dry, thereby enabling Mulga to maintain physiological activity without diminishing phenological and physiological responses to precipitation when conditions were favourable to promote canopy cooling

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

Summer schools of adult and paediatric respiratory medicine: course report

ERS hosted summer schools on adult and paediatric respiratory medicine in Lisbon, Portugalhttp://ow.ly/qcas304C5tO

Proceedings of the 4th BEAT-PCD Conference and 5th PCD Training School

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is an inherited ciliopathy leading to chronic suppurative lung disease, chronic rhinosinusitis, middle ear disease, sub-fertility and situs abnormalities. As PCD is rare, it is important that scientists and clinicians foster international collaborations to share expertise in order to provide the best possible diagnostic and management strategies. ‘Better Experimental Approaches to Treat Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia’ (BEAT-PCD) is a multidisciplinary network funded by EU COST Action (BM1407) to coordinate innovative basic science and clinical research from across the world to drive advances in the field. The fourth and final BEAT-PCD Conference and fifth PCD Training School were held jointly in March 2019 in Poznan, Poland. The varied program of plenaries, workshops, break-out sessions, oral and poster presentations were aimed to enhance the knowledge and skills of delegates, whilst also providing a collaborative platform to exchange ideas. In this final BEAT-PCD conference we were able to build upon programmes developed throughout the lifetime of the COST Action. These proceedings report on the conference, highlighting some of the successes of the BEAT-PCD programme

СКРИНИНГ НА ТУБЕРКУЛЕЗ ВИЧ-ПОЗИТИВНЫХ БЫВШИХ И ОТБЫВАЮЩИХ НАКАЗАНИЕ ЗАКЛЮЧЕННЫХ И ЛИЦ БЕЗ ОПРЕДЕЛЕННОГО МЕСТА ЖИТЕЛЬСТВА В МНОГОЦЕНТРОВОМ КОГОРТНОМ ИССЛЕДОВАНИИ В РЕГИОНАХ СЕВЕРО-ЗАПАДА РОССИИ

The aim: of the prospective cohort study was a TB screening evaluation in HIV-infected current and released prisoners and homeless people in comparison to the local HIV-infected residents in the pilot territories. Methods: Prospective data collection of newly registered HIV and TB co-infected cases was provided inSt. Petersburg,VologdaandLeningradregions between 2008 and 2011. The patients’ social and demographic, clinical and epidemiological characteristics were analyzed and predictors of TB-attributable mortality were evaluated. Results: A total of 2888 patients were included in the analysis: 1570 local residents, 777 released prisoners, 404 prisoners and 137 homeless persons. There was no significant difference in age, but prisoners, released prisoners and homeless persons were more likely to be male, urban resident, unemployed and injection drug user, less likely to have microbiological confirmation, presented with a greater incidence of disseminated lung TB, lower CD4 cell count. Significant predictors of TB-attributable morality were current or prior incarceration, urban residence, unemployment, symptoms lasting over 1 year, extra-pulmonary TB at presentation and CD4 cell count less than 200 cell/mkl. Conclusions: Found TB cases in HIV-infected prisoners, released prisoners and homeless persons were at a significantly more advanced disease stage and presented with greater morbidity and mortality to compare to the local residents. Targeted early screening and on time started treatment interventions could improve TB outcomes in these highly vulnerable social groups.Цель: оценка выявления туберкулеза (ТБ) среди ВИЧпозитивных бывших и отбывающих наказание заключенных и бездомных лиц в сравнении с ВИЧ-позитивными постоянными жителями изучаемых территорий. Методы: исследование проводилось проспективно с 2008 по 2011 г. по данным персонифицированного учета впервые зарегистрированных случаев сочетанной инфекции ВИЧ/ТБ в Санкт-Петербурге, Ленинградской и Вологодской областях. Проведен анализ социально-демографических, клинических и эпидемиологических характеристик пациентов и оценены факторы риска летальных исходов от туберкулеза. Результаты: в исследование были включены 2888 больных: 1570 местных жителей, 777 бывших заключенных, 404 отбывающих наказание, 137 лиц без определенного места жительства (БОМЖ). Значимых возрастных различий в группах не установлено, однако заключенные и лица БОМЖ преимущественно были представлены мужчинами, чаще являлись жителями города, безработными и потребителями инъекционных наркотиков (ПИН), реже имели бактериологическое подтверждение диагноза ТБ, чаще имели диссеминированные процессы в легких и низкое число CD4 клеток. Значительными факторами риска летальных исходов от ТБ были: бывшее или настоящее заключение, проживание в городе, безработица, симптомы с длительностью более 1 года, внелегочный туберкулез при выявлении и CD4 менее 200 кл/мкл. Заключение: у ВИЧ-позитивных бывших и отбывающих наказание заключенных и лиц БОМЖ туберкулез выявлялся в более запущенных формах, заболеваемость и смертность от туберкулеза среди них были также более высокими в сравнении с постоянными жителями. Целенаправленное проведение раннего скрининга и своевременное начало лечебных мер могут улучшить исход туберкулеза среди указанной сверхуязвимой социальной группы