EDBT 2026 Demo / reviewers in the wild / expert
Doug L. James
dblp:j/DougLJames
· DBLP profile ↗
60ranked-venue papers
13as first author
14since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0003-3532-8383ORCID · verified
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 59 · 12 first-author · 14 since 2021Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 4 · 2 first-author · 2 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 2 · 1 first-author · 1 since 2021Systems, architecture and hardware · 1 · 1 first-author
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Mixwell: Sharp 2D Fluid Brushes for Progressive Physics-Based MixingabstractWe present Mixwell, a family of sharp 2D fluid brushes and GPU-accelerated analytical methods for progressive, resolution-independent physics-based mixing. Derived from idealized potential flow around a cylindrical tine, Mixwell includes a cusped, Kelvinlet-style regularized velocity brush that parsimoniously captures cylinder-fluid interactions. Building on Maxwell's 1869 drift formulation, we develop GPU-friendly evaluation strategies for particle drift in both infinite and finite strokes. For image-based workflows, we introduce cylindrical Reverse-Drift Functions (RDFs), displacement fields that encode tine insertion, motion, and removal. Like signed distance fields in geometric modeling, RDFs compose naturally and can be chained in shaders to model complex operations while avoiding intermediate texture blur. We also propose a periodicity-exploiting composition scheme for complex RDF patterns. All Mixwell operations are evaluated independently per sample, enabling truly progressive mixing and rendering without global solves, grids, or intermediate texture resampling. We demonstrate real-time GLSL and HLSL implementations and production integrations in Houdini (OpenCL, OSL), enabling progressive, arbitrary-resolution mixing and rendering with negligible numerical dissipation. Doug L. James, Ethan James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2026 | Progressing Level-of-Detail Animation for Volumetric ElastodynamicsabstractWe extend Progressive Dynamics [Zhang et al. 2024, 2025] from cloth and shells to volumetric finite elements, enabling an efficient level-of-detail (LOD) animation-design pipeline with predictive coarse-resolution previews for rapid iteration toward a final high-resolution volumetric elastodynamics animation. To achieve this, we introduce VelPro Splitter , a principled and substantially improved VelPro-type integrator [Zhang et al. 2025] that splits the current-level velocity and recombines its high-resolution component with prolonged coarse-level velocity. The resulting VelPro Splitter is general and applies to both shell and volumetric discretizations. This splitting strategy better generates the high-frequency dynamic details that motivate highresolution elastodynamics animation, going beyond the previously mostly geometric enrichment due to prolonged coarse-level velocity, while maintaining cross-level consistency in bulk deformation across LOD results. As a result, it largely decouples finest-level enrichment quality from the number of LOD levels, addressing a practical limitation of VelPro at small timestep sizes where many levels are required to obtain sufficient enrichment. To make this volumetric setting practical for Progressive Dynamics, we add two supporting contributions. First, we construct volumetric hierarchies and introduce a simple and effective topology-aware boundary-binding method that enables reliable prolongation between overlapping, but not-necessarily-conforming, meshes using a barycentric-like linear interpolant. Second, instead of applying the subspace approach of Zhang et al. [2024] for reducing coarse model locking, we show that a lightweight, resolution-based stiffness rescaling via a simple Young's-modulus adjustment [Chen et al. 2017] is both effective and well-suited for progressive volumetric simulation. Together, these contributions jointly realize Volumetric Progressive Dynamics. We demonstrate its high-fidelity LOD matching for volumetric elastodynamics across 1D, 2D, and 3D scenarios with high speeds, large deformations, and frictional contact. Jiayi Eris Zhang, Doug L. James, Danny M. Kaufman |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2025 | Acoustic ReliefsabstractWe present a framework to optimize and generate Acoustic Reliefs : acoustic diffusers that not only perform well acoustically in scattering sound uniformly in all directions, but are also visually interesting and can approximate user-provided images. To this end, we develop a differentiable acoustics simulator based on the boundary element method, and integrate it with a differentiable renderer coupled with a vision model to jointly optimize for acoustics, appearance, and fabrication constraints at the same time. We generate various examples and fabricate two room-scale reliefs. The result is a validated simulation and optimization scheme for generating acoustic reliefs whose appearances can be guided by a provided image. Wen Jie Jeremy Chew, Michal Piovarci, Kangrui Xue, Doug L. James, Bernd Bickel |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 4 |
| 2025 | Progressive Dynamics++: A Framework for Stable, Continuous, and Consistent Animation Across Resolution and TimeabstractThe recently developed Progressive Dynamics framework [Zhang et al. 2024] addresses the long-standing challenge in enabling rapid iterative design for high-fidelity cloth and shell animation. In this work, we identify fundamental limitations of the original method in terms of stability and temporal continuity. For robust progressive dynamics simulation we seek methods that provide: (1) stability across all levels of detail (LOD) and timesteps, (2) temporally continuous animations without jumps or jittering, and (3) user-controlled balancing between geometric consistency and enrichment at each timestep, thereby making it a practical previewing tool with high-quality results at the finest level to be used as the final output. We propose a general framework, Progressive Dynamics++, for constructing a family of progressive dynamics integration methods that advance physical simulation states forward in both time and spatial resolution, which includes Zhang et al. [2024]'s method as one member. We analyze necessary stability conditions for Progressive Dynamics integrators and introduce a novel, stable method that significantly improves temporal continuity, supported by a new quantitative measure. Additionally, we present a quantitative analysis of the trade-off between geometric consistency and enrichment, along with strategies for balancing between these aspects in transitions across resolution and time. Jiayi Eris Zhang, Doug L. James, Danny M. Kaufman |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2024 | WaveBlender: Practical Sound-Source Animation in Blended Domains
Kangrui Xue, Jui-Hsien Wang, Timothy R. Langlois, Doug L. James |
SIGGRAPH Asia | 4 |
| 2024 | Progressive Dynamics for Cloth and Shell AnimationabstractWe propose Progressive Dynamics, a coarse-to-fine, level-of-detail simulation method for the physics-based animation of complex frictionally contacting thin shell and cloth dynamics. Progressive Dynamics provides tight-matching consistency and progressive improvement across levels, with comparable quality and realism to high-fidelity, IPC-based shell simulations [Li et al. 2021] at finest resolutions. Together these features enable an efficient animation-design pipeline with predictive coarse-resolution previews providing rapid design iterations for a final, to-be-generated, high-resolution animation. In contrast, previously, to design such scenes with comparable dynamics would require prohibitively slow design iterations via repeated direct simulations on high-resolution meshes. We evaluate and demonstrate Progressive Dynamics's features over a wide range of challenging stress-tests, benchmarks, and animation design tasks. Here Progressive Dynamics efficiently computes consistent previews at costs comparable to coarsest-level direct simulations. Its matching progressive refinements across levels then generate rich, high-resolution animations with high-speed dynamics, impacts, and the complex detailing of the dynamic wrinkling, folding, and sliding of frictionally contacting thin shells and fabrics. Jiayi Eris Zhang, Doug L. James, Danny M. Kaufman |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2023 | REALIMPACT: A Dataset of Impact Sound Fields for Real ObjectsabstractObjects make unique sounds under different perturbations, environment conditions, and poses relative to the listener. While prior works have modeled impact sounds and sound propagation in simulation, we lack a standard dataset of impact sound fields of real objects for audio-visual learning and calibration of the sim-to-real gap. We present Realimpact,a large-scale dataset of real object impact sounds recorded under controlled conditions. Re-alimpactcontains 150,000 recordings of impact sounds of 50 everyday objects with detailed annotations, including their impact locations, microphone locations, contact force profiles, material labels, and RGBD images.**The project page and dataset are available at https://samuelpclarke.com/realimpact/ We make preliminary attempts to use our dataset as a reference to current simulation methods for estimating object impact sounds that match the real world. Moreover, we demon-strate the usefulness of our dataset as a testbed for acoustic and audio-visual learning via the evaluation of two bench-mark tasks, including listener location classification and vi-sual acoustic matching. Samuel Clarke, Ruohan Gao, Mason L. Wang, Mark Rau, Julia Xu, Jui-Hsien Wang, Doug L. James, Jiajun Wu 0001 |
CVPR | 7 |
| 2023 | ViCMA: Visual Control of Multibody AnimationsabstractMotion control of large-scale, multibody physics animations with contact is difficult. Existing approaches, such as those based on optimization, are computationally daunting, and, as the number of interacting objects increases, can fail to find satisfactory solutions. We present a new, complementary method for the visual control of multibody animations that exploits object motion and visibility, and has overall cost comparable to a single simulation. Our method is highly practical, and is demonstrated on numerous large-scale, contact-rich examples involving both rigid and deformable bodies. Doug L. James, David I. W. Levin |
SIGGRAPH Asia | 1 |
| 2023 | Improved Water Sound Synthesis using Coupled BubblesabstractWe introduce a practical framework for synthesizing bubble-based water sounds that captures the rich inter-bubble coupling effects responsible for low-frequency acoustic emissions from bubble clouds. We propose coupled-bubble oscillator models with regularized singularities, and techniques to reduce the computational cost of time stepping with dense, time-varying mass matrices. Airborne acoustic emissions are estimated using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods. We propose a simple, analytical surface-acceleration model, and a sample-and-hold GPU wavesolver that is simple and faster than prior CPU wavesolvers. Sound synthesis results are demonstrated using bubbly flows from incompressible, two-phase simulations, as well as procedurally generated examples using single-phase FLIP fluid animations. Our results demonstrate sound simulations with hundreds of thousands of bubbles, and perceptually significant frequency transformations with fuller low-frequency content. Kangrui Xue, Ryan M. Aronson, Jui-Hsien Wang, Timothy R. Langlois, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 5 |
| 2023 | Progressive Shell Qasistatics for Unstructured MeshesabstractThin shell structures exhibit complex behaviors critical for modeling and design across wide-ranging applications. Capturing their mechanical response requires finely detailed, high-resolution meshes. Corresponding simulations for predicting equilibria with these meshes are expensive, whereas coarse-mesh simulations can be fast but generate unacceptable artifacts and inaccuracies. The recently proposed progressive simulation framework [Zhang et al. 2022] offers a promising avenue to address these limitations with consistent and progressively improving simulation over a hierarchy of increasingly higher-resolution models. Unfortunately, it is currently severely limited in application to meshes and shapes generated via Loop subdivision. We propose Progressive Shells Quasistatics to extend progressive simulation to the high-fidelity modeling and design of all input shell (and plate) geometries with unstructured (as well as structured) triangle meshes. To do so, we construct a fine-to-coarse hierarchy with a novel nonlinear prolongation operator custom-suited for curved-surface simulation that is rest-shape preserving, supports complex curved boundaries, and enables the reconstruction of detailed geometries from coarse-level meshes. Then, to enable convergent, high-quality solutions with robust contact handling, we propose a new, safe, and efficient shape-preserving upsampling method that ensures non-intersection and strain limits during refinement. With these core contributions, Progressive Shell Quasistatics enables, for the first time, wide generality for progressive simulation, including support for arbitrary curved-shell geometries, progressive collision objects, curved boundaries, and unstructured triangle meshes - all while ensuring that preview and final solutions remain free of intersections. We demonstrate these features across a wide range of stress-tests where progressive simulation captures the wrinkling, folding, twisting, and buckling behaviors of frictionally contacting thin shells with orders-of-magnitude speed-up in examples over direct fine-resolution simulation. Jiayi Eris Zhang, Jérémie Dumas, Yun Fei, Alec Jacobson, Doug L. James, Danny M. Kaufman |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 5 |
| 2022 | Unified many-worlds browsing of arbitrary physics-based animationsabstractManually tuning physics-based animation parameters to explore a simulation outcome space or achieve desired motion outcomes can be notoriously tedious. This problem has motivated many sophisticated and specialized optimization-based methods for fine-grained (keyframe) control, each of which are typically limited to specific animation phenomena, usually complicated, and, unfortunately, not widely used. In this paper, we propose Unified Many-Worlds Browsing (UMWB), a practical method for sample-level control and exploration of physics-based animations. Our approach supports browsing of large simulation ensembles of arbitrary animation phenomena by using a unified volumetric WORLDPACK representation based on spatiotemporally compressed voxel data associated with geometric occupancy and other low-fidelity animation state. Beyond memory reduction, the WORLDPACK representation also enables unified query support for interactive browsing: it provides fast evaluation of approximate spatiotemporal queries, such as occupancy tests that find ensemble samples ("worlds") where material is either IN or NOT IN a user-specified spacetime region. WORLDPACKS also support real-time hardware-accelerated voxel rendering by exploiting the spatially hierarchical and temporal RLE raster data structure. Our UMWB implementation supports interactive browsing (and offline refinement) of ensembles containing thousands of simulation samples, and fast spatiotemporal queries and ranking. We show UMWB results using a wide variety of physics-based animation phenomena---not just JELL-O ® . Purvi Goel, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2022 | Progressive Simulation for Cloth QuasistaticsabstractThe trade-off between speed and fidelity in cloth simulation is a fundamental computational problem in computer graphics and computational design. Coarse cloth models provide the interactive performance required by designers, but they can not be simulated at higher resolutions ("up-resed") without introducing simulation artifacts and/or unpredicted outcomes, such as different folds, wrinkles and drapes. But how can a coarse simulation predict the result of an unconstrained, high-resolution simulation that has not yet been run? We propose Progressive Cloth Simulation (PCS), a new forward simulation method for efficient preview of cloth quasistatics on exceedingly coarse triangle meshes with consistent and progressive improvement over a hierarchy of increasingly higher-resolution models. PCS provides an efficient coarse previewing simulation method that predicts the coarse-scale folds and wrinkles that will be generated by a corresponding converged, high-fidelity C-IPC simulation of the cloth drape's equilibrium. For each preview PCS can generate an increasing-resolution sequence of consistent models that progress towards this converged solution. This successive improvement can then be interrupted at any point, for example, whenever design parameters are updated. PCS then ensures feasibility at all resolutions, so that predicted solutions remain intersection-free and capture the complex folding and buckling behaviors of frictionally contacting cloth. Jiayi Eris Zhang, Jérémie Dumas, Yun Fei, Alec Jacobson, Doug L. James, Danny M. Kaufman |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 5 |
| 2021 | Personalized HRTF Modeling Using DNN-Augmented BEMabstractAccurate modeling of personalized head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) is difficult but critical for applications requiring spatial audio. However, this remains challenging as experimental measurements require specialized equipment, numerical simulations require accurate head geometries and robust solvers, and data-driven methods are hungry for data. In this paper, we propose a new deep learning method that combines measurements and numerical simulations to take the best of three worlds. By learning the residual difference and establishing a high quality spatial basis, our method achieves consistently 2 dB to 2.5 dB lower spectral distortion (SD) compared to the state-of-the-art methods. Mengfan Zhang, Jui-Hsien Wang, Doug L. James |
ICASSP | 3 |
| 2021 | Fast linking numbers for topology verification of loopy structuresabstractIt is increasingly common to model, simulate, and process complex materials based on loopy structures, such as in yarn-level cloth garments, which possess topological constraints between inter-looping curves. While the input model may satisfy specific topological linkages between pairs of closed loops, subsequent processing may violate those topological conditions. In this paper, we explore a family of methods for efficiently computing and verifying linking numbers between closed curves, and apply these to applications in geometry processing, animation, and simulation, so as to verify that topological invariants are preserved during and after processing of the input models. Our method has three stages: (1) we identify potentially interacting loop-loop pairs, then (2) carefully discretize each loop's spline curves into line segments so as to enable (3) efficient linking number evaluation using accelerated kernels based on either counting projected segment-segment crossings, or by evaluating the Gauss linking integral using direct or fast summation methods (Barnes-Hut or fast multipole methods). We evaluate CPU and GPU implementations of these methods on a suite of test problems, including yarn-level cloth and chainmail, that involve significant processing: physics-based relaxation and animation, user-modeled deformations, curve compression and reparameterization. We show that topology errors can be efficiently identified to enable more robust processing of loopy structures. Ante Qu, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2020 | Phong deformation: a better C0 interpolant for embedded deformationabstractPhysics-based simulations of deforming tetrahedral meshes are widely used to animate detailed embedded geometry. Unfortunately most practitioners still use linear interpolation (or other low-order schemes) on tetrahedra, which can produce undesirable visual artifacts, e.g., faceting and shading artifacts, that necessitate increasing the simulation's spatial resolution and, unfortunately, cost. In this paper, we propose Phong Deformation , a simple, robust and practical vertex-based quadratic interpolation scheme that, while still only C 0 continuous like linear interpolation, greatly reduces visual artifacts for embedded geometry. The method first averages element-based linear deformation models to vertices, then barycentrically interpolates the vertex models while also averaging with the traditional linear interpolation model. The method is a fast, robust, and easily implemented replacement for linear interpolation that produces visually better results for embedded deformation with irregular tetrahedral meshes. Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2020 | Weavecraft: an interactive design and simulation tool for 3D weavingabstract3D weaving is an emerging technology for manufacturing multilayer woven textiles. In this work, we present Weavecraft: an interactive, simulation-based design tool for 3D weaving. Unlike existing textile software that uses 2D representations for design patterns, we propose a novel weave block representation that helps the user to understand 3D woven structures and to create complex multi-layered patterns. With Weavecraft, users can create blocks either from scratch or by loading traditional weaves, compose the blocks into large structures, and edit the pattern at various scales. Furthermore, users can verify the design with a physically based simulator, which predicts and visualizes the geometric structure of the woven material and reveals potential defects at an interactive rate. We demonstrate a range of results created with our tool, from simple two-layer cloth and well known 3D structures to a more sophisticated design of a 3D woven shoe, and we evaluate the effectiveness of our system via a formative user study. Rundong Wu, Joy Xiaoji Zhang, Jonathan Leaf, Xinru Hua, Ante Qu, Claire Harvey, Emily Holtzman, Joy Ko, Brooks Hagan, Doug L. James, François Guimbretière, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 10 |
| 2019 | KleinPAT: optimal mode conflation for time-domain precomputation of acoustic transferabstractWe propose a new modal sound synthesis method that rapidly estimates all acoustic transfer fields of a linear modal vibration model, and greatly reduces preprocessing costs. Instead of performing a separate frequency-domain Helmholtz radiation analysis for each mode, our method partitions vibration modes into chords using optimal mode conflation , then performs a single time-domain wave simulation for each chord. We then perform transfer deconflation on each chord's time-domain radiation field using a specialized QR solver, and thereby extract the frequency-domain transfer functions of each mode. The precomputed transfer functions are represented for fast far-field evaluation, e.g., using multipole expansions. In this paper, we propose to use a single scalar-valued Far-field Acoustic Transfer (FFAT) cube map. We describe a GPU-accelerated vector wavesolver that achieves high-throughput acoustic transfer computation at accuracy sufficient for sound synthesis. Our implementation, KleinPAT, can achieve hundred- to thousand-fold speedups compared to existing Helmholtz-based transfer solvers, thereby enabling large-scale generation of modal sound models for audio-visual applications. Jui-Hsien Wang, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2018 | Dynamic kelvinlets: secondary motions based on fundamental solutions of elastodynamicsabstractWe introduce Dynamic Kelvinlets , a new analytical technique for real-time physically based animation of virtual elastic materials. Our formulation is based on the dynamic response to time-varying force distributions applied to an infinite elastic medium. The resulting displacements provide the plausibility of volumetric elasticity, the dynamics of compressive and shear waves, and the interactivity of closed-form expressions. Our approach builds upon the work of de Goes and James [2017] by presenting an extension of the regularized Kelvinlet solutions from elastostatics to the elastodynamic regime. To finely control our elastic deformations, we also describe the construction of compound solutions that resolve pointwise and keyframe constraints. We demonstrate the versatility and efficiency of our method with a series of examples in a production grade implementation. Fernando de Goes, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2018 | Interactive design of periodic yarn-level cloth patternsabstractWe describe an interactive design tool for authoring, simulating, and adjusting yarn-level patterns for knitted and woven cloth. To achieve interactive performance for notoriously slow yarn-level simulations, we propose two acceleration schemes: (a) yarn-level periodic boundary conditions that enable the restricted simulation of only small periodic patches, thereby exploiting the spatial repetition of many cloth patterns in cardinal directions, and (b) a highly parallel GPU solver for efficient yarn-level simulation of the small patch. Our system supports interactive pattern editing and simulation, and runtime modification of parameters. To adjust the amount of material used (yarn take-up) we support "on the fly" modification of (a) local yarn rest-length adjustments for pattern specific edits, e.g., to tighten slip stitches, and (b) global yarn length by way of a novel yarn-radius similarity transformation. We demonstrate the tool's ability to support interactive modeling, by novice users, of a wide variety of yarn-level knit and woven patterns. Finally, to validate our approach, we compare dozens of generated patterns against reference images of actual woven or knitted cloth samples, and we release this corpus of digital patterns and simulated models as a public dataset to support future comparisons. Jonathan Leaf, Rundong Wu, Eston Schweickart, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 4 |
| 2018 | Toward wave-based sound synthesis for computer animationabstractWe explore an integrated approach to sound generation that supports a wide variety of physics-based simulation models and computer-animated phenomena. Targeting high-quality offline sound synthesis, we seek to resolve animation-driven sound radiation with near-field scattering and diffraction effects. The core of our approach is a sharp-interface finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) wavesolver, with a series of supporting algorithms to handle rapidly deforming and vibrating embedded interfaces arising in physics-based animation sound. Once the solver rasterizes these interfaces, it must evaluate acceleration boundary conditions (BCs) that involve model-and phenomena-specific computations. We introduce acoustic shaders as a mechanism to abstract away these complexities, and describe a variety of implementations for computer animation: near-rigid objects with ringing and acceleration noise, deformable (finite element) models such as thin shells, bubble-based water, and virtual characters. Since time-domain wave synthesis is expensive, we only simulate pressure waves in a small region about each sound source, then estimate a far-field pressure signal. To further improve scalability beyond multi-threading, we propose a fully time-parallel sound synthesis method that is demonstrated on commodity cloud computing resources. In addition to presenting results for multiple animation phenomena (water, rigid, shells, kinematic deformers, etc.) we also propose 3D automatic dialogue replacement (3DADR) for virtual characters so that pre-recorded dialogue can include character movement, and near-field shadowing and scattering sound effects. Jui-Hsien Wang, Ante Qu, Timothy R. Langlois, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 4 |
| 2017 | Regularized kelvinlets: sculpting brushes based on fundamental solutions of elasticityabstractWe introduce a new technique for real-time physically based volume sculpting of virtual elastic materials. Our formulation is based on the elastic response to localized force distributions associated with common modeling primitives such as grab, scale, twist, and pinch. The resulting brush-like displacements correspond to the regularization of fundamental solutions of linear elasticity in infinite 2D and 3D media. These deformations thus provide the realism and plausibility of volumetric elasticity, and the interactivity of closed-form analytical solutions. To finely control our elastic deformations, we also construct compound brushes with arbitrarily fast spatial decay. Furthermore, pointwise constraints can be imposed on the displacement field and its derivatives via a single linear solve. We demonstrate the versatility and efficiency of our method with multiple examples of volume sculpting and image editing. Fernando de Goes, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2017 | Animating elastic rods with soundabstractSound generation methods, such as linear modal synthesis, can sonify a wide range of physics-based animation of solid objects, resolving vibrations and sound radiation from various structures. However, elastic rods are an important computer animation primitive for which prior sound synthesis methods, such as modal synthesis, are ill-suited for several reasons: large displacements, nonlinear vibrations, dispersion effects, and the geometrically singular nature of rods. In this paper, we present physically based methods for simultaneous generation of animation and sound for deformable rods. We draw on Kirchhoff theory to simplify the representation of rod dynamics and introduce a generalized dipole model to calculate the spatially varying acoustic radiation. In doing so, we drastically decrease the amount of precomputation required (in some cases eliminating it completely), while being able to resolve sound radiation for arbitrary body deformations encountered in computer animation. We present several examples, including challenging scenes involving thousands of highly coupled frictional contacts. Eston Schweickart, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2017 | Bounce maps: an improved restitution model for real-time rigid-body impactabstractWe present a novel method to enrich standard rigid-body impact models with a spatially varying coefficient of restitution map, or Bounce Map. Even state-of-the art methods in computer graphics assume that for a single rigid body, post- and pre-impact dynamics are related with a single global, constant, namely the coefficient of restitution. We first demonstrate that this assumption is highly inaccurate, even for simple objects. We then present a technique to efficiently and automatically generate a function which maps locations on the object's surface along with impact normals, to a scalar coefficient of restitution value. Furthermore, we propose a method for two-body restitution analysis, and, based on numerical experiments, estimate a practical model for combining one-body Bounce Map values to approximate the two-body coefficient of restitution. We show that our method not only improves accuracy, but also enables visually richer rigid-body simulations. Jui-Hsien Wang, Rajsekhar Setaluri, Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2016 | Toward animating water with complex acoustic bubblesabstractThis paper explores methods for synthesizing physics-based bubble sounds directly from two-phase incompressible simulations of bubbly water flows. By tracking fluid-air interface geometry, we identify bubble geometry and topological changes due to splitting, merging and popping. A novel capacitance-based method is proposed that can estimate volume-mode bubble frequency changes due to bubble size, shape, and proximity to solid and air interfaces. Our acoustic transfer model is able to capture cavity resonance effects due to near-field geometry, and we also propose a fast precomputed bubble-plane model for cheap transfer evaluation. In addition, we consider a bubble forcing model that better accounts for bubble entrainment, splitting, and merging events, as well as a Helmholtz resonator model for bubble popping sounds. To overcome frequency bandwidth limitations associated with coarse resolution fluid grids, we simulate micro-bubbles in the audio domain using a power-law model of bubble populations. Finally, we present several detailed examples of audiovisual water simulations and physical experiments to validate our frequency model. Timothy R. Langlois, Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2014 | Eigenmode compression for modal sound modelsabstractWe propose and evaluate a method for significantly compressing modal sound models, thereby making them far more practical for audiovisual applications. The dense eigenmode matrix, needed to compute the sound model's response to contact forces, can consume tens to thousands of megabytes depending on mesh resolution and mode count. Our eigenmode compression pipeline is based on non-linear optimization of Moving Least Squares (MLS) approximations. Enhanced compression is achieved by exploiting symmetry both within and between eigenmodes, and by adaptively assigning per-mode error levels based on human perception of the far-field pressure amplitudes. Our method provides smooth eigenmode approximations, and efficient random access. We demonstrate that, in many cases, hundredfold compression ratios can be achieved without audible degradation of the rendered sound. Timothy R. Langlois, Steven S. An, Kelvin K. Jin, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 4 |
| 2014 | Inverse-Foley animation: synchronizing rigid-body motions to soundabstractIn this paper, we introduce Inverse-Foley Animation , a technique for optimizing rigid-body animations so that contact events are synchronized with input sound events. A precomputed database of randomly sampled rigid-body contact events is used to build a contact-event graph, which can be searched to determine a plausible sequence of contact events synchronized with the input sound's events. To more easily find motions with matching contact times, we allow transitions between simulated contact events using a motion blending formulation based on modified contact impulses. We fine tune synchronization by slightly retiming ballistic motions. Given a sound, our system can synthesize synchronized motions using graphs built with hundreds of thousands of precomputed motions, and millions of contact events. Our system is easy to use, and has been used to plan motions for hundreds of sounds, and dozens of rigid-body models. Timothy R. Langlois, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2012 | Motion-driven concatenative synthesis of cloth soundsabstractWe present a practical data-driven method for automatically synthesizing plausible soundtracks for physics-based cloth animations running at graphics rates. Given a cloth animation, we analyze the deformations and use motion events to drive crumpling and friction sound models estimated from cloth measurements. We synthesize a low-quality sound signal, which is then used as a target signal for a concatenative sound synthesis (CSS) process. CSS selects a sequence of microsound units, very short segments, from a database of recorded cloth sounds, which best match the synthesized target sound in a low-dimensional feature-space after applying a hand-tuned warping function. The selected microsound units are concatenated together to produce the final cloth sound with minimal filtering. Our approach avoids expensive physics-based synthesis of cloth sound, instead relying on cloth recordings and our motion-driven CSS approach for realism. We demonstrate its effectiveness on a variety of cloth animations involving various materials and character motions, including first-person virtual clothing with binaural sound. Steven S. An, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2012 | Fabricating articulated characters from skinned meshesabstractArticulated deformable characters are widespread in computer animation. Unfortunately, we lack methods for their automatic fabrication using modern additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. We propose a method that takes a skinned mesh as input, then estimates a fabricatable single-material model that approximates the 3D kinematics of the corresponding virtual articulated character in a piecewise linear manner. We first extract a set of potential joint locations. From this set, together with optional, user-specified range constraints, we then estimate mechanical friction joints that satisfy inter-joint non-penetration and other fabrication constraints. To avoid brittle joint designs, we place joint centers on an approximate medial axis representation of the input geometry, and maximize each joint's minimal cross-sectional area. We provide several demonstrations, manufactured as single, assembled pieces using 3D printers. Moritz Bächer, Bernd Bickel, Doug L. James, Hanspeter Pfister |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2012 | Precomputed acceleration noise for improved rigid-body soundabstractWe introduce an efficient method for synthesizing acceleration noise -- sound produced when an object experiences abrupt rigid-body acceleration due to collisions or other contact events. We approach this in two main steps. First, we estimate continuous contact force profiles from rigid-body impulses using a simple model based on Hertz contact theory. Next, we compute solutions to the acoustic wave equation due to short acceleration pulses in each rigid-body degree of freedom. We introduce an efficient representation for these solutions -- Precomputed Acceleration Noise -- which allows us to accurately estimate sound due to arbitrary rigid-body accelerations. We find that the addition of acceleration noise significantly complements the standard modal sound algorithm, especially for small objects. Jeffrey N. Chadwick, Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2012 | Stitch meshes for modeling knitted clothing with yarn-level detailabstractRecent yarn-based simulation techniques permit realistic and efficient dynamic simulation of knitted clothing, but producing the required yarn-level models remains a challenge. The lack of practical modeling techniques significantly limits the diversity and complexity of knitted garments that can be simulated. We propose a new modeling technique that builds yarn-level models of complex knitted garments for virtual characters. We start with a polygonal model that represents the large-scale surface of the knitted cloth. Using this mesh as an input, our interactive modeling tool produces a finer mesh representing the layout of stitches in the garment, which we call the stitch mesh . By manipulating this mesh and assigning stitch types to its faces, the user can replicate a variety of complicated knitting patterns. The curve model representing the yarn is generated from the stitch mesh, then the final shape is computed by a yarn-level physical simulation that locally relaxes the yarn into realistic shape while preserving global shape of the garment and avoiding "yarn pull-through," thereby producing valid yarn geometry suitable for dynamic simulation. Using our system, we can efficiently create yarn-level models of knitted clothing with a rich variety of patterns that would be completely impractical to model using traditional techniques. We show a variety of example knitting patterns and full-scale garments produced using our system. Cem Yuksel, Jonathan M. Kaldor, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2012 | Energy-based self-collision culling for arbitrary mesh deformationsabstractIn this paper, we accelerate self-collision detection (SCD) for a deforming triangle mesh by exploiting the idea that a mesh cannot self collide unless it deforms enough. Unlike prior work on subspace self-collision culling which is restricted to low-rank deformation subspaces, our energy-based approach supports arbitrary mesh deformations while still being fast. Given a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) for a triangle mesh, we precompute Energy-based Self-Collision Culling (ESCC) certificates on bounding-volume-related sub-meshes which indicate the amount of deformation energy required for it to self collide. After updating energy values at runtime, many bounding-volume self-collision queries can be culled using the ESCC certificates. We propose an affine-frame Laplacian-based energy definition which sports a highly optimized certificate pre-process, and fast runtime energy evaluation. The latter is performed hierarchically to amortize Laplacian energy and affine-frame estimation computations. ESCC supports both discrete and continuous SCD with detailed and nonsmooth geometry. We observe significant culling on many examples, with SCD speed-ups up to 26X. Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2012 | Physics-Based Character Skinning Using Multidomain Subspace DeformationsabstractIn this extended version of our Symposium on Computer Animation paper, we describe a domain-decomposition method to simulate articulated deformable characters entirely within a subspace framework. We have added a parallelization and eigendecomposition performance analysis, and several additional examples to the original symposium version. The method supports quasistatic and dynamic deformations, nonlinear kinematics and materials, and can achieve interactive time-stepping rates. To avoid artificial rigidity, or “locking,” associated with coupling low-rank domain models together with hard constraints, we employ penaltybased coupling forces. The multidomain subspace integrator can simulate deformations efficiently, and exploits efficient subspace-only evaluation of constraint forces between rotated domains using a novel Fast Sandwich Transform (FST). Examples are presented for articulated characters with quasistatic and dynamic deformations, and interactive performance with hundreds of fully coupled modes. Using our method, we have observed speedups of between 3 and 4 orders of magnitude over full-rank, unreduced simulations. Theodore Kim, Doug L. James |
IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. | 2 |
| 2011 | Animating fire with soundabstractWe propose a practical method for synthesizing plausible fire sounds that are synchronized with physically based fire animations. To enable synthesis of combustion sounds without incurring the cost of time-stepping fluid simulations at audio rates, we decompose our synthesis procedure into two components. First, a low-frequency flame sound is synthesized using a physically based combustion sound model driven with data from a visual flame simulation run at a relatively low temporal sampling rate. Second, we propose two bandwidth extension methods for synthesizing additional high-frequency flame sound content: (1) spectral bandwidth extension which synthesizes higher-frequency noise matching combustion sound spectra from theory and experiment; and (2) data-driven texture synthesis to synthesize high-frequency content based on input flame sound recordings. Various examples and comparisons are presented demonstrating plausible flame sounds, from small candle flames to large flame jets. Jeffrey N. Chadwick, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2011 | Toward high-quality modal contact soundabstractContact sound models based on linear modal analysis are commonly used with rigid body dynamics. Unfortunately, treating vibrating objects as "rigid" during collision and contact processing fundamentally limits the range of sounds that can be computed, and contact solvers for rigid body animation can be ill-suited for modal contact sound synthesis, producing various sound artifacts. In this paper, we resolve modal vibrations in both collision and frictional contact processing stages, thereby enabling non-rigid sound phenomena such as micro-collisions, vibrational energy exchange, and chattering. We propose a frictional multibody contact formulation and modified Staggered Projections solver which is well-suited to sound rendering and avoids noise artifacts associated with spatial and temporal contact-force fluctuations which plague prior methods. To enable practical animation and sound synthesis of numerous bodies with many coupled modes, we propose a novel asynchronous integrator with model-level adaptivity built into the frictional contact solver. Vibrational contact damping is modeled to approximate contact-dependent sound dissipation. Results are provided that demonstrate high-quality contact resolution with sound. Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2010 | Subspace self-collision cullingabstractWe show how to greatly accelerate self-collision detection (SCD) for reduced deformable models. Given a triangle mesh and a set of deformation modes, our method precomputes Subspace Self-Collision Culling (SSCC) certificates which, if satisfied, prove the absence of self-collisions for large parts of the model. At runtime, bounding volume hierarchies augmented with our certificates can aggressively cull overlap tests and reduce hierarchy updates. Our method supports both discrete and continuous SCD, can handle complex geometry, and makes no assumptions about geometric smoothness or normal bounds. It is particularly effective for simulations with modest subspace deformations, where it can often verify the absence of self-collisions in constant time. Our certificates enable low amortized costs, in time and across many objects in multi-body dynamics simulations. Finally, SSCC is effective enough to support self-collision tests at audio rates, which we demonstrate by producing the first sound simulations of clattering objects. Jernej Barbic, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2010 | Efficient yarn-based cloth with adaptive contact linearizationabstractYarn-based cloth simulation can improve visual quality but at high computational costs due to the reliance on numerous persistent yarn-yarn contacts to generate material behavior. Finding so many contacts in densely interlinked geometry is a pathological case for traditional collision detection, and the sheer number of contact interactions makes contact processing the simulation bottleneck. In this paper, we propose a method for approximating penalty-based contact forces in yarn-yarn collisions by computing the exact contact response at one time step, then using a rotated linear force model to approximate forces in nearby deformed configurations. Because contacts internal to the cloth exhibit good temporal coherence, sufficient accuracy can be obtained with infrequent updates to the approximation, which are done adaptively in space and time. Furthermore, by tracking contact models we reduce the time to detect new contacts. The end result is a 7- to 9-fold speedup in contact processing and a 4- to 5-fold overall speedup, enabling simulation of character-scale garments. Jonathan M. Kaldor, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2010 | Rigid-body fracture sound with precomputed soundbanksabstractWe propose a physically based algorithm for synthesizing sounds synchronized with brittle fracture animations. Motivated by laboratory experiments, we approximate brittle fracture sounds using time-varying rigid-body sound models. We extend methods for fracturing rigid materials by proposing a fast quasistatic stress solver to resolve near-audio-rate fracture events, energy-based fracture pattern modeling and estimation of "crack"-related fracture impulses. Multipole radiation models provide scalable sound radiation for complex debris and level of detail control. To reduce soundmodel generation costs for complex fracture debris, we propose Precomputed Rigid-Body Soundbanks comprised of precomputed ellipsoidal sound proxies. Examples and experiments are presented that demonstrate plausible and affordable brittle fracture sounds. Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2009 | Symposium on Computer Animation 2008
Doug L. James |
Graph. Model. | 1 |
| 2009 | Harmonic shells: a practical nonlinear sound model for near-rigid thin shellsabstractWe propose a procedural method for synthesizing realistic sounds due to nonlinear thin-shell vibrations. We use linear modal analysis to generate a small-deformation displacement basis, then couple the modes together using nonlinear thin-shell forces. To enable audio-rate time-stepping of mode amplitudes with mesh-independent cost, we propose a reduced-order dynamics model based on a thin-shell cubature scheme. Limitations such as mode locking and pitch glide are addressed. To support fast evaluation of mid-frequency mode-based sound radiation for detailed meshes, we propose far-field acoustic transfer maps (FFAT maps) which can be precomputed using state-of-the-art fast Helmholtz multipole methods. Familiar examples are presented including rumbling trash cans and plastic bottles, crashing cymbals, and noisy sheet metal objects, each with increased richness over linear modal sound models. Jeffrey N. Chadwick, Steven S. An, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2009 | Skipping steps in deformable simulation with online model reductionabstractFinite element simulations of nonlinear deformable models are computationally costly, routinely taking hours or days to compute the motion of detailed meshes. Dimensional model reduction can make simulations orders of magnitude faster, but is unsuitable for general deformable body simulations because it requires expensive precomputations, and it can suppress motion that lies outside the span of a pre-specified low-rank basis. We present an online model reduction method that does not have these limitations. In lieu of precomputation, we analyze the motion of the full model as the simulation progresses, incrementally building a reduced-order nonlinear model, and detecting when our reduced model is capable of performing the next timestep. For these subspace steps, full-model computation is "skipped" and replaced with a very fast (on the order of milliseconds) reduced order step. We present algorithms for both dynamic and quasistatic simulations, and a "throttle" parameter that allows a user to trade off between faster, approximate previews and slower, more conservative results. For detailed meshes undergoing low-rank motion, we have observed speedups of over an order of magnitude with our method. Theodore Kim, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2009 | Harmonic fluidsabstractFluid sounds, such as splashing and pouring, are ubiquitous and familiar but we lack physically based algorithms to synthesize them in computer animation or interactive virtual environments. We propose a practical method for automatic procedural synthesis of synchronized harmonic bubble-based sounds from 3D fluid animations. To avoid audio-rate time-stepping of compressible fluids, we acoustically augment existing incompressible fluid solvers with particle-based models for bubble creation, vibration, advection, and radiation. Sound radiation from harmonic fluid vibrations is modeled using a time-varying linear superposition of bubble oscillators. We weight each oscillator by its bubble-to-ear acoustic transfer function, which is modeled as a discrete Green's function of the Helmholtz equation. To solve potentially millions of 3D Helmholtz problems, we propose a fast dual-domain multipole boundary-integral solver, with cost linear in the complexity of the fluid domain's boundary. Enhancements are proposed for robust evaluation, noise elimination, acceleration, and parallelization. Examples are provided for water drops, pouring, babbling, and splashing phenomena, often with thousands of acoustic bubbles, and hundreds of thousands of transfer function solves. Changxi Zheng, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2008 | Optimizing cubature for efficient integration of subspace deformationsabstractWe propose an efficient scheme for evaluating nonlinear subspace forces (and Jacobians) associated with subspace deformations. The core problem we address is efficient integration of the subspace force density over the 3D spatial domain. Similar to Gaussian quadrature schemes that efficiently integrate functions that lie in particular polynomial subspaces, we propose cubature schemes (multi-dimensional quadrature) optimized for efficient integration of force densities associated with particular subspace deformations, particular materials, and particular geometric domains. We support generic subspace deformation kinematics, and nonlinear hyperelastic materials. For an r-dimensional deformation subspace with O(r) cubature points, our method is able to evaluate subspace forces at O(r(2)) cost. We also describe composite cubature rules for runtime error estimation. Results are provided for various subspace deformation models, several hyperelastic materials (St.Venant-Kirchhoff, Mooney-Rivlin, Arruda-Boyce), and multimodal (graphics, haptics, sound) applications. We show dramatically better efficiency than traditional Monte Carlo integration. CR CATEGORIES: I.6.8 [Simulation and Modeling]: Types of Simulation-Animation, I.3.5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling-Physically based modeling G.1.4 [Mathematics of Computing]: Numerical Analysis-Quadrature and Numerical Differentiation. Steven S. An, Theodore Kim, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2008 | Fast modal sounds with scalable frequency-domain synthesisabstractAudio rendering of impact sounds, such as those caused by falling objects or explosion debris, adds realism to interactive 3D audiovisual applications, and can be convincingly achieved using modal sound synthesis. Unfortunately, mode-based computations can become prohibitively expensive when many objects, each with many modes, are impacted simultaneously. We introduce a fast sound synthesis approach, based on short-time Fourier Tranforms, that exploits the inherent sparsity of modal sounds in the frequency domain. For our test scenes, this "fast mode summation" can give speedups of 5--8 times compared to a time-domain solution, with slight degradation in quality. We discuss different reconstruction windows, affecting the quality of impact sound "attacks". Our Fourier-domain processing method allows us to introduce a scalable, real-time, audio processing pipeline for both recorded and modal sounds, with auditory masking and sound source clustering. To avoid abrupt computation peaks, such as during the simultaneous impacts of an explosion, we use crossmodal perception results on audiovisual synchrony to effect temporal scheduling. We also conducted a pilot perceptual user evaluation of our method. Our implementation results show that we can treat complex audiovisual scenes in real time with high quality. Nicolas Bonneel, George Drettakis, Nicolas Tsingos, Isabelle Viaud-Delmon, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 5 |
| 2008 | Simulating knitted cloth at the yarn levelabstractKnitted fabric is widely used in clothing because of its unique and stretchy behavior, which is fundamentally different from the behavior of woven cloth. The properties of knits come from the nonlinear, three-dimensional kinematics of long, inter-looping yarns, and despite significant advances in cloth animation we still do not know how to simulate knitted fabric faithfully. Existing cloth simulators mainly adopt elastic-sheet mechanical models inspired by woven materials, focusing less on the model itself than on important simulation challenges such as efficiency, stability, and robustness. We define a new computational model for knits in terms of the motion of yarns, rather than the motion of a sheet. Each yarn is modeled as an inextensible, yet otherwise flexible, B-spline tube. To simulate complex knitted garments, we propose an implicit-explicit integrator, with yarn inextensibility constraints imposed using efficient projections. Friction among yarns is approximated using rigid-body velocity filters, and key yarn-yarn interactions are mediated by stiff penalty forces. Our results show that this simple model predicts the key mechanical properties of different knits, as demonstrated by qualitative comparisons to observed deformations of actual samples in the laboratory, and that the simulator can scale up to substantial animations with complex dynamic motion. Jonathan M. Kaldor, Doug L. James, Steve Marschner |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2008 | Staggered projections for frictional contact in multibody systemsabstractWe present a new discrete velocity-level formulation of frictional contact dynamics that reduces to a pair of coupled projections and introduce a simple fixed-point property of this coupled system. This allows us to construct a novel algorithm for accurate frictional contact resolution based on a simple staggered sequence of projections. The algorithm accelerates performance using warm starts to leverage the potentially high temporal coherence between contact states and provides users with direct control over frictional accuracy. Applying this algorithm to rigid and deformable systems, we obtain robust and accurate simulations of frictional contact behavior not previously possible, at rates suitable for interactive haptic simulations, as well as large-scale animations. By construction, the proposed algorithm guarantees exact, velocity-level contact constraint enforcement and obtains long-term stable and robust integration. Examples are given to illustrate the performance, plausibility and accuracy of the obtained solutions. Danny M. Kaufman, Shinjiro Sueda, Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2008 | Wavelet turbulence for fluid simulationabstractWe present a novel wavelet method for the simulation of fluids at high spatial resolution. The algorithm enables large- and small-scale detail to be edited separately, allowing high-resolution detail to be added as a post-processing step. Instead of solving the Navier-Stokes equations over a highly refined mesh, we use the wavelet decomposition of a low-resolution simulation to determine the location and energy characteristics of missing high-frequency components. We then synthesize these missing components using a novel incompressible turbulence function, and provide a method to maintain the temporal coherence of the resulting structures. There is no linear system to solve, so the method parallelizes trivially and requires only a few auxiliary arrays. The method guarantees that the new frequencies will not interfere with existing frequencies, allowing animators to set up a low resolution simulation quickly and later add details without changing the overall fluid motion. Theodore Kim, Nils Thürey, Doug L. James, Markus Gross 0001 |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 3 |
| 2008 | Backward steps in rigid body simulationabstractPhysically based simulation of rigid body dynamics is commonly done by time-stepping systems forward in time. In this paper, we propose methods to allow time-stepping rigid body systems back-ward in time. Unfortunately, reverse-time integration of rigid bodies involving frictional contact is mathematically ill-posed, and can lack unique solutions. We instead propose time-reversed rigid body integrators that can sample possible solutions when unique ones do not exist. We also discuss challenges related to dissipation-related energy gain, sensitivity to initial conditions, stacking, constraints and articulation, rolling, sliding, skidding, bouncing, high angular velocities, rapid velocity growth from micro-collisions, and other problems encountered when going against the usual flow of time. Christopher D. Twigg, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2007 | Mesh Ensemble Motion Graphs: Data-driven mesh animation with constraintsabstractWe explore the use of space-time cuts to smoothly transition between stochastic mesh animation clips involving numerous deformable mesh groups while subject to physical constraints. These transitions are used to construct Mesh Ensemble Motion Graphs for interactive data-driven animation of high-dimensional mesh animation datasets, such as those arising from expensive physical simulations of deformable objects blowing in the wind. We formulate the transition computation as an integer programming problem, and introduce a novel randomized algorithm to compute transitions subject to geometric nonpenetration constraints. We present examples for several physically based motion datasets, with real-time display and optional interactive control over wind intensity via transitions between wind levels. We discuss challenges and opportunities for future work and practical application. Doug L. James, Christopher D. Twigg, Andrew Cove, Robert Y. Wang |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2007 | FastLSM: fast lattice shape matching for robust real-time deformationabstractWe introduce a simple technique that enables robust approximation of volumetric, large-deformation dynamics for real-time or large-scale offline simulations. We propose Lattice Shape Matching , an extension of deformable shape matching to regular lattices with embedded geometry; lattice vertices are smoothed by convolution of rigid shape matching operators on local lattice regions, with the effective mechanical stiffness specified by the amount of smoothing via region width. Since the naïve method can be very slow for stiff models - per-vertex costs scale cubically with region width - we provide a fast summation algorithm, Fast Lattice Shape Matching (FastLSM) , that exploits the inherent summation redundancy of shape matching and can provide large-region matching at constant per-vertex cost. With this approach, large lattices can be simulated in linear time. We present several examples and benchmarks of an efficient CPU implementation, including many dozens of soft bodies simulated at real-time rates on a typical desktop machine. Alec R. Rivers, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2007 | Many-worlds browsing for control of multibody dynamicsabstractAnimation techniques for controlling passive simulation are commonly based on an optimization paradigm: the user provides goals a priori , and sophisticated numerical methods minimize a cost function that represents these goals. Unfortunately, for multibody systems with discontinuous contact events these optimization problems can be highly nontrivial to solve, and many-hour offline optimizations, unintuitive parameters, and convergence failures can frustrate end-users and limit usage. On the other hand, users are quite adaptable, and systems which provide interactive feedback via an intuitive interface can leverage the user's own abilities to quickly produce interesting animations. However, the online computation necessary for interactivity limits scene complexity in practice. We introduce Many-Worlds Browsing , a method which circumvents these limits by exploiting the speed of multibody simulators to compute numerous example simulations in parallel (offline and online), and allow the user to browse and modify them interactively. We demonstrate intuitive interfaces through which the user can select among the examples and interactively adjust those parts of the scene that do not match his requirements. We show that using a combination of our techniques, unusual and interesting results can be generated for moderately sized scenes with under an hour of user time. Scalability is demonstrated by sampling much larger scenes using modest offline computations. Christopher D. Twigg, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2006 | Precomputed acoustic transfer: output-sensitive, accurate sound generation for geometrically complex vibration sourcesabstractSimulating sounds produced by realistic vibrating objects is challenging because sound radiation involves complex diffraction and interreflection effects that are very perceptible and important. These wave phenomena are well understood, but have been largely ignored in computer graphics due to the high cost and complexity of computing them at audio rates.We describe a new algorithm for real-time synthesis of realistic sound radiation from rigid objects. We start by precomputing the linear vibration modes of an object, and then relate each mode to its sound pressure field, or acoustic transfer function, using standard methods from numerical acoustics. Each transfer function is then approximated to a specified accuracy using low-order multi-pole sources placed near the object. We provide a low-memory, multilevel, randomized algorithm for optimized source placement that is suitable for complex geometries. At runtime, we can simulate new interaction sounds by quickly summing contributions from each mode's equivalent multipole sources. We can efficiently simulate global effects such as interreflection and changes in sound due to listener location. The simulation costs can be dynamically traded-off for sound quality. We present several examples of sound generation from physically based animations. Doug L. James, Jernej Barbic, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2005 | Real-Time subspace integration for St. Venant-Kirchhoff deformable modelsabstractIn this paper, we present an approach for fast subspace integration of reduced-coordinate nonlinear deformable models that is suitable for interactive applications in computer graphics and haptics. Our approach exploits dimensional model reduction to build reduced-coordinate deformable models for objects with complex geometry. We exploit the fact that model reduction on large deformation models with linear materials (as commonly used in graphics) result in internal force models that are simply cubic polynomials in reduced coordinates. Coefficients of these polynomials can be precomputed, for efficient runtime evaluation. This allows simulation of nonlinear dynamics using fast implicit Newmark subspace integrators, with subspace integration costs independent of geometric complexity. We present two useful approaches for generating low-dimensional subspace bases: modal derivatives and an interactive sketching technique. Mass-scaled principal component analysis (mass-PCA) is suggested for dimensionality reduction. Finally, several examples are given from computer animation to illustrate high performance, including force-feedback haptic rendering of a complicated object undergoing large deformations. Jernej Barbic, Doug L. James |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 2 |
| 2005 | Skinning mesh animationsabstractWe extend approaches for skinning characters to the general setting of skinning deformable mesh animations. We provide an automatic algorithm for generating progressive skinning approximations, that is particularly efficient for pseudo-articulated motions. Our contributions include the use of nonparametric mean shift clustering of high-dimensional mesh rotation sequences to automatically identify statistically relevant bones, and robust least squares methods to determine bone transformations, bone-vertex influence sets, and vertex weight values. We use a low-rank data reduction model defined in the undeformed mesh configuration to provide progressive convergence with a fixed number of bones. We show that the resulting skinned animations enable efficient hardware rendering, rest pose editing, and deformable collision detection. Finally, we present numerous examples where skins were automatically generated using a single set of parameter values. Doug L. James, Christopher D. Twigg |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2004 | BD-tree: output-sensitive collision detection for reduced deformable modelsabstractWe introduce the Bounded Deformation Tree, or BD-Tree, which can perform collision detection with reduced deformable models at costs comparable to collision detection with rigid objects. Reduced deformable models represent complex deformations as linear superpositions of arbitrary displacement fields, and are used in a variety of applications of interactive computer graphics. The BD-Tree is a bounding sphere hierarchy for output-sensitive collision detection with such models. Its bounding spheres can be updated after deformation in any order, and at a cost independent of the geometric complexity of the model; in fact the cost can be as low as one multiplication and addition per tested sphere, and at most linear in the number of reduced deformation coordinates. We show that the BD-Tree is also extremely simple to implement, and performs well in practice for a variety of real-time and complex off-line deformable simulation examples. Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2003 | Precomputing interactive dynamic deformable scenesabstractWe present an approach for precomputing data-driven models of interactive physically based deformable scenes. The method permits real-time hardware synthesis of nonlinear deformation dynamics, including self-contact and global illumination effects, and supports real-time user interaction. We use data-driven tabulation of the system's deterministic state space dynamics, and model reduction to build efficient low-rank parameterizations of the deformed shapes. To support runtime interaction, we also tabulate impulse response functions for a palette of external excitations. Although our approach simulates particular systems under very particular interaction conditions, it has several advantages. First, parameterizing all possible scene deformations enables us to precompute novel reduced coparameterizations of global scene illumination for low-frequency lighting conditions. Second, because the deformation dynamics are precomputed and parameterized as a whole, collisions are resolved within the scene during precomputation so that runtime self-collision handling is implicit. Optionally, the data-driven models can be synthesized on programmable graphics hardware, leaving only the low-dimensional state space dynamics and appearance data models to be computed by the main CPU. Doug L. James, Kayvon Fatahalian |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2003 | Multiresolution green's function methods for interactive simulation of large-scale elastostatic objectsabstractWe present a framework for low-latency interactive simulation of linear elastostatic models, and other systems arising from linear elliptic partial differential equations, which makes it feasible to interactively simulate large-scale physical models. The deformation of the models is described using precomputed Green's functions (GFs), and runtime boundary value problems (BVPs) are solved using existing Capacitance Matrix Algorithms (CMAs). Multiresolution techniques are introduced to control the amount of information input and output from the solver thus making it practical to simulate and store very large models. A key component is the efficient compressed representation of the precomputed GFs using second-generation wavelets on surfaces. This aids in reducing the large memory requirement of storing the dense GF matrix, and the fast inverse wavelet transform allows for fast summation methods to be used at run-time for response synthesis. Resulting GF compression factors are directly related to interactive simulation speedup, and examples are provided with hundredfold improvements at modest error levels. We also introduce a multiresolution constraint satisfaction technique formulated as a hierarchical CMA, so named because of its use of hierarchical GFs describing the response due to hierarchical basis constraints. This direct solution approach is suitable for hard real-time simulation since it provides a mechanism for gracefully degrading to coarser resolution constraint approximations. The GFs' multiresolution displacement fields also allow for run-time adaptive multiresolution rendering. Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2002 | Real Time Simulation of Multizone Elastokinematic ModelsabstractWe introduce precomputed multizone elastokinematic models for interactive simulation of multibody kinematic systems which include elastostatic deformations. This enables an efficient form of domain decomposition, suitable for interactive simulation of stiff flexible structures for real time applications such as interactive assembly. One advantage of multizone models is that each zone can have small strains, and hence be modeled with linear elasticity, while the entire multizone/multibody system admits large nonlinear relative strains. This permits fast capacitance matrix algorithms and precomputed Green's functions to be used for efficient real time simulation. Examples are given for a human finger modeled as a kinematic chain with a compliant elastic covering. Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ICRA | 1 |
| 2002 | DyRT: dynamic response textures for real time deformation simulation with graphics hardwareabstractIn this paper we describe how to simulate geometrically complex, interactive, physically-based, volumetric, dynamic deformation models with negligible main CPU costs. This is achieved using a Dy namic R esponse T exture, or DyRT, that can be mapped onto any conventional animation as an optional rendering stage using commodity graphics hardware. The DyRT simulation process employs precomputed modal vibration models excited by rigid body motions. We present several examples, with an emphasis on bone-based character animation for interactive applications. Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
ACM Trans. Graph. | 1 |
| 2001 | Scanning physical interaction behavior of 3D objectsabstractWe describe a system for constructing computer models of several aspects of physical interaction behavior, by scanning the response of real objects. The behaviors we can successfully scan and model include deformation response, contact textures for interaction with force-feedback, and contact sounds. The system we describe uses a highly automated robotic facility that can scan behavior models of whole objects. We provide a comprehensive view of the modeling process, including selection of model structure, measurement, estimation, and rendering at interactive rates. The results are demonstrated with two examples: a soft stuffed toy which has significant deformation behavior, and a hard clay pot which has significant contact textures and sounds. The results described here make it possible to quickly construct physical interaction models of objects for applications in games, animation, and e-commerce. Dinesh K. Pai, Kees van den Doel, Doug L. James, Jochen Lang 0001, John E. Lloyd, Joshua L. Richmond, Som H. Yau |
SIGGRAPH | 3 |
| 1999 | ArtDefo: Accurate Real Time Deformable ObjectsabstractArticle ArtDefo: accurate real time deformable objects Share on Authors: Doug L. James Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of British Columbia Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of British ColumbiaView Profile , Dinesh K. Pai Institute of Applied Mathematics and Dept. of Computer Science, 2366 Main Mall, UBC, Vancouver, Canada and University of British Columbia Institute of Applied Mathematics and Dept. of Computer Science, 2366 Main Mall, UBC, Vancouver, Canada and University of British ColumbiaView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGGRAPH '99: Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesJuly 1999 Pages 65–72https://doi.org/10.1145/311535.311542Online:01 July 1999Publication History 303citation1,655DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations303Total Downloads1,655Last 12 Months56Last 6 weeks8 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 SiteGet Access Doug L. James, Dinesh K. Pai |
SIGGRAPH | 1 |