A Level-set Method for Skinning Animated Particle Data

Abstract:
In this paper, we present a straightforward, easy to implement method for particle skinning-generating surfaces from animated particle data. We cast the problem in terms of constrained optimization and solve the optimization using a level-set approach. The optimization seeks to minimize the thin-plate energy of the surface, while stayingbetween surfaces defined by the union of spheres centered at the particles. Our approach skins each frame independently while preserving the temporal coherence of the underlying particle animation. Thus, it is well-suited for environments where particle skinning is treated as a post-process, with each frame generated in parallel. We demonstrate our method on data generated by a variety of fluid simulation techniques and simple particle systems.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACMCCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-DimensionalGraphics and Realism-Animation; I.6.8 [Simulation andModeling]: Types of Simulation-Animation; I.3.5 [ComputerGraphics]: Computational Geometry and ObjectModeling-Curve, Surface, Solid, and Object Representations.
Particle skinning, level-set methods, particlesystems, fluid simulation, surface smoothing, constrainedsmoothing.

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