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Item The Dynamic Animation of Ambulatory Arthropods(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Cenydd, Llyr ap; Teahan, William; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceWhilst advances in real-time computer graphics continue to permit the development of increasingly vivid virtual worlds, the degree of interaction between the environment and the animated characters within remains relatively limited. There has been little research into the realistic real-time simulation of creatures with the ability to scale arbitrary surfaces and fully explore their environment. Natural looking animations of such feats would greatly enhance immersion in computer games, as well as being of benefit to fields such as phobia therapy and Artificial Life research. We present a system for dynamically animating ground based arthropods in real-time, capable of traversing realistically across a complex, arbitrary environment. The physical simulation of the virtual world further grounds the creatures, enabling complex emergent animations to form.Item GPU-Based Wind Animation of Trees(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Skjermo, Jo; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceThis paper present a simplified approach to wind animation of natural looking tree stems and branches. The presented approach is composed from several earlier works by a number of authors, each adapted to increase its suitability for processing on a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). The outlined approach uses two passes through the GPU. The first pass samples from a simple wind force simulator based on sine sums. It then animates the parameters and the control points defining each branch using the sampled force, taking advantage of the parallel nature of GPU s. The second pass uses a previously presented GPU-based deformer to generate and render actual models of each branch, using the animated control points.Item Simulating Film Grain using the Noise-Power Spectrum(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Stephenson, Ian; Saunders, Arthur; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceFilm grain is an essential part of real images. The artifacts it introduces add character to images, which can otherwise appear too perfect. This paper considers the synthesis of film grain based upon its noise-power spectrum, producing grain fields which approximate real film over a range of enlargements and densities. We also identify limitations of the noise-power spectrum in that it fails to fully characterize grain. Simulated grain fields have spectra which match real grain, but lack the phase and density correlations required to create the appearance of individual grains at high magnifications.Item Anatomy Education using Rapid Prototyping(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Thomas, Rhys G.; John, Nigel W.; Lim, Ik Soo; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceRapid Prototyping is a technique which is rapidly gaining interest amongst the medical community for many different purposes. In this paper we present a novel tool that uses rapidly prototyped models to serve as an interaction device for the teaching of anatomy. The user interacts with volume data of real human organs in an Augmented Reality environment delivered via a Head-Mounted Display. We include a description of how all of the key parts of the system operate and describe their integration. Our hypothesis is that this approach provides an effective and compelling alternative to cadaver based anatomy education.Item A 3D Visualisation Environment Modelling the Evolution of North-West Europe since the Last Glacial Maximum(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Wainwright, Adam; Varsamidis, Thomas; Scourse, James; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceThis work in progress aims to provide an interactive 3D visualisation allowing real time manipulation of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model output data which reconstructs the ice distribution and coastline position in north-west Europe since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The Lambeck GIA model is the current state of the art for European ice sheet and shoreline modelling and the work presented applies scientific visualisation techniques to an area of earth and ocean science that to date has not benefited from such technologies. The end application aims to eventually provide a real-time interactive 3D virtual world for scientists to explore the reconstruction data through direct manipulation. A recent study uses the Lambeck data as a basis for shelf sea palaeotidal reconstructions with profound implications for the environment, ecology and carbon cycle as the climate of northwest Europe has developed since the LGM. As the latter has only been seen in digital image form to date, the work of this project innovates by providing further user interaction, data interpretation and extraction from the GIA and palaeotidal models.Item Steering Chemistry in the Right Direction!(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Davies, R. A.; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceThe development of novel molecular visualization and computational steering applications is described in this paper. Improvements to the Molecular Visualizer application, jointly developed between the schools of Chemistry and Informatics are firstly described. The effectiveness of an alternative approach utilising Perl scripting capabilities within the recent commercial release of Materials Studio 4.1 (Accelrys Plc.) will be demonstrated using specific examples. The development of simple, novel, proof-of-concept computational steering applications are also described.Item A Flexible Approach to High Performance Visualization Enabled Augmented Reality(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Hughes, Chris J.; John, Nigel W.; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceCommonly registration and tracking within Augmented Reality (AR) applications have been built around computer vision techniques that use limited bold markers, which allow for their orientation to be estimated in real-time. All attempts to implement AR without specific markers have increased the computational requirements and some information about the environment is still needed. In this paper we describe a method that not only provides a flexible platform for supporting AR but also seamlessly deploys High Performance Computing (HPC) resources to deal with the additional computational load, as part of the distributed High Performance Visualization (HPV) pipeline used to render the virtual artifacts. Repeatable feature points are extracted from known views of a real object and then we match the best stored view to the users viewpoint using the matched feature points to estimate the objects pose. We also show how our AR framework can then be used in the real world by presenting a markerless AR interface for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).Item Adaptive Infrastructure for Visual Computing(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Brodlie, K. W.; Brooke, J.; Chen, M.; Chisnall, D.; Hughes, C. J.; John, Nigel W.; Jones, M. W.; Riding, M.; Roard, N.; Turner, M.; Wood, J. D.; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceRecent hardware and software advances have demonstrated that it is now practicable to run large visual computing tasks over heterogeneous hardware with output on multiple types of display devices. As the complexity of the enabling infrastructure increases, then so too do the demands upon the programmer for task integration as well as the demands upon the users of the system. This places importance on system developers to create systems that reduce these demands. Such a goal is an important factor of autonomic computing, aspects of which we have used to influence our work. In this paper we develop a model of adaptive infrastructure for visual systems. We design and implement a simulation engine for visual tasks in order to allow a system to inspect and adapt itself to optimise usage of the underlying infrastructure. We present a formal abstract representation of the visualization pipeline, from which a user interface can be generated automatically, along with concrete pipelines for the visualization. By using this abstract representation it is possible for the system to adapt at run time. We demonstrate the need for, and the technical feasibility of, the system using several example applications.Item Advantages of allowing Hexagonal Pixels to be used as a Boundary Description Format(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Turner, Martin J.; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceThis paper considers some algorithmic extensions and some specific advantages when using a hexagonal pixel array as compared with the usual practice of using a rectangular or square pixel raster array. Discussed are some of the algorithmic changes that are required when using pixels arranged within a hexagonal matrix. The use of a boundary hexagonal description format is considered from the point of view of; hexagonal six-connected contour edge encoding as compared with square four-connected and eight-connected descriptors, efficient probability autocorrelation analysis, direct image manipulation and algorithmic simplification. Hardware and software conversion techniques for hexagonal pixels are now being seriously considered especially with the potential emergence of hexagonal CCD censor arrangements for cameras; for example this includes a recent patent with Fuji Photo Film Co.Ltd. (US patent number 6882364 Apr 19 2005) incorporating a bidirectional honeycomb pattern.Item Interval-Based Motion Blending for Hand Grasping(The Eurographics Association, 2007) Brisbin, Matt; Benes, Bedrich; Ik Soo Lim and David DuceFor motion to appear realistic and believable proper motion blending methods must be used in respect to the goal or task at hand. We present a method that extends the theory of move trees [MBC01] by tagging (attaching) information to each clip within a database at intervals and finding the shortest distance per tag while pruning the tree using convergence priority. Our goal is to retain the physical characteristics of motion capture data while using non-destructive blending in a goal-based scenario. With the intrinsically high dimensionality of a human hand our method also is concerned with intelligent pruning of the move tree. By constructing a move tree for hand grasping scenarios that is sampled per interval within clips and adheres to a convergence priority; we plan to develop a method that will autonomously conform a hand to the object being g