In this paper, we present a recommendation system for automatically recentering and cropping digital still pictures that exhibit capturing artefacts. Autoframing images not only yields better visual pictures but more importantly allows us to remove undesirable artefacts such as lens obstructions by fingers, cellphone straps, or back heads. We report on our real-time prototype system that is targeted to consumer digital still cameras

Abstract We present an interactive modeling system for flower composition that supports seamless transformation from an initial sketch to a detailed three‐dimensional (3D) model. To begin, the user quickly sketches the overall appearance of the desired model as a collection of two‐dimensional (2D) strokes on hierarchical billboards. Then the user iteratively replaces the coarse sketch with a detailed 3D model referring to the initial sketch as a guide. Since a flower model consists of many repetitive components, the system helps the user to reuse 3D components to facilitate the modeling process. The global view of the entire model is always shown in a separate window to visualize how local modifications affect the global appearance. Our system helps the user make appropriate design decisions to keep the model consistent with the initial design, which is difficult in traditional bottom‐up plant modeling systems in which the global view only emerges after all of the details are specified. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques – Interaction Techniques.

It is difficult to obtain a specific region within unsegmented volume data (region of interest, ROI). The user must first segment the volume, a task which itself involves significant user intervention, and then chooses a desired target within the 3D space. This paper proposes a simple and intuitive user interface for the task: the user traces the contour of the target region using a 2D free form stroke on the screen, and the system instantly returns a plausible 3D region inside the stroke by applying a segmentation algorithm. The main contribution is that the system infers the depth information of the ROI automatically by analyzing the data, whereas existing systems require the user to provide the depth information explicitly. Our system first computes the 3D location of the user-specified 2D stroke based on the assumption that the user traced the silhouette of the ROI, that is, the curve where the gradient is perpendicular to the viewing direction. The system then places constraint points around the 3D stroke to guide the following segmentation. Foreground constraints are placed inside the stroke and background constraints are placed outside the stroke. We currently use the statistical region-merging algorithm of Nock et al. [Nock and Nielsen 2004a] to perform the segmentation. We tested our system with real-world examples to verify the effectiveness of our approach.

We present a system for modeling flowers in three dimensions quickly and easily while preserving correct botanical structures. We use floral diagrams and inflorescences , which were developed by botanists to concisely describe structural information of flowers. Floral diagrams represent the layout of floral components on a single flower, while inflorescences are arrangements of multiple flowers. Based on these notions, we created a simple user interface that is specially tailored to flower editing, while retaining a maximum variety of generable models. We also provide sketching interfaces to define the geometries of floral components. Separation of structural editing and editing of geometry makes the authoring process more flexible and efficient. We found that even novice users could easily design various flower models using our technique. Our system is an example of application-customized sketching, illustrating the potential power of a sketching interface that is carefully designed for a specific application.

This paper presents an interactive system for designing and browsing volumetric illustrations. Volumetric illustrations are 3D models with internal textures that the user can browse by cutting the models at desired locations. To assign internal textures to a surface mesh, the designer cuts the mesh and provides simple guiding information to specify the correspondence between the cross-section and a reference 2D image. The guiding information is stored with the geometry and used during the synthesis of cross-sectional textures. The key idea is to synthesize a plausible cross-sectional image using a 2D texture-synthesis technique, instead of sampling from a complete 3D RGB volumetric representation directly. This simplifies the design interface and reduces the amount of data, making it possible for non-experts to rapidly design and use volumetric illustrations. We believe that our system can enrich human communications in various domains, such as medicine, biology, and geology.

To transform a three-dimensional object or map texture to its surface, it is necessary to introduce a coordinate system. If the surface can be cut and developed, it is easy to identify each point on the surface with the coordinate values. According to a theory in topology, any closed polygonized two-dimensional surface can be represented by a canonical development. However, no efficient algorithm to actually develop a given surface has been presented, and the theory sounds abstract. This paper proposes a method to develop an arbitrary polygonized closed surface and to establish the correspondence between each point on the surface and a point on a regular polygon. Educational software is developed using the algorithm that visualizes the coordinate system by texture mapping or by allowing a user to paint on the surface.