The task of reconstructing indoor floorplans has become an increasingly popular subject, offering substantial benefits across various applications such as interior design, virtual reality, and robotics. Despite the growing interest, existing approaches frequently encounter challenges due to high computational costs and sensitivity to errors in primitive detection. In this article, we introduce PolyGraph, a new computational framework that combines a deep-learning based primitive detection network with an optimization-based reconstruction algorithm to facilitate high-quality reconstruction results. Specifically, we develop a novel guided wall point primitive estimation network capable of generating dense samples along wall boundaries. This network not only retains structural detail but also shows improved robustness in the detection phase. Then, PolyGraph utilizes wall points to establish a graph-based representation, formulating indoor floorplan reconstruction as a subgraph optimization problem. This approach significantly reduces the search space comparing to existing pixel-level optimization approaches. By utilizing "structural weight", we seamlessly integrate the structural information of walls and rooms into graph representations, ensuring high-quality reconstruction results. Experimental results demonstrate PolyGraph's effectiveness and its advantages compared to other optimization-based approaches, showcasing its computational efficiency, and its ability to preserve structural integrity and capture fine details, as quantified by the structure metrics.

Arbitrary-scale image super-resolution (SR) is often tackled using the implicit neural representation (INR) approach, which relies on a position encoding scheme to im-prove its representation ability. In this paper, we introduce orthogonal position encoding (OPE), an extension of po-sition encoding, and an OPE-Upscale module to replace the INR-based upsampling module for arbitrary-scale im-age super-resolution. Our OPE-Upscale module takes 2D coordinates and latent code as inputs, just like INR, but does not require any training parameters. This parameter-free feature allows the OPE-Upscale module to directly perform linear combination operations, resulting in con-tinuous image reconstruction and achieving arbitrary-scale image reconstruction. As a concise SR framework, our method is computationally efficient and consumes less mem-ory than state-of-the-art methods, as confirmed by exten-sive experiments and evaluations. In addition, our method achieves comparable results with state-of-the-art methods in arbitrary-scale image super-resolution. Lastly, we show that OPE corresponds to a set of orthogonal basis, validating our design principle.11Project page: https://github.com/gaochao-s/ope-sr

Abstract Line drawing with colorization is a popular art format and tool for architectural illustration. The goal of this research is toward generating a high-quality and natural-looking colorization based on an architectural line drawing. This paper presents a new Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based method, named ArchGANs, including ArchColGAN and ArchShdGAN. ArchColGAN is a GAN-based line-feature-aware network for stylized colorization generation. ArchShdGAN is a lighting effects generation network, from which the building depiction in 3D can benefit. In particular, ArchColGAN is able to maintain the important line features and the correlation property of building parts as well as reduce the uneven colorization caused by sparse lines. Moreover, we proposed a color enhancement method to further improve ArchColGAN. Besides the single line drawing images, we also extend our method to handle line drawing image sequences and achieve rotation animation. Experiments and studies demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of our proposed method for colorization prototyping.

Architectural illustration using line drawing with colorization is an important tool and art format. In this paper, in order to generate a natural-looking and high quality watercolorlike colorization for architectural line drawing, we propose a novel Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) approach, namely ArchGANs. The proposed ArchGANs unifies a line-feature-aware stylized colorization network (ArchColGAN), which can learn, predict and generate the coloring based on a dataset, as well as a shading generation network (ArchShdGAN), which augments the illustration with controllable lighting effects for better depicting building in 3D. Specifically, ArchColGAN can preserve the essential line features and building part correlation property, it also tackles the uneven colorization problem caused by the sparse lines. Experimental results demonstrate our proposed method is effective and suitable for colorization prototyping.

This paper presents Poisson vector graphics (PVG), an extension of the popular diffusion curves (DC), for generating smooth-shaded images. Armed with two new types of primitives, called Poisson curves and Poisson regions, PVG can easily produce photorealistic effects such as specular highlights, core shadows, translucency and halos. Within the PVG framework, the users specify color as the Dirichlet boundary condition of diffusion curves and control tone by offsetting the Laplacian of colors, where both controls are simply done by mouse click and slider dragging. PVG distinguishes itself from other diffusion based vector graphics for 3 unique features: 1) explicit separation of colors and tones, which follows the basic drawing principle and eases editing; 2) native support of seamless cloning in the sense that PCs and PRs can automatically fit into the target background; and 3) allowed intersecting primitives (except for DC-DC intersection) so that users can create layers. Through extensive experiments and a preliminary user study, we demonstrate that PVG is a simple yet powerful authoring tool that can produce photo-realistic vector graphics from scratch.

This article presents a new computational framework for constructing 3D self-supporting surfaces with isotropic stress. Inspired by the self-supporting property of catenary and the fact that catenoid (the surface of revolution of the catenary curve) is a minimal surface, we discover the relation between 3D self-supporting surfaces and 4D minimal hypersurfaces (which are 3-manifolds). Lifting the problem into 4D allows us to convert gravitational forces into tensions and reformulate the equilibrium problem to total potential energy minimization, which can be solved using a variational method. We prove that the hyper-generatrix of a 4D minimal hyper-surface of revolution is a 3D self-supporting surface, implying that constructing a 3D self-supporting surface is equivalent to volume minimization. We show that the energy functional is simply the surface’s gravitational potential energy, which in turn can be converted into a surface reconstruction problem with mean curvature constraint. Armed with our theoretical findings, we develop an iterative algorithm to construct 3D self-supporting surfaces from triangle meshes. Our method guarantees convergence and can produce near-regular triangle meshes, thanks to a local mesh refinement strategy similar to centroidal Voronoi tessellation. It also allows users to tune the geometry via specifying either the zero potential surface or its desired volume. We also develop a finite element method to verify the equilibrium condition on 3D triangle meshes. The existing thrust network analysis methods discretize both geometry and material by approximating the continuous stress field through uniaxial singular stresses, making them an ideal tool for analysis and design of beam structures. In contrast, our method works on piecewise linear surfaces with continuous material. Moreover, our method does not require the 3D-to-2D projection, therefore it also works for both height and non-height fields.

This paper proposes a novel method for decorating 3D surfaces using a new type of vector graphics, called Poisson Vector Graphics (PVG). Unlike other existing techniques that frequently require local/global parameterization, our approach advocates a parameterization-free paradigm, affording decoration of geometric models with any topological type while minimizing the overall computational expenses. Since PVG supports a set of simple discrete curves, it is straightforward for users to edit colors and synthesize geometry details. Meanwhile, the details could be organized by Poisson Region (PR), leading to much smoother decoration than those of Diffusion Curve (DC). Consequently, it is an ideal tool to create smooth relief. It may be noted that, DC is adequate to create sharp or discontinuous results. But PR is superior to DC, supporting level-of-details editing on meshes thanks to its smoothness. To render PVG on meshes efficiently, we develop a Poisson solver based on harmonic B-splines, which could be constructed using geodesic Voronoi diagram . Our Poisson solver is a local solver for rendering with more flexibility and versatility. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on synthetic and real-world 3D models.

This paper presents an efficient data-driven approach to track fingertip and detect finger tapping for virtual piano using an RGB-D camera. We collect 7200 depth images covering the most common finger articulation for playing piano, and train a random regression forest using depth context features of randomly sampled pixels in training images. In the online tracking stage, we firstly segment the hand from the plane in contact by fusing the information from both color and depth images. Then we use the trained random forest to estimate the 3D position of fingertips and wrist in each frame, and predict finger tapping based on the estimated fingertip motion. Finally, we build a kinematic chain and recover the articulation parameters for each finger. In contrast to the existing hand tracking algorithms that often require hands are in the air and cannot interact with physical objects, our method is designed for hand interaction with planar objects, which is desired for the virtual piano application. Using our prototype system, users can put their hands on a desk, move them sideways and then tap fingers on the desk, like playing a real piano. Preliminary results show that our method can recognize most of the beginner's piano-playing gestures in realtime for soothing rhythms.

This paper presents an automatic method for computing an anisotropic 2D shape distribution on an arbitrary 2-manifold mesh. Our method allows the user to specify the direction as well as the density of the distribution. Using a pre-computed lookup table, our method can efficiently detect collision among the shapes to be distributed on the 3D mesh. In contrast to existing approaches, which usually assume the 2D objects are isotropic and have simple geometry, our method works for complex 2D objects and can guarantee the distribution is conflict-free, which is a critical constraint in many applications. It is able to compute multi-class shape distributions in parallel. Our method does not require global parameterization of the input 3D mesh. Instead, it computes local parameterizations on the fly using geodesic polar coordinates. Thanks to a recent breakthrough in geodesic computation, the local parameterization can be computed at low cost. As a result, our method can be applied to models with complicated geometry and topology. Experimental results on a wide range of 3D models and 2D anisotropic shapes demonstrate the good performance and effectiveness of our method.

While 3D line drawing techniques have become well established in the past decade, most are only suitable for polygonal meshes. This paper presents splatting lines, a unified framework for generating line drawings from various types of 3D models, including point clouds, volumes, and polygonal meshes. In contrast to the existing mesh-based approaches, our method takes a densely sampled point cloud as input. It renders two diffuse shading images using splatting with different parameters and then generates line drawings by subtracting these images. Our point-based approach can be easily extended to polygonal meshes and volumes by an efficient (iso-)surface sampling method. Our method is highly efficient and it does not require any pre-computation. It is also more robust to the mesh tessellation than existing mesh-based techniques. Experimental results indicate the advantages of our method in terms of both performance and quality.

Abstract This paper studies the Voronoi diagrams on 2‐manifold meshes based on geodesic metric (a.k.a. geodesic Voronoi diagrams or GVDs), which have polyline generators. We show that our general setting leads to situations more complicated than conventional 2D Euclidean Voronoi diagrams as well as point‐source based GVDs, since a typical bisector contains line segments, hyperbolic segments and parabolic segments. To tackle this challenge, we introduce a new concept, called local Voronoi diagram (LVD), which is a combination of additively weighted Voronoi diagram and line‐segment Voronoi diagram on a mesh triangle. We show that when restricting on a single mesh triangle, the GVD is a subset of the LVD and only two types of mesh triangles can contain GVD edges. Based on these results, we propose an efficient algorithm for constructing the GVD with polyline generators. Our algorithm runs in O(nNlogN) time and takes O(nN) space on an n‐face mesh with m generators, where N = max{m, n}. Computational results on real‐world models demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithm.

Architectural sketching and massing are used by designers to analyze and explore the design space of buildings. This paper describes a novel multi-touch interface for fast architectural sketching and massing of tall buildings. It incorporates a family of multi-touch gestures, enabling one to quickly sketch the 2D contour of a base floor plan and extrude it to model a building with multi-floor structures. Further, it provides a set of gestures to users: select and edit a range of floors; scale contours of a building; copy, paste, and rotate a building, i.e., create a twisted structure; edit profile curves of a building's profile; and collapse and remove a selected range of floors. The multi-touch system also allows users to apply textures or geometric facades to the building, and to compare different designs side-by-side. To guide the design process, we describe interactions with a domain expert, a practicing architect. The final interface is evaluated by architects and students in an architecture Dept., which demonstrates that the system allows rapid conceptual design and massing of novel multi-story building structures.

Line drawings are a popular shape depiction technique due to its capability to express meaningful information by ignoring less important or distracting details. Many computer generated line drawing algorithms have been proposed in the past decade, such as suggestive contours, ridge-valley lines, apparent ridges, photic extremum lines, demarcating curves, Laplacian lines, just name a few.

This paper presents Texture Brush, an interactive interface for texturing 3D surfaces. We extend the conventional exponential map to a more general setting, in which the generator can be an arbitrary curve. Based on our extended exponential map, we develop a local parameterization method which naturally supports anisotropic texture mapping. With Texture Brush, the user can easily specify such local parameterization with a free-form stroke on the surface. We also propose a set of intuitive operations which are mainly based on 3D painting metaphor, including texture painting, texture cloning, texture animation design, and texture editing. Compared to the existing surface texturing techniques, our method enables a smoother and more natural work flow so that the user can focus on the design task itself without switching back and forth among different tools or stages. The encouraging experimental results and positive evaluation by artists demonstrate the efficacy of our Texture Brush for interactive texture mapping.

Poisson disk sampling has excellent spatial and spectral properties, and plays an important role in a variety of visual computing. Although many promising algorithms have been proposed for multidimensional sampling in euclidean space, very few studies have been reported with regard to the problem of generating Poisson disks on surfaces due to the complicated nature of the surface. This paper presents an intrinsic algorithm for parallel Poisson disk sampling on arbitrary surfaces. In sharp contrast to the conventional parallel approaches, our method neither partitions the given surface into small patches nor uses any spatial data structure to maintain the voids in the sampling domain. Instead, our approach assigns each sample candidate a random and unique priority that is unbiased with regard to the distribution. Hence, multiple threads can process the candidates simultaneously and resolve conflicts by checking the given priority values. Our algorithm guarantees that the generated Poisson disks are uniformly and randomly distributed without bias. It is worth noting that our method is intrinsic and independent of the embedding space. This intrinsic feature allows us to generate Poisson disk patterns on arbitrary surfaces in IR(n). To our knowledge, this is the first intrinsic, parallel, and accurate algorithm for surface Poisson disk sampling. Furthermore, by manipulating the spatially varying density function, we can obtain adaptive sampling easily.

Diffusion curves are effective 2D vector-graphics primitives, for creating smoothly-shaded drawings with rich colors and unique styles. Conventional drawing systems for diffusion curves often require users to successively layout curve geometry and then specify colors, which is rather tedious for complex drawings. This paper proposes a novel multi-touch sketching interface for efficient design of 2D vector graphics with diffusion curves. In sharp contrast to previous interfaces, we develop a family of multi-touch gestures, allowing users to simultaneously sketch multiple diffusion curves and also to interactively edit and tune curve geometry and colors. Our experiments show that this not only brings novel painting experience to users but also provides a practical and effective tool for vector graphics design, useful for styles like silk painting, Disney cartoon, art poster, and photo-realistic effects. Lastly, we conduct a user study to explore the interface's intuitive and efficient drawing capability with both professional 2D artists and novice users.

3D articulated motions are widely used in entertainment, sports, military, and medical applications. Among various techniques for modeling 3D motions, geometry videos (GVs) are a compact representation in that each frame is parameterized to a 2D domain, which captures the 3D geometry (x, y, z) to a pixel (r, g, b) in the image domain. As a result, the widely studied image/video processing techniques can be directly borrowed for 3D motion. This paper presents conformal geometry videos (CGVs), a novel extension of the traditional geometry videos by taking into the consideration of the isometric nature of 3D articulated motions. We prove that the 3D articulated motion can be uniquely (up to rigid motion) represented by (»,H), where » is the conformal factor characterizing the intrinsic property of the 3D motion, and H the mean curvature characterizing the extrinsic feature (i.e., embedding or appearance). Furthermore, the conformal factor » is pose-invariant. Thus, in sharp contrast to the GVs which capture 3D motion by three channels, CGVs take only one channel of mean curvature H and the first frame of the conformal factor », i.e., approximately 1/3 the storage of the GVs. In addition, CGVs have strong spatial and temporal coherence, which favors various well studied video compression techniques. Thus, CGVs can be highly compressed by using the state-of the-art video compression techniques, such as H.264/AVC. Our experimental results on real-world 3D motions show that CGVs are a highly compact representation for 3D articulated motions, i.e., given CGVs and GVs of the same file size, CGVs show much better visual quality than GVs.

Sampling plays an important role in a variety of graphics applications. Among existing sampling methods, Poisson disk sampling is popular thanks to its useful statistical property in distribution and the absence of aliasing artifacts. Although many promising algorithms have been proposed for multi-dimensional sampling in Euclidean space, very few research studies have been reported with regard to the problem of generating Poisson disks on surfaces due to the complicated nature of the surface. This still remains a challenge due to the following reasons: first, a surface is a two-dimensional manifold that has arbitrary topology and complicated geometry, and is embedded in R3 or even higher dimensional space. Second, the exact geodesic distance should be used to enforce the minimum distance constraint between any pair of samples. Third, the algorithm should be parallelized such that it can make full use of all available threads. Last but not least, the generated samples should be randomly and uniformly distributed on surfaces, and exhibit the blue noise pattern without bias. Wei [2008] pioneered a parallel Poisson disk sampling algorithm by subdividing the sample domain into grid cells and drawing samples concurrently from multiple cells that are sufficiently far apart to avoid conflicts. Bowers et al. [2010] extended Wei's algorithm to 3D surfaces. Their method is highly efficient, allowing sampling on large-scale models at interactive speed. However, the generated distribution is not fully random since the sequence of processing the phase groups follows a predefined order. Moreover, the approximate geodesic computation in their approach results in large errors in models with rich features and thus compromises the sampling quality.