Abstract We propose a hybrid smoothed particle hydrodynamics solver for efficientlysimulating incompressible fluids using an interface handling method for boundary conditions in the pressure Poisson equation. We blend particle density computed with one smooth and one spiky kernel to improve the robustness against both fluid–fluid and fluid–solid collisions. To further improve the robustness and efficiency, we present a new interface handling method consisting of two components: free surface handling for Dirichlet boundary conditions and solid boundary handling for Neumann boundary conditions. Our free surface handling appropriately determines particles for Dirichlet boundary conditions using Jacobi‐based pressure prediction while our solid boundary handling introduces a new term to ensure the solvability of the linear system. We demonstrate that our method outperforms the state‐of‐the‐art particle‐based fluid solvers.

A great deal of attention has been devoted to the fabrication of reflectors that can display different color images when viewed from different directions not only in industry but also for the arts. Although such reflectors have previously been successfully fabricated, the number of images displayed has been limited to two or they suffer from ghosting artifacts where mixed images appear. Furthermore, the previous methods need special hardware and/or materials to fabricate the reflectors. Thus, those techniques are not suitable for printing reflectors on everyday personal objects made of different materials, such as name cards, letter sheets, envelopes, and plastic cases. To overcome these limitations, we propose a method for fabricating reflectors using a standard ultraviolet printer (UV printer). UV printer can render a specified 2D color pattern on an arbitrary material and by overprinting the printed pattern can be raised, that is, the printed pattern becomes a microstructure having color and height. We propose using these micro structures to formulate a method for designing spatially varying reflections that can display different target images when viewed from different directions. The microstructure is calculated by minimizing an objective function that measures the differences between the intensities of the light reflected from the reflector and that of the target image. We show several fabricated reflectors to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method.

Generating realistic fluid simulations remains computationally expensive, and animators can expend enormous effort trying to achieve a desired motion. To reduce such costs, several methods have been developed in which high-resolution turbulence is synthesized as a post process. Since global motion can then be obtained using a fast, low-resolution simulation, less effort is needed to create a realistic animation with the desired behavior. While much research has focused on accelerating the low-resolution simulation, the problem controlling the behavior of the turbulent, high-resolution motion has received little attention. In this paper, we show that style transfer methods from image editing can be adapted to transfer the turbulent style of an existing fluid simulation onto a new one. We do this by extending example-based image synthesis methods to handle velocity fields using a combination of patch-based and optimization-based texture synthesis. This approach allows us to take into account the incompressibility condition, which we have found to be a important factor during synthesis. Using our method, a user can easily and intuitively create high-resolution fluid animations that have a desired turbulent motion.

The computational cost for creating realistic fluid animations by numerical simulation is generally expensive. In digital production environments, existing precomputed fluid animations are often reused for different scenes in order to reduce the cost of creating scenes containing fluids. However, applying the same animation to different scenes often produces unacceptable results, so the animation needs to be edited. In order to help animators with the editing process, we develop a novel method for synthesizing the desired fluid animations by combining existing flow data. Our system allows the user to place flows at desired positions and combine them. We do this by interpolating velocities at the boundaries between the flows. The interpolation is formulated as a minimization problem of an energy function, which is designed to take into account the inviscid, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Our method focuses on smoke simulations defined on a uniform grid. We demonstrate the potential of our method by showing a set of examples, including a large-scale sandstorm created from a few flow data simulated in a small-scale space.

Abstract Visual simulation of fire plays an important role in many applications, such as movies and computer games. In these applications, artists are often requested to synthesize realistic fire with a particular behavior. To meet such requirement, we present a feedback control method for fire simulations. The user can design the shape of fire by placing a set of control points. Our method generates a force field and automatically adjusts a temperature at a fire source, based on user specified control points. Experimental results show that our method can control the fire shape.

Clouds play an important role when synthesizing realistic images of outdoor scenes. The realistic display of clouds is therefore one of the important research topics in computer graphics. In order to display realistic clouds, we need methods for modeling, rendering, and animating clouds realistically. It is also important to control the shapes and appearances of clouds to create certain visual effects. In this paper, we explain our efforts and research results to meet such requirements, together with related researches on the visual simulation of clouds.

Abstract The popularity of many‐light rendering, which converts complex global illumination computations into a simple sum of the illumination from virtual point lights (VPLs), for predictive rendering has increased in recent years. A huge number of VPLs are usually required for predictive rendering at the cost of extensive computational time. While previous methods can achieve significant speedup by clustering VPLs, none of these previous methods can estimate the total errors due to clustering. This drawback imposes on users tedious trial and error processes to obtain rendered images with reliable accuracy. In this paper, we propose an error estimation framework for many‐light rendering. Our method transforms VPL clustering into stratified sampling combined with confidence intervals, which enables the user to estimate the error due to clustering without the costly computing required to sum the illumination from all the VPLs. Our estimation framework is capable of handling arbitrary BRDFs and is accelerated by using visibility caching, both of which make our method more practical. The experimental results demonstrate that our method can estimate the error much more accurately than the previous clustering method.

Abstract Fast realistic rendering of objects in scattering media is still a challenging topic in computer graphics. In presence of participating media, a light beam is repeatedly scattered by media particles, changing direction and getting spread out. Explicitly evaluating this beam distribution would enable efficient simulation of multiple scattering events without involving costly stochastic methods. Narrow beam theory provides explicit equations that approximate light propagation in a narrow incident beam. Based on this theory, we propose a closed‐form distribution function for scattered beams. We successfully apply it to the image synthesis of scenes in which scattering occurs, and show that our proposed estimation method is more accurate than those based on the Wentzel‐Kramers‐Brillouin (WKB) theory.

Abstract We propose a stable and efficient particle‐based method for simulating highly viscous fluids that can generate coiling and buckling phenomena and handle variable viscosity. In contrast to previous methods that use explicit integration, our method uses an implicit formulation to improve the robustness of viscosity integration, therefore enabling use of larger time steps and higher viscosities. We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics to solve the full form of viscosity, constructing a sparse linear system with a symmetric positive definite matrix, while exploiting the variational principle that automatically enforces the boundary condition on free surfaces. We also propose a new method for extracting coefficients of the matrix contributed by second‐ring neighbor particles to efficiently solve the linear system using a conjugate gradient solver. Several examples demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of our implicit formulation over previous methods and illustrate the versatility of our method.

Building LEGO sculptures requires accounting for the target object's shape, colors, and stability. In particular, finding a good layout of LEGO bricks that prevents the sculpture from collapsing (due to its own weight) is usually challenging, and it becomes increasingly difficult as the target object becomes larger or more complex. We devise a force-based analysis for estimating physical stability of a given sculpture. Unlike previous techniques for Legolization, which typically use heuristic-based metrics for stability estimation, our force-based metric gives 1) an ordering in the strength so that we know which structure is more stable, and 2) a threshold for stability so that we know which one is stable enough. In addition, our stability analysis tells us the weak portion of the sculpture. Building atop our stability analysis, we present a layout refinement algorithm that iteratively improves the structure around the weak portion, allowing for automatic generation of a LEGO brick layout from a given 3D model, accounting for color information, required workload (in terms of the number of bricks) and physical stability. We demonstrate the success of our method with real LEGO sculptures built up from a wide variety of 3D models, and compare against previous methods.

Abstract This paper proposes an interactive rendering method of cloth fabrics under environment lighting. The outgoing radiance from cloth fabrics in the microcylinder model is calculated by integrating the product of the distant environment lighting, the visibility function, the weighting function that includes shadowing/masking effects of threads, and the light scattering function of threads. The radiance calculation at each shading point of the cloth fabrics is simplified to a linear combination of triple product integrals of two circular Gaussians and the visibility function, multiplied by precomputed spherical Gaussian convolutions of the weighting function. We propose an efficient calculation method of the triple product of two circular Gaussians and the visibility function by using the gradient of signed distance function to the visibility boundary where the binary visibility changes in the angular domain of the hemisphere. Our GPU implementation enables interactive rendering of static cloth fabrics with dynamic viewpoints and lighting. In addition, interactive editing of parameters for the scattering function (e.g. thread's albedo) that controls the visual appearances of cloth fabrics can be achieved.

We present a technique for computing the shape of a transparent object that can generate user-defined caustic patterns. The surface of the object generated using our method is smooth. Thanks to this property, the resulting caustic pattern is smooth, natural, and highly detailed compared to the results btained using previous methods. Our method consists of two processes. First, we use a differential geometry approach to compute a smooth mapping between the distributions of the incident light and the light reaching the screen. Second, we utilize this mapping to compute the surface of the object. We solve Poisson's equation to compute both the mapping and the surface of the object.

In hair simulation, hair collision handling plays an important role to make hair look realistic; hair collision maintains the volume of hair. Without hair collision, hair would appear unnaturally flat.

Abstract We propose an efficient rendering method for dynamic scenes under all‐frequency environmental lighting. To render the surfaces of objects illuminated by distant environmental lighting, the triple product of the lighting, the visibility function and the BRDF is integrated at each shading point on the surfaces. Our method represents the environmental lighting and the BRDF with a linear combination of spherical Gaussians, replacing the integral of the triple product with the sum of the integrals of spherical Gaussians over the visible region of the hemisphere. We propose a new form of spherical Gaussian, the integral spherical Gaussian, that enables the fast and accurate integration of spherical Gaussians with various sharpness over the visible region on the hemisphere. The integral spherical Gaussian simplifies the integration to a sum of four pre‐integrated values, which are easily evaluated on‐the‐fly. With a combination of a set of spheres to approximate object geometries and the integral spherical Gaussian, our method can render object surfaces very efficiently. Our GPU implementation demonstrates realtime rendering of dynamic scenes with dynamic viewpoints, lighting, and BRDFs.

Abstract There is considerable recent progress in hair simulations, driven by the high demands in computer animated movies. However, capturing the complex interactions between hair and water is still relatively in its infancy. Such interactions are best modeled as those between water and an anisotropic permeable medium as water can flow into and out of the hair volume biased in hair fiber direction. Modeling the interaction is further challenged when the hair is allowed to move. In this paper, we introduce a simulation model that reproduces interactions between water and hair as a dynamic anisotropic permeable material. We utilize an Eulerian approach for capturing the microscopic porosity of hair and handle the wetting effects using a Cartesian bounding grid. A Lagrangian approach is used to simulate every single hair strand including interactions with each other, yielding fine‐detailed dynamic hair simulation. Our model and simulation generate many interesting effects of interactions between fine‐detailed dynamic hair and water, i.e., water absorption and diffusion, cohesion of wet hair strands, water flow within the hair volume, water dripping from the wet hair strands and morphological shape transformations of wet hair.

Abstract Pixel art is a kind of digital art that through per‐pixel manipulation enables production of a diverse array of artistic images. In this paper, we present a new way for people to experience and express pixel art. Our digital art consists of a set of sticks made of acrylate resin, each of which refracts light from a parallel light source, in certain directions. Artistic users are able to easily rearrange these sticks and view their digital art through the refracted light projection on any planar surface. As we demonstrate in this paper, a user can generate various artistic images using only a single set of sticks. We additionally envision that our pixel art with rearrangeable sticks would have great entertainment appeal, e.g., as an art puzzle.

ABSTRACT String‐like objects in our daily lives, for example shoelaces, threads, rubber cords, plastic fiber and spaghetti, have a wide variety of materials. Such string‐like objects also exhibit interesting behaviors such as twisting, tearing (by stretching or twisting), and bouncing back when pulled and released. In this paper, we present a method that enables these behaviors and simulates such materials in traditional string simulation methods that explicitly represent a string by particles and segments. Specifically, we offer the following three contributions. First, we introduce a method for handling twisting effects with both uniform and non‐uniform torsional rigidities. Second, we propose a method for estimating the tension acting on inextensible strings in order to reproduce tearing and flicking (bouncing back), whereas the tension for anextensibleobject can be computed via stretched length. The length of aninextensibleobject is maintained constant in general, and thus, we need a novel approach. Third, we introduce an optimized grid‐based collision detection for accelerating the computation. We demonstrate that our method can produce visually plausible animations of string‐like objects with various material properties, and it is a fast framework for interactive applications such as games. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Clouds play an important role in creating realistic images of outdoor scenes. Many methods have therefore been proposed for displaying realistic clouds. However, the realism of the resulting images depends on many parameters used to render them and it is often difficult to adjust those parameters manually. This paper proposes a method for addressing this problem by solving an inverse rendering problem: given a non-uniform synthetic cloud density distribution, the parameters for rendering the synthetic clouds are estimated using photographs of real clouds. The objective function is defined as the difference between the color histograms of the photograph and the synthetic image. Our method searches for the optimal parameters using genetic algorithms. During the search process, we take into account the multiple scattering of light inside the clouds. The search process is accelerated by precomputing a set of intermediate images. After ten to twenty minutes of precomputation, our method estimates the optimal parameters within a minute.

We present a new technique for bi-scale material editing using Spherical Gaussians (SGs). To represent large-scale appearances, an effective BRDF that is the average reflectance of small-scale details is used. The effective BRDF is calculated from the integral of the product of the Bidirectional Visible Normal Distribution (BVNDF) and BRDFs of small-scale geometry. Our method represents the BVNDF with a sum of SGs, which can be calculated on-the-fly, enabling interactive editing of small-scale geometry. By representing small-scale BRDFs with a sum of SGs, effective BRDFs can be calculated analytically by convolving the SGs for BVNDF and BRDF. We propose a new SG representation based on convolution of two SGs, which allows real-time rendering of effective BRDFs under all-frequency environment lighting and real-time editing of small-scale BRDFs. In contrast to the previous method, our method does not require extensive precomputation time and large volume of precomputed data per single BRDF, which makes it possible to implement our method on a GPU, resulting in real-time rendering.

Real-time rendering of dynamic scenes illuminated by complex, all-frequency lighting with highly glossy BRDFs remains a challenging problem. Although several methods have been proposed to render dynamic scenes, these methods can not handle deformable objects [Zhou et al. 2005], all-frequency lighting [Ren et al. 2006; Nowrouzezahrai et al. 2009], or highly glossy BRDFs [Annen et al. 2008].

Abstract Image blur caused by object motion attenuates high frequency content of images, making post‐capture deblurring an ill‐posed problem. The recoverable frequency band quickly becomes narrower for faster object motion as high frequencies are severely attenuated and virtually lost. This paper proposes to translate a camera sensor circularly about the optical axis during exposure, so that high frequencies can be preserved for a wide range of in‐plane linear object motion in any direction within some predetermined speed. That is, although no object may be photographed sharply at capture time, differently moving objects captured in a single image can be deconvolved with similar quality. In addition, circular sensor motion is shown to facilitate blur estimation thanks to distinct frequency zero patterns of the resulting motion blur point‐spread functions. An analysis of the frequency characteristics of circular sensor motion in relation to linear object motion is presented, along with deconvolution results for photographs captured with a prototype camera.

Abstract Photo‐realistic rendering of inhomogeneous participating media with light scattering in consideration is important in computer graphics, and is typically computed using Monte Carlo based methods. The key technique in such methods is the free path sampling, which is used for determining the distance (free path) between successive scattering events. Recently, it has been shown that efficient and unbiased free path sampling methods can be constructed based on Woodcock tracking. The key concept for improving the efficiency is to utilize space partitioning (e.g., kd‐tree or uniform grid), and a better space partitioning scheme is important for better sampling efficiency. Thus, an estimation framework for investigating the gain in sampling efficiency is important for determining how to partition the space. However, currently, there is no estimation framework that works in 3D space. In this paper, we propose a new estimation framework to overcome this problem. Using our framework, we can analytically estimate the sampling efficiency for any typical partitioned space. Conversely, we can also use this estimation framework for determining the optimal space partitioning. As an application, we show that new space partitioning schemes can be constructed using our estimation framework. Moreover, we show that the differences in the performances using different schemes can be predicted fairly well using our estimation framework.

Interactive rendering under complex real world illumination is essential for many applications such as material design, lighting design, and virtual realities. For such applications, interactive manipulations of viewpoints, lighting, BRDFs, and positions of objects are beneficial to designers and users. This paper proposes a system that acquires complex, all-frequency lighting environments and renders dynamic scenes under captured illumination, for lighting and material design applications in cyber worlds. To capture real world lighting environments easily, our method uses a camera equipped with a cellular phone. To handle dynamic scenes of rigid objects and dynamic BRDFs, our method decomposes the visibility function at each vertex of each object into the occlusion due to the object itself and occlusions due to other objects, which are represented by a nonlinear piecewise constant approximation, called cuts. Our method proposes a compact cut representation and efficient algorithm for cut operations. By using our system, interactive manipulation of positions of objects and real time rendering with dynamic viewpoints, lighting, and BRDFs can be achieved.

One-dimensional deformable objects or elastic rods are widely used to represent threads, hair strands and elastic ropes in computer graphics. Such an object has the bending, stretching and twisting behaviors which are difficult to handle. To simulate deformable objects, a simple method called Lattice Shape Matching (LSM) [Rivers and James 2007] was recently proposed. LSM can handle the deformable objects ranging from soft bodies to stiff objects with an unconditional stability. For one-dimensional deformable objects, [Rungjiratananon et al. 2010] introduced a simplified model of LSM called Chain Shape Matching (CSM), which represents the one-dimensional deformable object by a chain of particles connected by segments. However, LSM and CSM can capture only the bending and stretching behaviors, but cannot handle twisting.

Abstract Given a complete unoriented point set, we propose a binary orientation tree (BOT) for volume and surface representation, which roughly splits the space into the interior and exterior regions with respect to the input point set. The BOTs are constructed by performing a traditional octree subdivision technique while the corners of each cell are associated with a tag indicating thein/outrelationship with respect to the input point set. Starting from the root cell, a growing stage is performed to efficiently assign tags to the connected empty sub‐cells. The unresolved tags of the remaining cell corners are determined by examining their visibility via the hidden point removal operator. We show that the outliers accompanying the input point set can be effectively detected during the construction of the BOTs. After removing the outliers and resolving thein/outtags, the BOTs are ready to support any volume or surface representation techniques. To represent the surfaces, we also present a modified MPU implicits algorithm enabled to reconstruct surfaces from the input unoriented point clouds by taking advantage of the BOTs.

Abstract This paper presents a novel framework for elliptical weighted average (EWA) surface splatting with time‐varying scenes. We extend the theoretical basis of the original framework by replacing the 2D surface reconstruction filters by 3D kernels which unify the spatial and temporal component of moving objects. Based on the newly derived mathematical framework we introduce a rendering algorithm that supports the generation of high‐quality motion blur for point‐based objects using a piecewise linear approximation of the motion. The rendering algorithm applies ellipsoids as rendering primitives which are constructed by extending planar EWA surface splats into the temporal dimension along the instantaneous motion vector. Finally, we present an implementation of the proposed rendering algorithm with approximated occlusion handling using advanced features of modern GPUs and show its capability of producing motion‐blurred result images at interactive frame rates.

Abstract The visual simulation of natural phenomena has been widely studied. Although several methods have been proposed to simulate melting, the flows of meltwater drops on the surfaces of objects are not taken into account. In this paper, we propose a particle‐based method for the simulation of the melting and freezing of ice objects and the interactions between ice and fluids. To simulate the flow of meltwater on ice and the formation of water droplets, a simple interfacial tension is proposed, which can be easily incorporated into common particle‐based simulation methods such as Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics. The computations of heat transfer, the phase transition between ice and water, the interactions between ice and fluids, and the separation of ice due to melting are further accelerated by implementing our method using CUDA. We demonstrate our simulation and rendering method for depicting melting ice at interactive frame‐rates.

Abstract This paper proposes a method for displaying images at the fovea of the retina taking visual acuity into account. Previous research has shown that a point light source projected onto the retina forms an ellipse, which can be computed with wavefront tracing from each point in space. We propose a novel concept using conoid tracing, with which we can acquire defocusing information several times faster than that acquired by previous methods. We also show that conoid tracing is more robust and produces higher quality results. In conoid tracing the ray is regarded as a conoid, a thin cone‐like shape with varying elliptical cross‐section. The viewing ray from the retina is traced as a conoid and evaluated at each sample location. Using the sampled and pre‐computed data for the spatial distribution of blurring, we implemented an interactive eyeglass simulator. This paper demonstrates some visualization results utilizing the interactivity of the simulator, which an eyeglass lens design company uses to evaluate the design of complex progressive lenses.

Abstract Animations of hair dynamics greatly enrich the visual attractiveness of human characters. Traditional simulation techniques handle hair as clumps or continuum for efficiency; however, the visual quality is limited because they cannot represent the fine‐scale motion of individual hair strands. Although a recent mass‐spring approach tackled the problem of simulating the dynamics of every strand of hair, it required a complicated setting of springs and suffered from high computational cost. In this paper, we base the animation of hair on such a fine‐scale on Lattice Shape Matching (LSM), which has been successfully used for simulating deformable objects. Our method regards each strand of hair as a chain of particles, and computes geometrically derived forces for the chain based on shape matching. Each chain of particles is simulated as an individual strand of hair. Our method can easily handle complex hairstyles such as curly or afro styles in a numerically stable way. While our method is not physically based, our GPU‐based simulator achieves visually plausible animations consisting of several tens of thousands of hair strands at interactive rates.

Realistic rendering of participating media is one of the major subjects in computer graphics. Monte Carlo techniques are widely used for realistic rendering because they provide unbiased solutions, which converge to exact solutions. Methods based on Monte Carlo techniques generate a number of light paths, each of which consists of a set of randomly selected scattering events. Finding a new scattering event requires free path sampling to determine the distance from the previous scattering event, and is usually a time-consuming process for inhomogeneous participating media. To address this problem, we propose an adaptive and unbiased sampling technique using kd-tree based space partitioning. A key contribution of our method is an automatic scheme that partitions the spatial domain into sub-spaces (partitions) based on a cost model that evaluates the expected sampling cost. The magnitude of performance gain obtained by our method becomes larger for more inhomogeneous media, and rises to two orders compared to traditional free path sampling techniques.

Surface reconstruction is a critical stage in the 3D data acquisition and model creation system. Most existing reconstruction algorithms are designed for oriented data, i.e. point sets with surface normals. However, in some applications, explicit orientation information may not be available, e.g. Shape from Contour (SfC). Besides, the point sets recovered from images and camera calibration are typically noisy and contains defects, e.g. holes or non-uniform sampling. We present a robust method that achieves smooth surface approximation from unoriented and defective point sets by orientation inference and volumetric regularization.

In traditional image composition methods for cutting out a source object from a source image and pasting it onto a target image, users have to segment a foreground object in a target image when they want to partially hide a source object behind it. While recent image editing tools greatly facilitate segmentation operations, it can be tedious to segment each object if users try to place a source object in various positions in a target image before obtaining a satisfying composition. We propose a method which allows users to drag a source object and slip it behind a target object as shown in Fig. 1, so that users can move a source object around without manually segmenting each part of a target image.

Abstract Woven cloth can commonly be seen in daily life and also in animation. Unless prevented in some way, woven cloth usually frays at the edges. However, in computer graphics, woven cloth is typically modeled as a continuum sheet, which is not suitable for representing frays. This paper proposes a model that allows yarn movement and slippage during cloth tearing. Drawing upon techniques from textile and mechanical engineering fields, we model cloth as woven yarn crossings where each yarn can be independently torn when the strain limit is reached. To make the model practical for graphics applications, we simulate only tearing part of cloth with a yarn‐level model using a simple constrained mass‐spring system for computational efficiency. We designed conditions for switching from a standard continuum sheet model to our yarn‐level model, so that frays can be initiated and propagated along the torn lines. Results show that our method can achieve plausible tearing cloth animation with frayed edges.

Abstract A rendering system for interior scenes is proposed in this paper. The light reaches the interior scene, usually through small regions, such as windows or abat‐jours, which we call portals. To provide a solution, suitable for rendering interior scenes with portals, we extend the traditional precomputed radiance transfer approaches. In our approach, a bounding sphere, which we call a shell, of the interior, centered at each portal, is created and the light transferred from the shell towards the interior through the portal is precomputed. Each shell acts as an environment light source and its intensity distribution is determined by rendering images of the scene, viewed from the center of the shell. By updating the intensity distribution of the shell at each frame, we are able to handle dynamic objects outside the shells. The material of the portals can also be modified at run time (e.g. changing from transparent glass to frosted glass). Several applications are shown, including the illumination of a cathedral, lit by skylight at different times of a day, and a car, running in a town, at interactive frame rates, with a dynamic viewpoint.

Abstract This paper presents a fast method that computes deformations with fracturing of an object using a hierarchical lattice. Our method allows numerically stable computation based on so‐called shape matching. During the simulation, the deformed shape of the object and the condition of fracturing are used to determine the appropriate detail level in the hierarchy of the lattices. Our method modifies the computation of the stiffness of the object in different levels of the hierarchy so that the stiffness is maintained uniform by introducing a stiffness parameter that does not depend on the hierarchy. By merging the subdivided lattices, our method minimizes the increase of computational cost. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Information on appearances of three-dimensional objects are transmitted via the Internet, and displaying objects plays an important role in a lot of areas such as movies and video games. An autostereogram is one of the ways to represent three-dimensional objects taking advantage of binocular parallax, by which depths of objects are perceived. In previous methods, the colors of objects were ignored when constructing autostereogram images. In this paper, we propose a method to construct autostereogram images taking into account color variation of objects, such as shading. We also propose a technique to embed color information in autostereogram images. Using our technique, autostereogram images shown on a display change, and viewers can enjoy perceiving three-dimensional object and its colors in two stages. Color information is embedded in a monochrome autostereogram image, and colors appear when the correct color table is used. Our technique can also be used for steganography to hide color information. Moreover, file size gets smaller than that of an original autostereogram image because indexed colors are used. Therefore, the 3D images constructed using our method are useful for transmission through the cyberworld.

Abstract Recently, many techniques using computational fluid dynamics have been proposed for the simulation of natural phenomena such as smoke and fire. Traditionally, a single grid is used for computing the motion of fluids. When an object interacts with a fluid, the resolution of the grid must be sufficiently high because the shape of the object is represented by a shape sampled at the grid points. This increases the number of grid points that are required, and hence the computational cost is increased. To address this problem, we propose a method using multiple grids that overlap with each other. In addition to a large single grid (a global grid) that covers the whole of the simulation space, separate grids (local grids) are generated that surround each object. The resolution of a local grid is higher than that of the global grid. The local grids move according to the motion of the objects. Therefore, the process of resampling the shape of the object is unnecessary when the object moves. To accelerate the computation, appropriate resolutions are adaptively‐determined for the local grids according to their distance from the viewpoint. Furthermore, since we use regular (orthogonal) lattices for the grids, the method is suitable for GPU implementation. This realizes the real‐time simulation of interactions between objects and smoke.

Abstract Metaballs are implicit surfaces widely used to model curved objects, represented by the isosurface of a density field defined by a set of points. Recently, the results of particle‐based simulations have been often visualized using a large number of metaballs, however, such visualizations have high rendering costs. In this paper we propose a fast technique for rendering metaballs on the GPU. Instead of using polygonization, the isosurface is directly evaluated in a per‐pixel manner. For such evaluation, all metaballs contributing to the isosurface need to be extracted along each viewing ray, on the limited memory of GPUs. We handle this by keeping a list of metaballs contributing to the isosurface and efficiently update it. Our method neither requires expensive precomputation nor acceleration data structures often used in existing ray tracing techniques. With several optimizations, we can display a large number of moving metaballs quickly.

Abstract Recent advances in physically‐based simulations have made it possible to generate realistic animations. However, in the case of solid‐fluid coupling, wetting effects have rarely been noticed despite their visual importance especially in interactions between fluids and granular materials. This paper presents a simple particle‐based method to model the physical mechanism of wetness propagating through granular materials; Fluid particles are absorbed in the spaces between the granular particles and these wetted granular particles then stick together due toliquid bridgesthat are caused by surface tension and which will subsequently disappear when over‐wetting occurs. Our method can handle these phenomena by introducing awetness valuefor each granular particle and by integrating those aspects of behavior that are dependent on wetness into the simulation framework. Using this method, a GPU‐based simulator can achieve highly dynamic animations that include wetting effects in real time.

This paper presents a method for automatically extracting a scene depth map and the alpha matte of a foreground object by capturing a scene through RGB color filters placed in the camera lens aperture. By dividing the aperture into three regions through which only light in one of the RGB color bands can pass, we can acquir three shifted views of a scene in the RGB planes of an image in a single exposure. In other words, a captured image has depth-dependent color misalignment. We develop a color alignment measure to estimate disparities between the RGB planes for depth reconstruction. We also exploit color misalignment cues in our matting algorithm in order to disambiguate between the foreground and background regions even where their colors are similar. Based on the extracted depth and matte, the color misalignment in the captured image can be canceled, and various image editing operations can be applied to the reconstructed image, including novel view synthesis, postexposure refocusing, and composition over different backgrounds.

Clouds play an important role for creating realistic images of outdoor scenes. In order to generate realistic clouds, many methods have been developed for modeling and animating clouds. One of the most effective approaches for synthesizing realistic clouds is to simulate cloud formation processes based on the atmospheric fluid dynamics. Although this approach can create realistic clouds, the resulting shapes and motion depend on many simulation parameters and the initial status. Therefore, it is very difficult to adjust those parameters so that the clouds form the desired shapes. This paper addresses this problem and presents a method for controlling the simulation of cloud formation. In this paper, we focus on controlling cumuliform cloud formation. The user specifies the overall shape of the clouds. Then, our method automatically adjusts parameters during the simulation in order to generate clouds forming the specified shape. Our method can generate realistic clouds while their shapes closely match to the desired shape.

In the computer graphics field, improving reality and reducing computational cost are both very important, thus a lot of research has been done to improve these two factors. For reality, physically based lighting models play an important role. Especially shadows and interreflections of light have a great impact on perceptual reality. To improve computational speed, exploiting the parallel processing ability of GPUs and using precomputation are major techniques. In this paper, we introduce some methods using precomputation and the GPU for efficient photo-realistic rendering.

This paper explores an image processing method for synthesizing refocused images from a single input photograph containing some defocus blur. First, we restore a sharp image by estimating and removing spatially-variant defocus blur in an input photograph. To do this, we propose a local blur estimation method able to handle abrupt blur changes at depth discontinuities in a scene, and we also present an efficient blur removal method that significantly speeds up the existing deconvolution algorithm. Once a sharp image is restored, refocused images can be interactively created by adding different defocus blur to it based on the estimated blur, so that users can intuitively change focus and depth-of-field of the input photograph. Although information available from a single photograph is highly insufficient for fully correct refocusing, the results show that visually plausible refocused images can be obtained.

In this paper, we propose a fast global illumination solution for interactive lighting design. Using our method, light sources and the viewpoint are movable, and the characteristics of materials can be modified (assuming low-frequency BRDF) during rendering. Our solution is based on particle tracing (a variation of photon mapping) and final gathering. We assume that objects in the input scene are static, and pre-compute potential light paths for particle tracing and final gathering. To perform final gathering fast, we propose an efficient technique called Hierarchical Histogram Estimation for rapid estimation of radiances from the distribution of the particles. The rendering process of our method can be fully implemented on the GPU and our method achieves interactive frame rates for rendering scenes with even more than 100,000 triangles.

Abstract This paper describes a fast rendering algorithm for verification of spectacle lens design. Our method simulates refraction corrections of astigmatism as well as myopia or presbyopia. Refraction and defocus are the main issues in the simulation. For refraction, our proposed method uses per‐vertex basis ray tracing which warps the environment map and produces a real‐time refracted image which is subjectively as good as ray tracing. Conventional defocus simulation was previously done by distribution ray tracing and a real‐time solution was impossible. We introduce the concept of a blur field, which we use to displace every vertex according to its position. The blurring information is precomputed as a set of field values distributed to voxels which are formed by evenly subdividing the perspective projected space. The field values can be determined by tracing a wavefront from each voxel through the lens and the eye, and by evaluating the spread of light at the retina considering the best human accommodation effort. The blur field is stored as texture data and referred to by the vertex shader that displaces each vertex. With an interactive frame rate, blending the multiple rendering results produces a blurred image comparable to distribution ray tracing output.

Haptic interfaces enable us to interact with a virtual world using our sense of touch. This paper presents a method for realizing haptic interaction with water. Our method displays forces acting on rigid objects due to water with a high frame rate (500 Hz). To achieve this, we present a fast method for simulating the dynamics of water. We decompose the dynamics into two parts. One is a linear flow expressed by a wave equation used to compute water waves. The other is a more complex and non-linear flow around the object. The fluid forces due to the non-linear flow is precomputed by solving Navier-Stokes equations, and stored in a database, named the Fluid Resistance Map. The precomputed non-linear flow and the linear flow are combined to compute the forces due to water.

This paper presents a method for occlusion-free animation of geographical landmarks, and its application to a new type of car navigation system in which driving routes of interest are always visible. This is achieved by animating a nonperspective image where geographical landmarks such as mountain tops and roads are rendered as if they are seen from different viewpoints. The technical contribution of this paper lies in formulating the nonperspective terrain navigation as an inverse problem of continuously deforming a 3D terrain surface from the 2D screen arrangement of its associated geographical landmarks. The present approach provides a perceptually reasonable compromise between the navigation clarity and visual realism where the corresponding nonperspective view is fully augmented by assigning appropriate textures and shading effects to the terrain surface according to its geometry. An eye tracking experiment is conducted to prove that the present approach actually exhibits visually-pleasing navigation frames while users can clearly recognize the shape of the driving route without occlusion, together with the spatial configuration of geographical landmarks in its neighborhood.

A lot of non-photorealistic rendering methods have been proposed for creating an artistic image from an image. In this paper, we propose a method for creating colored pencil style images. The feature of colored pencil drawings is that, though colored pencil drawings are drawn with limited number of colors of pencils, we can express a lot of colors and gentle textures by changing the strengths when drawing strokes and by overlapping strokes of different colors. In order to realize this feature, we determine which colors of pencils to use and how deep to push the pencils (equivalent to the strength when drawing strokes), then draw several types of strokes, such as strokes for outlines, basecoats, and shading, allowing the strokes to overlap each other. When we create strokes for shading, we make their directions to align along the boundaries of regions, resulting in images that are more like drawings made by human.

Optimal viewpoint selection is an important task because it considerably influences the amount of information contained in the 2D projected images of 3D objects, and thus dominates their first impressions from a psychological point of view. Although several methods have been proposed that calculate the optimal positions of viewpoints especially for 3D surface meshes, none has been done for solid objects such as volumes. This paper presents a new method of locating such optimal viewpoints when visualizing volumes using direct volume rendering. The major idea behind our method is to decompose an entire volume into a set of feature components, and then find a globally optimal viewpoint by finding a compromise between locally optimal viewpoints for the components. As the feature components, the method employs interval volumes and their combinations that characterize the topological transitions of isosurfaces according to the scalar field. Furthermore, opacity transfer functions are also utilized to assign different weights to the decomposed components so that users can emphasize features of specific interest in the volumes. Several examples of volume datasets together with their optimal positions of viewpoints are exhibited in order to demonstrate that the method can effectively guide naive users to find optimal projections of volumes.

Abstract This paper proposes a novel and general method of glare generation based on wave optics. A glare image is regarded as a result of Fraunhofer diffraction, which is equivalent to a 2D Fourier transform of the image of given apertures or obstacles. In conventional methods, the shapes of glare images are categorized according to their source apertures, such as pupils and eyelashes and their basic shapes (e.g. halos, coronas, or radial streaks) are manually generated as templates, mainly based on statistical observation. Realistic variations of these basic shapes often depend on the use of random numbers. Our proposed method computes glare images fully automatically from aperture images and can be applied universally to all kinds of apertures, including camera diaphragms. It can handle dynamic changes in the position of the aperture relative to the light source, which enables subtle movement or rotation of glare streaks. Spectra can also be simulated in the glare, since the intensity of diffraction depends on the wavelength of light. The resulting glare image is superimposed onto a given computer‐generated image containing high‐intensity light sources or reflections, aligning the center of the glare image to the high‐intensity areas. Our method is implemented as a multipass rendering software. By precomputing the dynamic glare image set and putting it into texture memory, the software runs at an interactive rate.

Abstract Computer Graphics (CG) animations of natural phenomena are currently widely used for movies and in video games. Granular materials occur widely in nature, and therefore it is necessary that CG animations represent ground surfaces composed of a granular material as well as model deformations when the granular material comes into contact with other physical rigid objects (called solid objects). In this paper, we propose a deformation algorithm for ground surfaces composed of granular material. The deformation algorithm is divided into three steps: (1) detection of the collision between a solid object and the ground surface, (2) displacement of the granular material and (3) erosion of the material at steep slopes. The proposed algorithm can handle solid objects of various shapes, including concave polyhedra by additionally using a layered data structure called the Height Span Map. Furthermore, a texture sliding technique is presented to render the motion of granular materials. In addition, our implementation of the deformation algorithm can be used at interactive frame rates.

Abstract In this paper, we present a feature‐based approach to cloning facial expressions from an input face model to an output model, using predefined source key‐models and the corresponding target key‐models. Adopting a scattered data interpolation technique, our approach consists of two parts: analysis of face key‐models and synthesis of facial expressions. In the analysis part carried out once at the beginning, key‐models are segmented automatically into five regions, each containing one of five facial features, that is, eyes, cheeks, and the mouth, which give rise to five sets of source key‐shapes and the corresponding sets of target key‐shapes. Using the key‐shapes of each source feature, those of the corresponding target feature are parameterized. In the synthesis part, given a sequence of face models comprising an input animation, five output features are obtained separately by blending their own target key‐shapes. These separately produced features are combined to synthesize the output face model at each frame. Our feature‐based approach enables cloning of diverse expressions including asymmetric ones convincingly with a small number of face key‐models while exhibiting an on‐line, real‐time performance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract Environment illumination, which is a complex and distant lighting environment represented by images, is often applied to create photo‐realistic images. However, creating photo‐realistic animations under environment illumination is exceedingly compute intensive. The Precomputed Radiance Transfer (PRT) methods achieve real‐time rendering under environment illumination; however, these methods only have a limited application in animation because the objects in the scene cannot be moved or rotated. In this paper, we propose a method for rendering photo‐realistic animations of dynamic scenes under environment illumination in real time. We notice the fact that when objects are moved or rotated, changes of radiances occur mainly in the regions of shadows cast by other objects. Our method makes a distinction between self‐shadow and shadows cast by other objects and computes these two kinds of shadows efficiently. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the field of computer graphics, simulation of physical phenomena is of great interest. We focus on the optical effects of soap bubbles. Soap bubbles have fascinating coloration and interesting physical properties. Therefore they are useful for the entertainment such as movies and games. Soap bubbles change their shapes by surface tension and external forces, and therefore their surface thickness also changes. Since the thickness of the soap bubble is several hundred nanometers, interference of the light occurs. This paper proposes a fast rendering method for the soap bubbles taking into account light interference and dynamics. In our method, the reflectivities of the thin film that is the cause of the light interference are calculated in advance and stored as textures. This makes it possible to render the de-formable soap bubbles in real-time.

Caustics are patterns of light formed by reflection or refraction of light from objects, and several methods have been developed to render caustics because of their visually beautiful patterns. This paper proposes a method for the rapid rendering of caustics formed by refracted light through transparent objects. First, a preprocess is used to generate sampling rays incident on each vertex of the object, and, taking refraction into account, to trace the rays until they leave the object. The position and direction of each ray that finally leaves the transparent object are obtained and stored in a lookup table. Next, in the rendering process, when the object is illuminated, the position and direction of the rays leaving the object are calculated using the lookup table. This makes it possible to render refractive caustics due to transparent objects at interactive frame rates even if the direction of the light changes and the object is translated or rotated.

When creating a cel animation, the animators often use 3D character models to add some effects on the character or to generate intermediate images between the keyframes. However, it is a troublesome and time-consuming task to create a 3D model. In this paper, we present an easy-to-use approach for creating a set of consistent 3D character models from the user-specified strokes on a 2D image sequence. The created consistent 3D models can be used in cel animation editing systems for adding shadowing effects, textures, etc. Moreover, since the vertices of the consistent 3D models have one-to-one correspondence among the frames, by using 3D morphing techniques, this approach can also be used to generate intermediate images between the key frames.

The bump-mapping technique is often used to represent bumps on objects such as bark on trees and craters on the moon. In order to render shadows cast by bumps, the horizon map method was proposed. The horizon map is a table which has, for each of a small collection of azimuthal directions, slopes from each viewpoint on the bump map (height field) to the corresponding horizon point, which is the highest viewable point seen from that viewpoint. We propose a more precise method for rendering bumpmap shadows using a both a horizon map and a distance map, to take curvature of surfaces into consideration. The distance map is a table, which has, for each azimuthal direction, horizontal projected distances from each point of the bump map to its corresponding horizon point. The proposed method can render shadows efficiently by using programmable graphics hardware.

In this paper, we propose a radiosity method for the point-sampled geometry to compute diffuse inter reflection of light. Most traditional radiosity methods subdivide the surfaces of objects into small elements such as quadrilaterals. However, the point-sampled geometry includes no explicit information about surfaces, presenting a difficulty in applying the traditional approach to the point-sampled geometry. The proposed method addresses this problem by computing the inter reflection without reconstructing any surfaces. The method realizes lighting simulations without losing the advantages of the point-sampled geometry.

The rapid growth in computer graphics and digital cameras has resulted in computer users being able to easily produce digital images. As a result, the need to display and print digital images has increased. Nowadays, high-resolution display and printing devices are available to users. Therefore, high-resolution images are needed in order to produce high quality displayed images and high quality prints. However, since high-re solution images are not usually provided, there is a need to magnify the original images. Previous methods on magnifying images have the disadvantage that either the sharpness of the edges cannot be preserved or that some distinct artifacts are produced in the magnified image. In this paper, we present a novel method for doubling the size of images in which the sharpness of the edges is preserved without introducing distinct artifacts in the magnified images. The proposed method consists of two steps, first generation of an initial magnified image and then progressively refining this image to produce a high quality magnified image. The experimental results show that with the proposed method it is possible to produce magnified images of comparable, and in some cases superior, visual quality to those produced using previous methods.

This paper proposes a general method of glare generation based on wave optics. A glare image is regarded as a result of Fraunhofer diffraction, which is equivalent to a 2D Fourier transform of the image of given apertures or obstacles. In conventional methods, the shapes of glare images are categorized according to their source apertures, such as pupils and eyelashes and their basic shapes (e.g. halos, coronas or radial streaks) are manually generated as templates, mainly based on statistical observation. Realistic variations of these basic shapes often depend on the use of random numbers. Our proposed method computes glare images fully automatically from aperture images and can be applied universally to all kinds of apertures, including camera diaphragms. It can handle dynamic changes in the position of the aperture relative to the light source, which enables subtle movement or rotation of glare streaks. Spectra can also be simulated in the glare, since the intensity of diffraction depends on the wavelength of light. The resulting glare image is superimposed onto a given computer-generated image containing high intensity light sources or reflections, aligning the center of the glare image to the high intensity areas. Our method is implemented as a multipass rendering software. By precomputing the dynamic glare image set and putting it into texture memory, the software runs at an interactive rate.

In this paper, we propose an appearance representation for general complex materials which can be applied in real-time rendering framework. By combining a single parametric shading function (such as the Phong model) and the proposed spatial-varying residual function (SRF), this representation can recover the appearance of complex materials with little loss of visual fidelity. The difference between the real data and the parametric shading is directly fitted by a specific function for easy reconstruction. It is simple, flexible and easy to be implemented on programmable graphics hardware. Experiments show that the mean square error (MSE) between the reconstructed appearance and real photographs is less than 5%.

Abstract Sound is an indispensable element for the simulation of a realistic virtual environment. Therefore, there has been much recent research focused on the simulation of realistic sound effects. This paper proposes a method for creating sound for turbulent phenomena such as fire. In a turbulent field, the complex motion of vortices leads to the generation of sound. This type of sound is called a vortex sound. The proposed method simulates a vortex sound by computing vorticity distributions using computational fluid dynamics. Sound textures for the vortex sound are first created in a pre‐process step. The sound is then created at interactive rates by using these sound textures. The usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated by applying it to the simulation of the sound of fire and other turbulent phenomena. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism ‐ Animation; I.6.8 [Simulation and Modeling]: Types of Simulation ‐ Animation; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism; I.6.3 [Simulation and Modeling]: Applications; H.5.5 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Sound and Music Computing ‐ Methodologies and techniques, Modeling.

We present an efficient method of mesh simplification for geometric 3D models. The transmission of 3D models on the Internet is an important task. The data size of a 3D model is usually large to enable more detail to be represented. Hence, it is necessary to represent the 3D model while keeping the data size small and preserving its features, even if the meshes that constitute the model are unstructured. Although there are many methods for simplifying the meshes, most of them are time-consuming. Our approach is to obtain an adequate simplified model in a short amount of time. Therefore, the model provider can check the simplified result interactively before uploading to the server. After transmitting the simplified model, if the user at the client needs to get more details, by transmitting some necessary information, the progressively increasing model detail and the original model without losses could be reconstructed.

A number of nonphotorealistic rendering methods for producing artistic style images have been developed. Recently, a method called "Image Analogies" was proposed. This method is based on the idea of example-based filtering that uses a pair of images (an original image and a filtered image) as training data and creates an image which has a style that resembles the filtered image of the training data. This method has great flexibility since the users can create various styles of images by simply changing the training data. We extend "Image Analogies" to create various styles of animations. The coherence between frames is considered by computing the pixel flows between the frames. From experimental results, the proposed method can create nice animation sequences.

This paper presents a new method for smoothly blending among multiple polygonal shapes. The blended shape is computed as a weighted average of the input shapes. The weight of each input shape is allowed to vary across the shape. This feature increases the flexibility for controlling the local appearance of the blended shapes. Our method computes the blended shape hierarchically, starting from the coarse version of the shape and adding the details gradually. Several examples are shown to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.

In this paper, we present a physics motivated modeling method for volcanic clouds as a two fluids model. Some previous methods model smoke or clouds as one fluid, but the volcanic clouds can not be treated as one fluid. The volcanic clouds consist of the pyroclasts, the volcanic gas and the entrained air. Since the pyroclasts and the volcanic gas can be treated as one fluid, called magma, the volcanic clouds are regarded as two fluids, the magma and the entrained air. The modeling in the 3D analysis space can be simplified to enhance the performance. Since our approach is physics motivated, it can be used to generate physically reasonable and realistic images of volcanic clouds from the volcanic initial eruption to the equilibrium situation.

Interactive applications such as virtual reality systems have become popular in recent years. A ground surface composed of a granular material can be deformed when it comes into contact with an object, and, in this paper, we propose a deformation algorithm for the ground surface which is useful for such applications. The deformation algorithm is divided into three steps: (1) detection of the collision between an object and the ground surface, (2) displacement of the granular material, and (3) erosion of the material at steep slopes. The proposed algorithm can handle objects of various shapes, including a concave polyhedron, and a texture sliding technique is proposed to represent the motion of the granular materials. In addition, the proposed algorithm can be used at an interactive frame rate.

Abstract This paper presents a practical approach to the animation of hair at an interactive frame rate. In our approach,we model the hair as a set of particles that serve as sampling points for the volume of the hair, which covers thewhole region where hair is present. The dynamics of the hair, including hair‐hair interactions, is simulated usingthe interacting particles. The novelty of this approach is that, as opposed to the traditional way of modeling hair,we release the particles from tight structures that are usually used to represent hair strands or clusters. Therefore,by making the connections between the particles loose while maintaining their overall stiffness, the hair can bedynamically split and merged during lateral motion without losing its lengthwise coherence. Categories and Subject Descriptions (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐DimensionalGraphics and Realism, I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation

Abstract In order to synthesize realistic images of scenes that include water surfaces, the rendering of optical effectscaused by waves on the water surface, such as caustics and reflection, is necessary. However, rendering causticsis quite complex and time‐consuming. In recent years, the performance of graphics hardware has made significantprogress. This fact encourages researchers to study the acceleration of realistic image synthesis. We present herea method for the fast rendering of refractive and reflective caustics due to water surfaces. In the proposed method,an object is expressed by a set of texture mapped slices. We calculate the intensities of the caustics on the objectby using the slices and store the intensities as textures. This makes it possible to render caustics at interactive rateby using graphics hardware. Moreover, we render objects that are reflected and refracted due to the water surfaceby using reflection/refraction mapping of these slices. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.1 [Computer Graphics]: Hardware Architecture I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism

In computer graphics, most research focuses on creating images. However, there has been much recent work on the automatic generation of sound linked to objects in motion and the relative positions of receivers and sound sources. This paper proposes a new method for creating one type of sound called aerodynamic sound. Examples of aerodynamic sound include sound generated by swinging swords or by wind blowing. A major source of aerodynamic sound is vortices generated in fluids such as air. First, we propose a method for creating sound textures for aerodynamic sound by making use of computational fluid dynamics. Next, we propose a method using the sound textures for real-time rendering of aerodynamic sound according to the motion of objects or wind velocity.

Metamorphosis between 3D objects is often the transformation between a pair of shapes that have the same topology. This paper presents a new model using Reeb graphs and their contours to create morphing between 3D objects having different topology. The proposed method specifies the correspondence between of the input objects by using the graph isomorphic theory. Then the super Reeb graph, which has the equivalent topological information to the Reeb graphs of the two input objects, is constructed and used to conduct the sequence of the morphing. The evolutions of the topology that occur during the morph can be specified by the transformation of the Reeb graphs and their contours of the input objects. Reeb graph-based modeling allows the users precisely and intuitively control the morph because the topological information of the objects, represented by the structures of the Reeb graphs, is explicit and easy to understand Moreover, the contours of the Reeb graphs also represent the geometrical information of the objects. The examples of morphing between different topological shapes are demonstrated.

Developing intuitive and efficient methods for shape editing is one of the most important areas in computer graphics, and free-form deformation (FFD), which is one of such methods, allows the user to deform a model easily by moving a set of control points, collectively called the lattice. Although the FFD method can be used for both global and local deformations, the user must define a suitable lattice manually or use a simple shaped lattice such as a parallelepiped. Therefore, we propose a new FFD method that automatically generates the lattices with which both types of deformations can be achieved. Our method refines a bounding box of the model and generates a set of finer lattices, which hierarchically approximate the shape of the model. Through adjusting the control points of the generated lattices, both global and local deformations of the model can be achieved easily. Moreover, the method allows hierarchical deformation of the model by combining different levels of lattice.

Realism of rendered human skin can be strongly enhanced by taking into account skin wrinkles. However, modeling wrinkles is a difficult task, and considerable time and effort are necessary to achieve satisfactory results. This paper presents a simple method to easily model wrinkles on human skin, taking into account the properties of real wrinkles. Wrinkles are specified using intuitive parameters, and are generated over a triangle mesh representing a body part, such as a hand or a face. Wrinkled skin surfaces are rendered at an interactive frame rate, dynamically modulating wrinkle amplitude according to skin surface deformation while animating the body part. We demonstrate the ability of our method to model realistic wrinkle shapes by comparing them with real wrinkles.

Solid texturing is a well-known computer graphics technology, which is problematic because it consumes too much time if every pixel is calculated on the fly or has a very high memory requirement if all of the pixels are stored at the beginning. Although some methods have been proposed, almost all of them need the support of specific hardware accelerators. Hence, these methods could not be applied to all kinds of machine, especially low-cost ones available over the Internet. Therefore, we present a new method for procedural solid texturing. Our approach could almost render an object with solid texturing in real-time using only a software solution. Furthermore, to demonstrate that our approach is widely applicable we choose pure Java for its implementation, since it does not receive any benefit from hardware and could be executed on the Internet directly.

Abstract The display of realistic natural scenes is one of the most important research areas in computer graphics. Therendering of water is one of the essential components. This paper proposes an efficient method for renderingimages of scenes within water. For underwater scenery, the shafts of light and caustics are attractive and importantelements. However, computing these effects is difficult and time‐consuming since light refracts when passingthrough waves. To address the problem, our method makes use of graphics hardware to accelerate the computation.Our method displays the shafts of light by accumulating the intensities of streaks of light by using hardware colorblending functions. Making use of a Z‐buffer and a stencil buffer accelerates the rendering of caustics. Moreover,by using a shadow mapping technique, our method can display shafts of light and caustics taking account ofshadows due to objects. ACM CSS: I. 3.1 Computer Graphics—Hardware Architecture, I. 3.7 Computer Graphics—Three‐DimensionalGraphics and Realism

The simulation of various natural phenomena is one of the important research fields in computer graphics. In particular, aspects such as sky, clouds, water, fire, trees, smoke, terrains, desert scenes, snow and fog are indispensable for creating realistic images of natural scenes, flight simulators and so on. Therefore, a lot of researchers have been trying to develop methods for simulating and rendering these. In this paper, we focus on sky, clouds, smoke, desert scenes and atmospheric effects, such as shafts of light. These phenomena have the common feature that they consist of the effects of small particles. To create realistic images, physical based simulation and rendering are required. In particular, the color greatly depends on the properties of light scattering due to particles. In general, however, the simulation and rendering of these images is assumed to be very time-consuming. This paper describes efficient methods for creating realistic images of such natural phenomena.

A number of methods have been developed for creating realistic images of natural scenes. Their applications include flight simulators, the visual assessment of outdoor scenery, etc. Previously, many of these methods have focused on creating images under clear or slightly cloudy days. Simulations under bad weather conditions, however, are one of the important issues for realism. Lightning is one of the essential elements for these types of simulations. The paper proposes an efficient method for creating realistic images of scenes including lightning. Our method can create photo-realistic images by taking into account the scattering effects due to clouds and atmospheric particles illuminated by lightning. Moreover, graphics hardware is utilized to accelerate the image generation. The usefulness of our method is demonstrated by creating images of outdoor scenes that include lightning.

The display of realistic natural scenes is one of the most important research areas in computer graphics. The rendering of water is one of the essential components. The paper proposes an efficient method for rendering images of scenes within water. For underwater scenery, the shafts of light and caustics are attractive and important elements. However, computing these effects is difficult and time-consuming, since light refracts when passing through waves. To address the problem, our method makes use of graphics hardware to accelerate the computation. Our method displays the shafts of light by accumulating the intensities of streaks of light by using hardware color blending functions. The rendering of caustics is accelerated by making use of a Z-buffer and a stencil buffer. Moreover, by using a shadow mapping technique, our method can display shafts of light and caustics, taking account of shadows due to objects.

The simulation of natural phenomena such as clouds, smoke, fire and water is one of the most important research areas in computer graphics. In particular, clouds play an important role in creating images of outdoor scenes. The proposed method is based on the physical simulation of atmospheric fluid dynamics which characterizes the shape of clouds. To take account of the dynamics, we used a method called the coupled map lattice (CML). CML is an extended method of cellular automaton and is computationally inexpensive. The proposed method can create various types of clouds and can also realize the animation of these clouds. Moreover, we have developed an interactive system for modeling various types of clouds.

Recently graphics hardware has increased in capability, and is, moreover, now available even on standard PCs. These advances have encouraged researchers to develop hardware-accelerated methods for rendering realistic images. One of the important elements in enhancing reality is the effect of atmospheric scattering. The scattering of light due to atmospheric particles has to be taken into account in order to display shafts of light produced by studio spotlights and headlights of automobiles, for example. The purpose of the paper is to develop a method for displaying shafts of light at interactive rates by making use of the graphics hardware. The method makes use of hardware-accelerated volume rendering techniques to display the shafts of light.

This paper presents solutions to the feature correspondence and feature interpolation problems in image morphing. The user specifies the correspondence between the source and the target images by drawing input curves on the features of the objects. The correspondence between these curves at the finest level (pixel level) is computed by optimizing a cost function. Based on this correspondence, the input curves are approximated by using Bezier curves. We represent the Bezier curves and the connections among them by using a "dependency graph". Feature interpolation is performed by interpolating the dependency graphs using the edge-angle blending technique. We also propose methods for controlling the transition rates of the shape and the color. We implemented the proposed algorithms in our morphing system which is based on the field morphing technique. From experimental results, our algorithms can generate a smooth morphing animation even when the objects in the source and the target images have different orientations. Also, the user's workload is reduced because the system includes an automatic feature correspondence computation.

This paper proposes a method for modeling and rendering realistic desert scenes. A desert terrain includes sand dunes and wind ripples. We use two types of scale models to form them. We render the dunes with the wind-ripples by bump-mapping using LOD (levels of detail).

Recently, displaying natural phenomena such as smoke has become a topic of interest in computer graphics. The ability to simulate the complex shapes and motion of the smoke particles is not only important but is also a difficult problem to solve. In this paper, we propose a method of displaying swirling smoke, including the consideration of its passage round obstacles. By using the idea of metaballs, we can easily represent the 3D density distribution of smoke. We solve the physical equation of the flow, and represent the vortices by using the vorticity vector. Therefore, we can make a model of the smoke flow even if there are obstacles in its path.

This paper proposes a simple and computationally inexpensive method for animation of clouds. The cloud evolution is simulated using cellular automaton that simplifies the dynamics of cloud formation. The dynamics are expressed by several simple transition rules and their complex motion can be simulated with a small amount of computation. Realistic images are then created using one of the standard graphics APIs, OpenGL. This makes it possible to utilize graphics hardware, resulting in fast image generation. The proposed method can realize the realistic motion of clouds, shadows cast on the ground, and shafts of light through clouds.

Recently, simulation of natural phenomena, such as water, smokes, fire, clouds, have been attempted in computer graphics. Clouds play an important role when generating images of outdoor scenes, the earth viewed from outer space and the visualization of weather information. This paper describes the modeling methods of clouds, and an efficient calculation method for light scattering due to clouds taking into account both multiple scattering and sky light. The methods discussed here are also useful for displaying snow.

Parametric surfaces and implicit surfaces are generally used for representing curved surfaces in CAD/CG Systems. This paper discusses a curved tubular object which is a surface swept by a sphere/circle moving along a curve. For the trajectory curve, a 3D Bezier curve is employed, and its radius can be varied along the curve. In general, its surface cannot be defined by a closed form, while a high degree of polynomial must be solved for ray/surface intersection. This paper proposes an effective rendering method which uses a scan line algorithm for detecting curved tubular objects on the projection plane. The calculation of the distance from a point to a curve plays an important role in our algorithm. Bezier Clipping Method is employed for this calculation.

The paper proposes an image based modeling of clouds where realistic clouds are created from satellite images using metaballs. The intention of the paper is for applications to space flight simulators, the visualization of the weather information, and the simulation of surveys of the Earth. In the proposed method, the density distribution inside the clouds is defined by a set of metaballs. Parameters of metaballs, such as center positions, radii, and density values, are automatically determined so that a synthesized image of clouds modeled by using metaballs is similar to the original satellite image. We also propose an animation method for clouds generated by a sequence of satellite images taken at some interval. The usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated by several examples of clouds generated from satellite images of typhoons passing through Japan.

The display of natural scenes such as mountains, trees, the earth as viewed from space, the sea, and waves have been attempted. Here a method to realistically display snow is proposed. In order to achieve this, two important elements have to be considered, namely the shape and shading model of snow, based on the physical phenomenon. In this paper, a method for displaying snow fallen onto objects, including curved surfaces and snow scattered by objects, such as skis, is proposed. Snow should be treated as particles with a density distribution since it consists of water particles, ice particles, and air molecules. In order to express the material property of snow, the phase functions of the particles must be taken into account, and it is well‐known that the color of snow is white because of the multiple scattering of light. This paper describes a calculation method for light scattering due to snow particles taking into account both multiple scattering and sky light, and the modeling of snow.

Computer graphics are being used for visual environmental assessment or architectural designs. Displaying the sky as a background is indispensable in generating photorealistic images for such applications. In this paper, we propose a fast display method of the sky colour by expressing the intensity distribution of the sky using basis functions, even if the sun position and/or the camera position are altered. In the proposed method, cosine functions are used as basis functions. The sun altitude is altered at certain intervals and the distributions of the sky colour for each sun altitude are precalculated and stored efficiently using basis functions. The colour of the sky in the view direction of an arbitrary sun position can be obtained from the stored distributions and displayed quickly. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Article Free Access Share on Display of clouds taking into account multiple anisotropic scattering and sky light Authors: Tomoyuki Nishita Fukuyama University, Sanzo, Higashimura-cho, Fukuyama, 729-02 Japan Fukuyama University, Sanzo, Higashimura-cho, Fukuyama, 729-02 JapanView Profile , Yoshinori Dobashi Hiroshima University, 1-4-1, kagamiyama, Higashi-hiroshima, 739 Japan Hiroshima University, 1-4-1, kagamiyama, Higashi-hiroshima, 739 JapanView Profile , Eihachiro Nakamae Hiroshima Prefectural University, Nanatsuka-cho, Shoubara City, 727 Japan Hiroshima Prefectural University, Nanatsuka-cho, Shoubara City, 727 JapanView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGGRAPH '96: Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesAugust 1996 Pages 379–386https://doi.org/10.1145/237170.237277Published:01 August 1996Publication History 92citation2,177DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations92Total Downloads2,177Last 12 Months145Last 6 weeks14 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Abstract Recently, computer graphics are frequently used for both architectural design and visual environmental assessment. Using computer graphics, designers can easily compare the effect of the natural light on their architectural designs under various conditions, such as different times of day, seasons, atmospheric conditions (clear or overcast sky) or building wall materials. In traditional methods of calculating the luminance due to sky light, however, all calculation must be performed from scratch if such conditions undergo change. Therefore, to compare the architectural designs under different conditions, a great deal of time has to be spent on generating the images. This paper proposes a new method of quickly generating images of an outdoor scene, taking into account glossy specular reflection, even if such conditions change. In this method, luminance due to sky light is expressed by a series of basis functions, and basis luminances corresponding to each basis function are precalculated and stored in a compressed form in the preprocess. Once the basis luminances are calculated, the luminance due to sky light can be quickly calculated by the weighted sum of the basis luminances. Several examples of an architectural design demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method.

A precise shading model is required to display realistic images. Recently research on global illumination has been widespread. In global illumination, problems of diffuse reflection have been solved fairly well, but some optical problems after specular reflection and refraction still remain. Some natural phenomena stand out in reflected/refracted light from the wave surface of water. Refracted light from water surface converges and diverges, and creates shafts of light due to scattered light from particles. The color of the water is influenced by scattering/absorption effects of water molecules and suspensions. For these effects, the intensity and direction of incident light to particles plays an important role, and it is difficult to calculate them in conventional ray-tracing because light refracts when passing through waves. Therefore, the pre-processing tracing from light sources is necessary.

Abstract It is inevitable for indoor lighting design to render a room lit by natural light, especially for an atelier or an indoor pool where there are many windows. This paper proposes a method for calculating the illuminance due to natural light, i.e. direct sunlight and skylight, passing through transparent planes such as window glass. The proposed method makes it possible to efficiently calculate such illuminance accurately, because it takes into account both non‐uniform luminous intensity distribution of skylight and the distribution of transparency of glass according to incident angles of light. Several examples including the lighting design in an indoor pool, are shown to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method.

Abstract For rendering curved surfaces, one of the most popular techniques is metaballs, an implicit model based on isosurfaces of potential fields. This technique is suitable for deformable objects and CSG model. For rendering metaballs, intersection tests between rays and isosurfaces are required. By defining the higher degree of functions for the field functions, richer capability can be expected, i.e., the smoother surfaces. However, one of the problems is that the intersection between the ray and isosurfaces can not be solved analytically for such a high degree function. Even though the field function is expressed by degree six polynomial in this paper (that means the degree six equation should be solved for the intersection test), in our algorithm, expressing the field function on the ray by Bézier functions and employing Bézier Clipping , the root of this function can be solved very effectively and precisely. This paper also discusses a deformed distribution function such as ellipsoids and a method displaying transparent objects such as clouds.

Article Free Access Share on Display of the earth taking into account atmospheric scattering Authors: Tomoyuki Nishita View Profile , Takao Sirai View Profile , Katsumi Tadamura View Profile , Eihachiro Nakamae View Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGGRAPH '93: Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesSeptember 1993 Pages 175–182https://doi.org/10.1145/166117.166140Published:01 September 1993Publication History 83citation2,037DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations83Total Downloads2,037Last 12 Months298Last 6 weeks31 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Abstract A high precision illumination model is indispensable for lighting simulation and realistic image synthesis. For the purpose of improving realism, research on global illumination has been done, and several papers on radiosity methods have been presented. In the most recently proposed methods, the shapes of light sources and objects are restricted to polygons or simple curved surfaces. We present a more general method which can handle the kind of free‐form surfaces widely used in industrial products and in architecture. The method proposed here solves the problem of the interreflection of light (i.e., radiosities) between patches, and form‐factors, which play an important role in this process, are precisely calculated without aliasing through the use of an area sampling method (i.e., pyramid tracing). Furthermore the method can handle both non‐uniform intensity curved sources and non‐diffuse surfaces.

Abstract Photorealistic animated images are extremely effective for pre‐evaluating visual impact of city renewal and construction of tall buildings. In order to generate a photorealistic image not only the direct sunlight but also skylight must be considered. This paper proposes a method of high‐fidelity image generation for photorealistic outdoor scenes based on the following ideas: The intensity distribution of skylight taking account of scattering and absorption due to particles in the atmosphere which coincides with CIE standard skylight luminance functions is sought, and realistic images considering about spectrum distribution of skylight for any altitude of the sun can be easily and accurately displayed. A rectangular parallelepiped with a specialized distribution of intensity simulating the skylight is introduced for efficient calculation of illumination due to skylight, and by employing a graphics hardware calculation of the skylight illuminance taking into account shadow effects is obtained with high efficiency; these techniques can be used to generate sequences of images, making animations possible at far lower calculation cost than previous methods.

Many techniques for rendering natural objects such as the sea, terrains, and trees have been developed; they are indispensable for flight simulators. In this paper, techniques for rendering road surfaces under various conditions are discussed. Rendering road surfaces is quite useful for the evaluation of driving safety, and it will play an important part in the development of drive simulators. Light sources with high intensity often disturb drivers especially under wet road surface conditions.This paper proposes two models, a reflection model for road surfaces taking into account weather conditions, and a model on streaks of light taking into account both refraction and diffraction of light. Some examples demonstrate the possibility of applications for drive simulators in the future.

This paper presents a new algorithm for computing the points at which a ray intersects a rational Bezier surface patch, and also an algorithm for determining if an intersection point lies within a region trimmed by piecewise Bezier curves. Both algorithms are based on a recent innovation known as Bezier clipping, described herein. The intersection algorithm is faster than previous methods for which published performance data allow reliable comparison. It robustly finds all intersections without requiring special preprocessing.

A technique for compositing computer generated images of buildings and background images created from aerial photographs is described. The aerial photo data are mapped onto a terrain model based on cartographic data. The technique can be used to pre-evaluate visual impact of large scale construction by means of not only still images but also animations.The technique can be briefly described as follows: 1) an accurate, three-dimensional terrain model is created based on cartographic data. 2) a hierarchy of aerial photo data at various resolutions is mapped onto the terrain model as a texture. 3) the height of trees is taken into account in regions near the viewpoint. 4) allowing intersections of terrain models with constructions facilitates geometric adjustments and shadowing.

Studio spotlights produce dazzling shafts of light, while light scattered from fog illuminated by automobile headlights renders driving difficult. This is because the particles in the illuminated volume become visible by scattering light. A shading model for scattering and absorption of light caused by particles in the atmosphere is proposed in this paper. The method takes into account luminous intensity distribution of light sources, shadows due to obstacles, and density of particles. The intensity at a viewpoint is calculated by integration of light scattered by particles between the viewpoint and a given point on an object. The regions to be treated in this manner are localized by considering illumination volumes and shadow volumes caused by obstacles in the illumination volumes.

A system of computer programs has been established to generate high quality montage image of considerable usefulness in architectural simulation which combine computer-generated images and photographed background pictures.Traditionally, there are two methods of creating architectural montages: (1) an artist paints new buildings onto a background scene usually generated photographically, and (2) a three-dimensional scale model is created to simulate the whole landscape, and this model is then photographed. The montage method described here combines aspects of both traditional montage methods with significant improvement in accuracy and reduction of time and cost of preparation. Specifically, a digitized photograph is used as a background scene onto which is superimposed a 3D computer-generated image of a new building. The outstanding points of the new method are:(i) The shading and shadows of each computer generated image are calculated with higher accuracy, (ii) the fog effect is taken into account, and (iii) a new anti-aliasing technique improves the quality of the final montage image.

Natural lighting models to date have been limited to calculation of direct sunlight. However, this paper proposes an improved model for natural lighting calculations that adequately considers both direct sunlight and scattered light caused by clouds and other forms of water vapor in the air. Such indirect natural light is termed skylight and can be an important factor when attempting to render realistic looking images as they might appear under overcast skies.In the proposed natural lighting model, the sky is considered to be a hemisphere with a large radius (called the sky dome) that acts as a source of diffuse light with nonuniform intensity. In order to adequately take into account the nonuniform intensity of such skylight, the sky dome is subdivided into bands. The light intensity within individual bands can be assumed to be transversely uniform and longitudinally nonuniform and therefore the total luminance emanating from each band can be calculated more accurately.The proposed method significantly improves the realism of natural lighting effects. Its advantages are particularly apparent when simulating lighting under an overcast sky or when rendering surfaces that fall within a shadow cast by an obstruction lit by direct sunlight.

The effect of shadows and interreflection created by room obstructions is an important factor in the continuous tone representation of interiors. For indirect illumination, in most cases a uniform ambient light has been considered, even though the interreflection gives very complex effects with the shaded images.The proposed method for indirect lighting with shadows results in the following advanced points:1) The indirect illuminance caused by the surfaces of objects such as ceilings, floors, walls, desks, bookcases etc. gives added realism to images.2) The proposed method is suitable for every type of light source such as point sources, linear sources, and area sources.

The degree of realism of the shaded image of a tree-dimensional scene depends on the successful simulation of shading effects. The shading model has two main ingredients, properties of the surface and properties of the illumination falling on it. Most previous work has concentrated on the former rather than the latter. This paper presents an improved version for generating scenes illuminated by point and linear light sources. The procedure can include intensity distributions for point light sources and output both umbrae and penumbrae for linear light sources, assuming thr environment is composed of convex polyhedra. This paper generalizes Crow's procedure for computing shadow volumes caused by the end points of the linear source results in an easy determination of the reions of penumbrae and umbrae on the face prior to shading calculation. This paper also discusses a method for displaying illuminance distribution on a shaded image aby using colored isolux contours.

Computer graphics techniques for visualizing the following simulation results are developed: (1) lighting designs for different type sources such as point sources, linear sources, area sources, and polyhedron sources, (2) shaded time at arbitrary positions such as windows, walls, and even the inside of a room, (3) montages for view environment evaluation, (4) quasi-semi-transparent models for observing life generation process in anatomy, and (5) two and three dimensional magnetic fields analyzed by the finite element method.