Volume 39 (2020)
Permanent URI for this community
Browse
Browsing Volume 39 (2020) by Issue Date
Now showing 1 - 20 of 297
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Particle-based Liquid Control using Animation Templates(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Schoentgen, Arnaud; Poulin, Pierre; Darles, Emmanuelle; Meseure, Philippe; Bender, Jan and Popa, TiberiuIt is notoriously difficult for artists to control liquids while generating plausible animations. We introduce a new liquid control tool that allows users to load, transform, and apply precomputed liquid simulation templates in a scene in order to control a particle-based simulation. Each template instance generates control forces that drive the global simulated liquid to locally reproduce the templated liquid behavior. Our system is augmented with a variable proportion of temporary particles to help efficiently reproduce the templated liquid density, with fewer requirements on the surrounding environment. The resulting control strategy adds only a small computational overhead, leading to quick visual feedback for resolutions allowing interactive simulation. We demonstrate the robustness and ease of use of our method on various examples in 2D and 3D.Item Adjustable Constrained Soft-Tissue Dynamics(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Wang, Bohan; Zheng, Mianlun; Barbic, Jernej; Eisemann, Elmar and Jacobson, Alec and Zhang, Fang-LuePhysically based simulation is often combined with geometric mesh animation to add realistic soft-body dynamics to virtual characters. This is commonly done using constraint-based simulation whereby a soft-tissue simulation is constrained to geometric animation of a subpart (or otherwise proxy representation) of the character. We observe that standard constraint-based simulation suffers from an important flaw that limits the expressiveness of soft-body dynamics. Namely, under correct physics, the frequency and amplitude of soft-tissue dynamics arising from constraints (''inertial amplitude'') are coupled, and cannot be adjusted independently merely by adjusting the material properties of the model. This means that the space of physically based simulations is inherently limited and cannot capture all effects typically expected by computer animators. For example, animators need the ability to adjust the frequency, inertial amplitude, gravity sag and damping properties of the virtual character, independently from each other, as these are the primary visual characteristics of the soft-tissue dynamics. We demonstrate that independence can be achieved by transforming the equations of motion into a non-inertial reference coordinate frame, then scaling the resulting inertial forces, and then converting the equations of motion back to the inertial frame. Such scaling of inertia makes it possible for the animator to set the character's inertial amplitude independently from frequency. We also provide exact controls for the amount of character's gravity sag, and the damping properties. In our examples, we use linear blend skinning and pose-space deformation for geometric mesh animation, and the Finite Element Method for soft-body constrained simulation; but our idea of scaling inertial forces is general and applicable to other animation and simulation methods. We demonstrate our technique on several character examples.Item Slice and Dice: A Physicalization Workflow for Anatomical Edutainment(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Raidou, Renata Georgia; Gröller, Eduard; Wu, Hsiang-Yun; Eisemann, Elmar and Jacobson, Alec and Zhang, Fang-LueDuring the last decades, anatomy has become an interesting topic in education-even for laymen or schoolchildren. As medical imaging techniques become increasingly sophisticated, virtual anatomical education applications have emerged. Still, anatomical models are often preferred, as they facilitate 3D localization of anatomical structures. Recently, data physicalizations (i.e., physical visualizations) have proven to be effective and engaging-sometimes, even more than their virtual counterparts. So far, medical data physicalizations involve mainly 3D printing, which is still expensive and cumbersome. We investigate alternative forms of physicalizations, which use readily available technologies (home printers) and inexpensive materials (paper or semi-transparent films) to generate crafts for anatomical edutainment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first computergenerated crafting approach within an anatomical edutainment context. Our approach follows a cost-effective, simple, and easy-to-employ workflow, resulting in assemblable data sculptures (i.e., semi-transparent sliceforms). It primarily supports volumetric data (such as CT or MRI), but mesh data can also be imported. An octree slices the imported volume and an optimization step simplifies the slice configuration, proposing the optimal order for easy assembly. A packing algorithm places the resulting slices with their labels, annotations, and assembly instructions on a paper or transparent film of user-selected size, to be printed, assembled into a sliceform, and explored. We conducted two user studies to assess our approach, demonstrating that it is an initial positive step towards the successful creation of interactive and engaging anatomical physicalizations.Item Curve Skeleton Extraction From 3D Point Clouds Through Hybrid Feature Point Shifting and Clustering(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Hu, Hailong; Li, Zhong; Jin, Xiaogang; Deng, Zhigang; Chen, Minhong; Shen, Yi; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigCurve skeleton is an important shape descriptor with many potential applications in computer graphics, visualization and machine intelligence. We present a curve skeleton expression based on the set of the cross‐section centroids from a point cloud model and propose a corresponding extraction approach. We first provide the substitution of a distance field for a 3D point cloud model, and then combine it with curvatures to capture hybrid feature points. By introducing relevant facets and points, we shift these hybrid feature points along the skeleton‐guided normal directions to approach local centroids, simplify them through a tensor‐based spectral clustering and finally connect them to form a primary connected curve skeleton. Furthermore, we refine the primary skeleton through pruning, trimming and smoothing. We compared our results with several state‐of‐the‐art algorithms including the rotational symmetry axis (ROSA) and ‐medial methods for incomplete point cloud data to evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy of our method.Item Designing Robotically-Constructed Metal Frame Structures(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Ma, Zhao; Walzer, Alexander; Schumacher, Christian; Rust, Romana; Gramazio, Fabio; Kohler, Matthias; Bächer, Moritz; Panozzo, Daniele and Assarsson, UlfWe present a computational technique that aids with the design of structurally-sound metal frames, tailored for robotic fabrication using an existing process that integrate automated bar bending, welding, and cutting. Aligning frames with structurallyfavorable orientations, and decomposing models into fabricable units, we make the fabrication process scale-invariant, and frames globally align in an aesthetically-pleasing and structurally-informed manner. Relying on standard analysis of frames, we then co-optimize the shape and topology of bars at the local unit level. At this level, we minimize combinations of functional and aesthetic objectives under strict fabrication constraints that model the assembly of discrete sets of bent bars. We demonstrate the capabilities of our global-to-local approach on four robotically-constructed examples.Item Effective Annotations Over 3D Models(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Ponchio, F.; Callieri, M.; Dellepiane, M.; Scopigno, R.; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigAnnotation support in interactive systems is often considered a simple task by the CG community, since it entails the apparently easy selection of a region and its connection with some information. The reality appears more complex. The scope of this paper is two‐fold: first, to review the status of this domain, discussing and characterizing several approaches proposed in literature to manage annotations over geometric models; second, to present in detail an innovative solution proposed and assessed in the framework of Cultural Heritage (CH) applications, called . At the annotation definition stage uses 3D data to characterize the annotation region; subsequently, annotations are visualized by adopting a two‐pass rendering solution which uses stencil buffers, thus without introducing new geometric elements, changing the topology or duplicating geometry elements. It solves most of the issues that afflict the current state of the art, such as fragmentation, annotation transfer to multiple representations and multi‐resolution data encoding. The latter is a mandatory requirement to produce efficient web‐based systems. We implemented and we fully tested this approach in the framework of a complex system that supports the documentation of CH restoration projects.Item Automatic Design of Cable‐Tensioned Glass Shells(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Laccone, Francesco; Malomo, Luigi; Froli, Maurizio; Cignoni, Paolo; Pietroni, Nico; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigWe propose an optimization algorithm for the design of post‐tensioned architectural shell structures, composed of triangular glass panels, in which glass has a load‐bearing function. Due to its brittle nature, glass can fail when it is subject to tensile forces. Hence, we enrich the structure with a cable net, which is specifically designed to post‐tension the shell, relieving the underlying glass structure from tension. We automatically derive an optimized cable layout, together with the appropriate pre‐load of each cable. The method is driven by a physically based static analysis of the shell subject to its service load. We assess our approach by applying non‐linear finite element analysis to several real‐scale application scenarios. Such a method of cable tensioning produces glass shells that are optimized from the material usage viewpoint since they exploit the high compression strength of glass. As a result, they are lightweight and robust. Both aesthetic and static qualities are improved with respect to grid shell competitors.Item Primal/Dual Descent Methods for Dynamics(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Macklin, Miles; Erleben, Kenny; Müller, Matthias; Chentanez, Nuttapong; Jeschke, Stefan; Kim, Tae-Yong; Bender, Jan and Popa, TiberiuWe examine the relationship between primal, or force-based, and dual, or constraint-based formulations of dynamics. Variational frameworks such as Projective Dynamics have proved popular for deformable simulation, however they have not been adopted for contact-rich scenarios such as rigid body simulation. We propose a new preconditioned frictional contact solver that is compatible with existing primal optimization methods, and competitive with complementarity-based approaches. Our relaxed primal model generates improved contact force distributions when compared to dual methods, and has the advantage of being differentiable, making it well-suited for trajectory optimization. We derive both primal and dual methods from a common variational point of view, and present a comprehensive numerical analysis of both methods with respect to conditioning. We demonstrate our method on scenarios including rigid body contact, deformable simulation, and robotic manipulation.Item Automatic Band-Limited Approximation of Shaders Using Mean-Variance Statistics in Clamped Domain(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Li, Shi; Wang, Rui; Huo, Yuchi; Zheng, Wenting; Hua, Wei; Bao, Hujun; Eisemann, Elmar and Jacobson, Alec and Zhang, Fang-LueIn this paper, we present a new shader smoothing method to improve the quality and generality of band-limiting shader programs. Previous work [YB18] treats intermediate values in the program as random variables, and utilizes mean and variance statistics to smooth shader programs. In this work, we extend such a band-limiting framework by exploring the observation that one intermediate value in the program is usually computed by a complex composition of functions, where the domain and range of composited functions heavily impact the statistics of smoothed programs. Accordingly, we propose three new shader smoothing rules for specific composition of functions by considering the domain and range, enabling better mean and variance statistics of approximations. Aside from continuous functions, the texture, such as color texture or normal map, is treated as a discrete function with limited domain and range, thereby can be processed similarly in the newly proposed framework. Experiments show that compared with previous work, our method is capable of generating better smoothness of shader programs as well as handling a broader set of shader programs.Item Constructing Human Motion Manifold With Sequential Networks(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Jang, Deok‐Kyeong; Lee, Sung‐Hee; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigThis paper presents a novel recurrent neural network‐based method to construct a latent motion manifold that can represent a wide range of human motions in a long sequence. We introduce several new components to increase the spatial and temporal coverage in motion space while retaining the details of motion capture data. These include new regularization terms for the motion manifold, combination of two complementary decoders for predicting joint rotations and joint velocities and the addition of the forward kinematics layer to consider both joint rotation and position errors. In addition, we propose a set of loss terms that improve the overall quality of the motion manifold from various aspects, such as the capability of reconstructing not only the motion but also the latent manifold vector, and the naturalness of the motion through adversarial loss. These components contribute to creating compact and versatile motion manifold that allows for creating new motions by performing random sampling and algebraic operations, such as interpolation and analogy, in the latent motion manifold.Item Broadmark: A Testing Framework for Broad‐Phase Collision Detection Algorithms(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Serpa, Ygor Rebouças; Rodrigues, Maria Andréia Formico; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigResearch in the area of collision detection permeates most of the literature on simulations, interaction and agents planning, being commonly regarded as one of the main bottlenecks for large‐scale systems. To this day, despite its importance, most subareas of collision detection lack a common ground to test and validate solutions, reference implementations and widely accepted benchmark suites. In this paper, we delve into the broad‐phase of collision detection systems, providing both an open‐source framework, named Broadmark, to test, compare and validate algorithms, and an in‐deep analysis of the main techniques used so far to tackle the broad‐phase problem. The technical challenges of building this framework from the software and hardware perspectives are also described. Within our framework, several original and state‐of‐the‐art implementations of CPU and GPU algorithms are bundled, alongside three benchmark scenes to stress algorithms under several conditions. Furthermore, the system is designed to be easily extensible. We use our framework to bring out an extensive performance comparison among assembled solutions, detailing the current CPU and GPU state‐of‐the‐art on a common ground. We believe that Broadmark encompasses the principal insights and tools to derive and evaluate novel algorithms, thus greatly facilitating discussion about successful broad‐phase collision detection solutions.Item Facial Expression Synthesis using a Global-Local Multilinear Framework(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Wang, Mengjiao; Bradley, Derek; Zafeiriou, Stefanos; Beeler, Thabo; Panozzo, Daniele and Assarsson, UlfWe present a practical method to synthesize plausible 3D facial expressions for a particular target subject. The ability to synthesize an entire facial rig from a single neutral expression has a large range of applications both in computer graphics and computer vision, ranging from the efficient and cost-effective creation of CG characters to scalable data generation for machine learning purposes. Unlike previous methods based on multilinear models, the proposed approach is capable to extrapolate well outside the sample pool, which allows it to plausibly predict the identity of the target subject and create artifact free expression shapes while requiring only a small input dataset. We introduce global-local multilinear models that leverage the strengths of expression-specific and identity-specific local models combined with coarse motion estimations from a global model. Experimental results show that we achieve high-quality, plausible facial expression synthesis results for an individual that outperform existing methods both quantitatively and qualitatively.Item RadEx: Integrated Visual Exploration of Multiparametric Studies for Radiomic Tumor Profiling(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Mörth, Eric; Wagner-Larsen, Kari; Hodneland, Erlend; Krakstad, Camilla; Haldorsen, Ingfrid S.; Bruckner, Stefan; Smit, Noeska N.; Eisemann, Elmar and Jacobson, Alec and Zhang, Fang-LueBetter understanding of the complex processes driving tumor growth and metastases is critical for developing targeted treatment strategies in cancer. Radiomics extracts large amounts of features from medical images which enables radiomic tumor profiling in combination with clinical markers. However, analyzing complex imaging data in combination with clinical data is not trivial and supporting tools aiding in these exploratory analyses are presently missing. In this paper, we present an approach that aims to enable the analysis of multiparametric medical imaging data in combination with numerical, ordinal, and categorical clinical parameters to validate established and unravel novel biomarkers. We propose a hybrid approach where dimensionality reduction to a single axis is combined with multiple linked views allowing clinical experts to formulate hypotheses based on all available imaging data and clinical parameters. This may help to reveal novel tumor characteristics in relation to molecular targets for treatment, thus providing better tools for enabling more personalized targeted treatment strategies. To confirm the utility of our approach, we closely collaborate with experts from the field of gynecological cancer imaging and conducted an evaluation with six experts in this field.Item FARM: Functional Automatic Registration Method for 3D Human Bodies(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Marin, R.; Melzi, S.; Rodolà, E.; Castellani, U.; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigWe introduce a new method for non‐rigid registration of 3D human shapes. Our proposed pipeline builds upon a given parametric model of the human, and makes use of the functional map representation for encoding and inferring shape maps throughout the registration process. This combination endows our method with robustness to a large variety of nuisances observed in practical settings, including non‐isometric transformations, downsampling, topological noise and occlusions; further, the pipeline can be applied invariably across different shape representations (e.g. meshes and point clouds), and in the presence of (even dramatic) missing parts such as those arising in real‐world depth sensing applications. We showcase our method on a selection of challenging tasks, demonstrating results in line with, or even surpassing, state‐of‐the‐art methods in the respective areas.Item Making Procedural Water Waves Boundary-aware(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Jeschke, Stefan; Hafner, Christian; Chentanez, Nuttapong; Macklin, Miles; Müller-Fischer, Matthias; Wojtan, Chris; Bender, Jan and Popa, TiberiuThe ''procedural'' approach to animating ocean waves is the dominant algorithm for animating larger bodies of water in interactive applications as well as in off-line productions - it provides high visual quality with a low computational demand. In this paper, we widen the applicability of procedural water wave animation with an extension that guarantees the satisfaction of boundary conditions imposed by terrain while still approximating physical wave behavior. In combination with a particle system that models wave breaking, foam, and spray, this allows us to naturally model waves interacting with beaches and rocks. Our system is able to animate waves at large scales at interactive frame rates on a commodity PC.Item Fully Convolutional Graph Neural Networks for Parametric Virtual Try-On(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Vidaurre, Raquel; Santesteban, Igor; Garces, Elena; Casas, Dan; Bender, Jan and Popa, TiberiuWe present a learning-based approach for virtual try-on applications based on a fully convolutional graph neural network. In contrast to existing data-driven models, which are trained for a specific garment or mesh topology, our fully convolutional model can cope with a large family of garments, represented as parametric predefined 2D panels with arbitrary mesh topology, including long dresses, shirts, and tight tops. Under the hood, our novel geometric deep learning approach learns to drape 3D garments by decoupling the three different sources of deformations that condition the fit of clothing: garment type, target body shape, and material. Specifically, we first learn a regressor that predicts the 3D drape of the input parametric garment when worn by a mean body shape. Then, after a mesh topology optimization step where we generate a sufficient level of detail for the input garment type, we further deform the mesh to reproduce deformations caused by the target body shape. Finally, we predict fine-scale details such as wrinkles that depend mostly on the garment material. We qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate that our fully convolutional approach outperforms existing methods in terms of generalization capabilities and memory requirements, and therefore it opens the door to more general learning-based models for virtual try-on applications.Item Probabilistic Character Motion Synthesis using a Hierarchical Deep Latent Variable Model(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Ghorbani, Saeed; Wloka, Calden; Etemad, Ali; Brubaker, Marcus A.; Troje, Nikolaus F.; Bender, Jan and Popa, TiberiuWe present a probabilistic framework to generate character animations based on weak control signals, such that the synthesized motions are realistic while retaining the stochastic nature of human movement. The proposed architecture, which is designed as a hierarchical recurrent model, maps each sub-sequence of motions into a stochastic latent code using a variational autoencoder extended over the temporal domain. We also propose an objective function which respects the impact of each joint on the pose and compares the joint angles based on angular distance. We use two novel quantitative protocols and human qualitative assessment to demonstrate the ability of our model to generate convincing and diverse periodic and non-periodic motion sequences without the need for strong control signals.Item Physically Based Simulation and Rendering of Urban Thermography(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Aguerre, José Pedro; García‐Nevado, Elena; Acuña Paz y Miño, Jairo; Fernández, Eduardo; Beckers, Benoit; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigUrban thermography is a non‐invasive measurement technique commonly used for building diagnosis and energy efficiency evaluation. The physical interpretation of thermal images is a challenging task because they do not necessarily depict the real temperature of the surfaces, but one estimated from the measured incoming radiation. In this sense, the computational rendering of a thermal image can be useful to understand the results captured in a measurement campaign. The computer graphics community has proposed techniques for light rendering that are used for its thermal counterpart. In this work, a physically based simulation methodology based on a combination of the finite element method (FEM) and ray tracing is presented. The proposed methods were tested using a highly detailed urban geometry. Directional emissivity models, glossy reflectivity functions and importance sampling were used to render thermal images. The simulation results were compared with a set of measured thermograms, showing good agreement between them.Item Modelling the Soft Robot Kyma Based on Real‐Time Finite Element Method(© 2020 Eurographics ‐ The European Association for Computer Graphics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020) Martin‐Barrio, A.; Terrile, S.; Diaz‐Carrasco, M.; del Cerro, J.; Barrientos, A.; Benes, Bedrich and Hauser, HelwigModelling soft robots is a non‐trivial task since their behaviours rely on their morphology, materials and surrounding elements. These robots are very useful to safely interact with their environment and because of their inherent flexibility and adaptability skills. However, they are usually very hard to model because of their intrinsic non‐linearities. This fact presents a unique challenge in the computer graphics and simulation scopes. Current trends in these fields tend to narrow the gap between virtual and real environments. This work will explain a challenging modelling process for a cable‐driven soft robot called . For this purpose, the real‐time (FEM) is applied using the . And two methods are implemented and compared to optimize the model efficiency: a heuristic one and the . Both models are also validated with the real robot using a precise motion tracking system. Moreover, an analysis of robot–object interactions is proposed to test the compliance of the presented soft manipulator. As a result, the real‐time FEM emerges as a good solution to accurately and efficiently model the presented robot while also allowing to study the interactions with its environment.Item Pixel-wise Dense Detector for Image Inpainting(The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020) Zhang, Ruisong; Quan, Weize; Wu, Baoyuan; Li, Zhifeng; Yan, Dong-Ming; Eisemann, Elmar and Jacobson, Alec and Zhang, Fang-LueRecent GAN-based image inpainting approaches adopt an average strategy to discriminate the generated image and output a scalar, which inevitably lose the position information of visual artifacts. Moreover, the adversarial loss and reconstruction loss (e.g., `1 loss) are combined with tradeoff weights, which are also difficult to tune. In this paper, we propose a novel detection-based generative framework for image inpainting, which adopts the min-max strategy in an adversarial process. The generator follows an encoder-decoder architecture to fill the missing regions, and the detector using weakly supervised learning localizes the position of artifacts in a pixel-wise manner. Such position information makes the generator pay attention to artifacts and further enhance them. More importantly, we explicitly insert the output of the detector into the reconstruction loss with a weighting criterion, which balances the weight of the adversarial loss and reconstruction loss automatically rather than manual operation. Experiments on multiple public datasets show the superior performance of the proposed framework. The source code is available at https://github.com/Evergrow/GDN_Inpainting.