Techno Babble

Browsed past Zsurf - it is used to convert bitmap images into “nurb” surfaces.

(Picture courtesy of Phil Kellman - 2007)

The workflow of the program is simple: load or create a bitmap, setup the filters and effects and then push the process button to process the image. The result of processing is a heightfield surface stored as an IGES file. (note: black represents minimum height and white represents maximum)

I got a copy from

http://mwt.net/~sjedging/ZSURF4.zip

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Teddy is sketch-based 3D Modelling Software from Takeo Igarashi an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Tokyo.

An updated version, SmoothTeddy, is available and combines the original Teddy ptogram with another of his applications, Chameleon, a 3D texture painting program for Teddy.

SmoothTeddy

Both are worth a look, not for what they can actually do, but rather how they do it.

Other interesting projects include “As-Rigid-As-Possible Shape Manipulation” and “As-Rigid-As-Possible Curve Editing”

This demonstrates 2 things:

• The ability to manipulate curves in an intuitive way (forget about control polygons, tangent manipulation etc. etc.)
• Interaction with geometry using touch screen technology

Visit the web-site via the enclosed links to find out more and download the (java) applications to experiment with these concepts.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Attended the presentation of a paper entitled Interactive Decal Compositing with Discrete Exponential Maps

Abstract
A method is described for texturing surfaces using decals, images placed on the surface using local parameterizations. Decal parameterizations are generated with a novel O(N logN) discrete approximation to the exponential map which requires only a single additional step in Dijkstra’s graph-distance algorithm. Decals are dynamically composited in an interface that addresses many limitations of previous work. Tools for image processing, deformation/feature-matching, and vector graphics are implemented using direct surface interaction. Exponential map decals can contain holes and can also be combined with conformal parameterization to reduce distortion. The exponential map approximation can be computed on any point set, including meshes and sampled implicit surfaces, and is relatively stable under resampling. The decals stick to the surface as it is interactively deformed, allowing the texture to be preserved even if the surface changes topology. These properties make exponential map decals a suitable approach for texturing animated implicit surfaces.

The full paper is available here

http://kf12.com/blogs/uploads/expmapsiggraph06.pdf

About the author: Ryan Michael Schmidt is currently an Master’s student in the Computer Science Department of the Unviersity of Calgary, being supervised by Dr. Brian Wyvill. He does research in computer graphics, particularly shape modeling with Implicit Surfaces and is due to commence a PhD at the University of Toronto (Summer 06)

Other Items
Possibly of equal interest were references to

ShapeShop

ShapeShop is a tool for creating 3D models using sketches. It incorporates much recent work in interactive implicit surface modeling, implicit sweep surfaces, and sketch-based modeling.

http://unknownroad.com/shapeshop/

There is a paper available ShapeShop: Sketch-Based Solid Modeling with BlobTrees which was presented at EuroGraphics 2005. Read it here

http://kf12.com/blogs/uploads/shapeshop_hires.pdf

and CrossY

CrossY is a crossing-based drawing application where instead of point-and-click “crossing” is used as an interaction method.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/crossy/

To trigger an action a target is crossed instead of being clicked on. Additional information is available in the following paper CrossY: A Crossing-Based Drawing Application

http://kf12.com/blogs/uploads/crossy_finale.pdf

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite