EG1997
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Item Introduction to VRML 97(Eurographics Association, 1997) Nadeau, DavidVRML (the Virtual Reality Modeling Language) has emerged as the de facto standard for describing 3-D shapes and scenery on the World Wide Web. VRML’s technology has very broad applicability, including web-based entertainment, distributed visualization, 3-D user interfaces to remote web resources, 3-D collaborative environments, interactive simulations for education, virtual museums, virtual retail spaces, and more. VRML is a key technology shaping the future of the web. Participants in this tutorial will learn how to use VRML 97 (a.k.a. ISO VRML, VRML 2.0, and Moving Worlds) to author their own 3-D virtual worlds on the World Wide Web. Participants will learn VRML concepts and terminology, and be introduced to VRML’s text format syntax. Participants also will learn tips and techniques for increasing performance and realism. The tutorial includes numerous VRML examples and information on where to find out more about VRML features and use.Item On the Computational Requirements of Virtual Reality Systems(Eurographics Association, 1997) Dévai, FrankThe computational requirements of high-quality, real-time rendering exceeds the limits of generally available computing power. However illumination effects, except shadows, are less noticeable on moving pictures. Shadows can be produced with the same techniques used for visibility computations, therefore the basic requirements of real-time rendering are transformations, pre-selection of the part of the scene to be displayed and visibility computations. Transformations scale well, ie, their time requirement grows linearly with the input size. Pre-selection, if implemented by the traditional way of polygon clipping, has a growing rate of N logN in the worst case, where N is the total number of edges in the scene. Visibility computations, exhibiting a quadratic growing rate, are the bottleneck from a theoretical point of view. Three approaches are discussed to speed up visibility computations: (i) reducing the expected running time to O(NlogN) (ii) using approximation algorithms with O(NK) worst-case time, where K is the linear resolution of the image, and (iii) applying parallel techniques leading to logarithmic time in the worst-case. Though the growing rate of the time requirement of pre-selection is significantly slower than that of visibility, it is demonstrated that pre-selection has to deal with a significantly higher amount of data than visibility computations, as the average clipping volume is 1/27 of the volume of the model.Item Item A Million Polygons, a Million Pixels:Which is Heavier?(Eurographics Association, 1997) Sillion, F.-Item Building Telepresence Systems: TranslatingScience Fiction into Reality(Eurographics Association, 1997) Fuchs, H.-Item Digital Publishing(Eurographics Association, 1997) Fellner, Dieter W.This presentation covers the general topic of ‘Digital Publishing’ in the context of - the German MEDOC Project and - the German Strategic Digital Library Initiative V3D2 and, more specifically, - in the context of organizing EUROGRAPHICS’97 from the publication point of view. MEDOC is an effort by the German Computer Society (GI) to identify and to address the implications and challenges of digital libraries and electronic publishing on a wide scale. Starting in September 1995 the MEDOC project, partly funded by the German Ministry of Technology, has not only tried to implement a novel architecture for bringing relevant documents to the researcher’s desktop it has also raised the awareness on this important subject within the scientific community as well as within the group of publishers. The scientific counterpart to the application oriented MEDOC project is the strategic initiative V3D2 which is the (German) acronym for ‘Distributed Processing and Delivery of Digital Documents’. This initiative, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) over a period of six years and starting in 1997 provides a solid base for researchers from different disciplines (Computer Science, Library Sciences,Applied Sciences, . . . ) to tackle basic research and application issues focusing on ‘generalized electronic documents’. EUROGRAPHICS’97 is the first conference in its series to fully exploit the power of electronic documents and computer networks. This year, the submission of papers, the delivery of papers and attached multimedia material to the IPC members and to the reviewers as well as their online access, the feedback to the authors, and the delivery of the final documents (with the accompanying multimedia data) has been (almost) exclusively carried out electronically. This report briefly describes the architecture behind the work of the program committee from the first call for papers to the production of the printed proceedings and the CD-ROM holding the technical papers, STAR’s and tutorials. The experiences and lessons learned might be valuable to a general audience and not only to those organizing a scientific event in the near future.Item Item Finally Everyone Can Work with Highly Complex3D models(Eurographics Association, 1997) Rossignac, J.-Item Advanced Applications of Volume Visualization Methods in Medicine(Eurographics Association, 1997) Sakas, Georgios; Pommert, AndreasTomographicmedical imaging techniques have become more popular in recent years. The wide availability of CT,MRI and Ultrasound inmost large hospitals results in a rapidly increasing number of examinations with these devices. The State of The Art Report summarises the application of techniques developed over the recent years for visualising volumetric medical data common in modern medical imaging modalities such as CT, MRA, MRI, Nuclear Medicine, 3D-Ultrasound, Laser Confocal Microscopy etc. Although all of the modalities listed above provide ”slices of the body”, significant differences exist between the image content of each modality. The focus of the Report is be less in explaining algorithms and rendering techniques, but rather to point out their applicability, benefits, and potential in the medical environment. In the first part, methods for all steps of the volume visualization pipeline from data preprocessing to object display are reviewed, with special emphasis on data structures, segmentation, and surface- and volume-based rendering. Furthermore,multimodalitymatching, interventionrehearsal, and aspects of image quality are discussed. In the second part applications are illustrated fromthe areas of craniofacial surgery, traumatology, neurosurgery, radiotherapy, and medical education. Furtherly, some new applications of volumetricmethods are presented: 3D ultrasound, laser confocal datasets, and 3D-reconstruction of cardiological datasets, i.e. vessels as well as ventricles. These new volumetric methods are currently under development but due to their enormeous application potential they are expected to be clinically accepted within the next years.Item Web Design - New design for web sites in a commercial context(Eurographics Association, 1997) Barfield, LonThe web is a completely new medium and is rapidly taking its place alongside existing media such as television, telephone, CD-ROMS, etc. Any new media requires a new approach to design. How do the advances in the web compare to the historical advances in other media, and what are the factors that play a key role in the design of web sites? It is not just the medium that is developing rapidly, the market is also changing. This is leading to new approaches to the role that the web plays in communication with the public and within organisations.Item Digital Publishing - Data Handling(Eurographics Association, 1997) MacIntyre, RossSuperJournal is a research project aiming to identify what factors will make electronic journals successful and why. The project brings together some 20 society, university press and commercial publishers, who are providing electronic versions of around 50 journal titles in discrete areas of academic research. The “why?” is being established via a formal evaluation study being conducted by Loughborough University. In order to undertake the study, an application is being developed by the University of Manchester which offers choice over both content and functionality to the users, who are based at targeted universities. This report focuses on the technical development work undertaken so far to support the scalable distribution of digital journals in an academic network environment. University of Manchester receives data files from the different publishers in a variety of formats: principally SGML, HTML, PDF and PostScript, plus GIF, TIFF and EPS; and via various transfer mechanisms. All SGML is ‘synthesised’ to conform to a DTD defined by the project, converted to HTML including enhancement. The associated scalability issues are discussed. Data is loaded into a number of datastores: an objectbase, a relational database and application-specific databases; and indexed via a number of search engines. The application is accessed over the WWW and consists of an integrated assembly of software, providing the core functionality to maximise use, e.g. searching, browsing, linking, screen presentation and personal preference setting.Item Developing and Publishing High-Quality Electronic Documents on CD-ROM(Eurographics Association, 1997) Cunningham, SteveElectronic publishing is the enterprise of producing content in electronic form that can be delivered by electronic media. These notes explore the opportunities and challenges in this kind of publishing and help the reader evaluate the different kinds of approaches that may be taken in this area. The fundamental questions for electronic publication production are the formats for content components, the tools for producing content in these formats, the authoring tools for integrating these components and for presenting the material to the audience, and the media used for delivering the The common theme that runs through all this integrated content to the audience. material is that the editorial content and the needs of the reader must come first, and the publisher must choose the publication process that fits the needs of the content and reader. Thus we will find that the publisher may sometimes publish on paper, sometimes on the Web, sometimes on CD-ROM, and sometimes on a blend of two or more of these,. The publisher may sometimes publish with one authoring system and sometimes with another. The key is to know the content and the audience well enough to provide the best way of reaching any particular audience with any particular content. Electronic publications are quite new and many people are uncomfortable with the notion of publishing in this way. However, electronic publications have become much more capable in the last year or two and are now at a point where they can begin to displace or complement paper publications for many areas. Technical publication is probably the area that offers the greatest promise for this change. Persons within the technical community are among the most likely to have access to the tools needed to read and use electronic publications, and are among those most likely to be comfortable with this new way of thinking about Like any other area of publishing, electronic communication. publishing must be built on a solid editorial base. This base ensures consistent content quality and focus, and is key to creating value for the audience. However, content that is published in each medium (print, sound, video, film, etc.) tends to have its own editorial nature, while electronic publishing can contain and integrate all these media, so the editorial task for electronic publications is probably more challenging than for each individual medium.Item Photo-Realistic Rendering - Recent Trends and Developments(Eurographics Association, 1997) Slusallek, PhilippSince the beginning of computer graphics, one of the primary goals has been to create convincingly realistic images of three-dimensional environments that would be impossible to distinguish from photographs of the real scene. The goal to create photo-realistic images has lead to the development of completely new software techniques for dealing with the inherent geometric and optical complexity of real world scenes. This report gives an overview of advanced algorithms for photo-realistic rendering and discusses recent trends and developments.Item Virtual Spaces - VR Projection System Technologies and Applications(Eurographics Association, 1997) Dai, P.; Eckel, G.; Göbel, M.; Hasenbrink, F.; Lalioti, V.; Lechner, U.; Strassner, J.; Tramberend, H.; Wesche, G.The motivation for providing multi-sensorial interfaces for human-machine interaction is rooted in the nature of human perception and cognition, which use several sensory channels at the time to construct what is generally referred to as reality. Naturally, the more sensory channels can be stimulated coherently in a human-machine interface, the richer the interaction models can be. The more of our innate and culturally acquired perceptual and cognitive skills can be exploited in an interface, the more refined and efficient the interaction may be. This is especially valid for interfaces which mimic to a large extent certain aspects of our everyday physical environment to create what we call virtual environments or virtual reality.Item Simplification, LOD and MultiresolutionPrinciples and Applications(Eurographics Association, 1997) Puppo, Enrico; Scopigno, RobertoThese tutorial notes provide an introduction, review, and discussion of the state-of-the-art on simplification methods, Level Of Detail, and multiresolution models for surface meshes, and of their applications. The problem of approximating a surface with a triangular mesh is formally introduced, and major simplification techniques are classified, reviewed, and compared. A general framework is introduced next, which encompasses all multiresolution surface models based on decomposition, and major multiresolution meshes are classified, reviewed, and compared in the context of such a framework. Applications of simplification methods, LOD, and multiresolution to computer graphics, virtual reality, geographical information systems, flight simulation, and volume visualization are also reviewed.Item Simplification and Compression of 3D Scenes(Eurographics Association, 1997) Rossignac, JarekThe geometric complexity of 3D models used in scientific, industrial, medical, or military applications significantly exceeds the complexity of what can be rapidly downloaded over the internet and of what can be displayed at interactive rates on personal workstations. This situation is not likely to change, because the need for higher levels of accuracy in the 3D models and the complexity of the industrial and scientific 3D data sets increase at a much faster rate than network bandwidth, CPU speed, and graphics hardware performance. The solution requires intelligent techniques that compress the 3D scenes for fast transmission over the network or phone line and that use auxiliary datastructures and adaptive resolution techniques to avoid processing and displaying each geometric detail at each frame. This tutorial discusses 3D representation schemes for polyhedra, presents recent advances in 3D compression, reviews various graphics acceleration schemes, and teaches specific techniques for constructing and exploiting multi-resolution (LOD) models.