Local Volume Preservation for Skinned Characters

Generating plausible deformations of a character skin within the standard production pipeline is a challenge. This paper presents a volume preservation method dedicated to skinned characters. As usual, the character is defined by a skin mesh at some rest pose and an animation skeleton. At each animation step, skin deformations are first computed using standard SSD. Our method corrects the result using a set of local deformations which model the fold‐over‐free, constant volume behavior of soft tissues. This is done geometrically, without the need of any physically‐based simulation. To make the method easily applicable, we also provide automatic ways to extract the local regions where volume is to be preserved and to compute adequate skinning weights, both based on the character's morphology.     

Inverse Modelling of Incompressible Gas Flow in Subspace

This paper advocates a novel method for modelling physically realistic flow from captured incompressible gas sequence via modal analysis in frequency‐constrained subspace. Our analytical tool is uniquely founded upon empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and modal reduction for fluids, which are seamlessly integrated towards a powerful, style‐controllable flow modelling approach. We first extend EMD, which is capable of processing 1D time series but has shown inadequacies for 3D graphics earlier, to fit gas flows in 3D. Next, frequency components from EMD are adopted as candidate vectors for bases of modal reduction. The prerequisite parameters of the Navier–Stokes equations are then optimized to inversely model the physically realistic flow in the frequency‐constrained subspace. The estimated parameters can be utilized for re‐simulation, or be altered toward fluid editing. Our novel inverse‐modelling technique produces real‐time gas sequences after precomputation, and is convenient to couple with other methods for visual enhancement and/or special visual effects. We integrate our new modelling tool with a state‐of‐the‐art fluid capturing approach, forming a complete pipeline from real‐world fluid to flow re‐simulation and editing for various graphics applications.     

Time‐Discrete Geodesics in the Space of Shells

Building on concepts from continuum mechanics, we offer a computational model for geodesics in the space of thin shells, with a metric that reflects viscous dissipation required to physically deform a thin shell. Different from previous work, we incorporate bending contributions into our deformation energy on top of membrane distortion terms in order to obtain a physically sound notion of distance between shells, which does not require additional smoothing. Our bending energy formulation depends on the so‐called relative Weingarten map, for which we provide a discrete analogue based on principles of discrete differential geometry. Our computational results emphasize the strong impact of physical parameters on the evolution of a shell shape along a geodesic path.     

Real‐time Animation of Sand‐Water Interaction

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

Simulation of Human Motion Data using Short-Horizon Model-Predictive Control

Many data‐driven animation techniques are capable of producing high quality motions of human characters. Few techniques, however, are capable of generating motions that are consistent with physically simulated environments. Physically simulated characters, in contrast, are automatically consistent with the environment, but their motions are often unnatural because they are difficult to control. We present a model‐predictive controller that yields natural motions by guiding simulated humans toward real motion data. During simulation, the predictive component of the controller solves a quadratic program to compute the forces for a short window of time into the future. These forces are then applied by a low‐gain proportional‐derivative component, which makes minor adjustments until the next planning cycle. The controller is fast enough for interactive systems such as games and training simulations. It requires no precomputation and little manual tuning. The controller is resilient to mismatches between the character dynamics and the input motion, which allows it to track motion capture data even where the real dynamics are not known precisely. The same principled formulation can generate natural walks, runs, and jumps in a number of different physically simulated surroundings.     

Practical Capture and Reproduction of Phosphorescent Appearance

This paper proposes a pipeline to accurately acquire, efficiently reproduce and intuitively manipulate phosphorescent appearance. In contrast to common appearance models, a model of phosphorescence needs to account for temporal change (decay) and previous illumination (saturation). For reproduction, we propose a rate equation that can be efficiently solved in combination with other illumination in a mixed integro‐differential equation system. We describe an acquisition system to measure spectral coefficients of this rate equation for actual materials. Our model is evaluated by comparison to photographs of actual phosphorescent objects. Finally, we propose an artist‐friendly interface to control the behavior of phosphorescent materials by specifying spatiotemporal appearance constraints.     

A Physically‐Based BSDF for Modeling the Appearance of Paper

We present a novel appearance model for paper. Based on our appearance measurements for matte and glossy paper, we find that paper exhibits a combination of subsurface scattering, specular reflection, retroreflection, and surface sheen. Classic microfacet and simple diffuse reflection models cannot simulate the double‐sided appearance of a thin layer. Our novel BSDF model matches our measurements for paper and accounts for both reflection and transmission properties. At the core of the BSDF model is a method for converting a multi‐layer subsurface scattering model (BSSRDF) into a BSDF, which allows us to retain physically‐based absorption and scattering parameters obtained from the measurements. We also introduce a method for computing the amount of light available for subsurface scattering due to transmission through a rough dielectric surface. Our final model accounts for multiple scattering, single scattering, and surface reflection and is capable of rendering paper with varying levels of roughness and glossiness on both sides.     

Creating and Preserving Vortical Details in SPH Fluid

We present a new method to create and preserve the turbulent details generated around moving objects in SPH fluid. In our approach, a high‐resolution overlapping grid is bounded to each object and translates with the object. The turbulence formation is modeled by resolving the local flow around objects using a hybrid SPH‐FLIP method. Then these vortical details are carried on SPH particles flowing through the local region and preserved in the global field in a synthetic way. Our method provides a physically plausible way to model the turbulent details around both rigid and deformable objects in SPH fluid, and can efficiently produce animations of complex gaseous phenomena with rich visual details.     

Building Construction Sets by Tiling Grammar Simplification

This paper poses the problem of fabricating physical construction sets from example geometry: A construction set provides a small number of different types of building blocks from which the example model as well as many similar variants can be reassembled. This process is formalized by tiling grammars. Our core contribution is an approach for simplifying tiling grammars such that we obtain physically manufacturable building blocks of controllable granularity while retaining variability, i.e., the ability to construct many different, related shapes. Simplification is performed by sequences of two types of elementary Operations: non‐local joint edge collapses in the tile graphs reduce the granularity of the decomposition and approximate replacement Operations reduce redundancy. We evaluate our method on abstract graph grammars in addition to computing several physical construction sets, which are manufactured using a commodity 3D printer.     

Analytic Tangent Irradiance Environment Maps for Anisotropic Surfaces

Environment‐mapped rendering of Lambertian isotropic surfaces is common, and a popular technique is to use a quadratic spherical harmonic expansion. This compact irradiance map representation is widely adopted in interactive applications like video games. However, many materials are anisotropic, and shading is determined by the local tangent direction, rather than the surface normal. Even for visualization and illustration, it is increasingly common to define a tangent vector field, and use anisotropic shading. In this paper, we extend spherical harmonic irradiance maps to anisotropic surfaces, replacing Lambertian reflectance with the diffuse term of the popular Kajiya‐Kay model. We show that there is a direct analogy, with the surface normal replaced by the tangent. Our main contribution is an analytic formula for the diffuse Kajiya‐Kay BRDF in terms of spherical harmonics; this derivation is more complicated than for the standard diffuse lobe. We show that the terms decay even more rapidly than for Lambertian reflectance, going as l^–3, where l is the spherical harmonic order, and with only 6 terms (l = 0 and l = 2) capturing 99.8% of the energy. Existing code for irradiance environment maps can be trivially adapted for real‐time rendering with tangent irradiance maps. We also demonstrate an application to offline rendering of the diffuse component of fibers, using our formula as a control variate for Monte Carlo sampling.     

Hardware Lighting and Shading: a Survey

Traditionally, hardware rasterizers only support the Phong lighting model in combination with Gouraud shading using point light sources. However, the Phong lighting model is strictly empirical and physically implausible. Gouraud shading also tends to undersample the highlight unless a highly tesselated surface is used. Hence, higher‐quality hardware accelerated lighting and shading has gained much interest in the recent five years. The research on hardware lighting and shading is two‐fold. On the one hand, better lighting models for local illumination (assuming point light sources but evaluated per pixel) were demonstrated to be amenable to hardware implementation. On the other hand, recent research has demonstrated that even area lights, represented as environment maps, can be combined with complex lighting models. In both areas, many articles have been published, making it hard to decide which algorithm is well‐suited for which application. This state‐of‐the‐art report will review all relevent articles in both areas, and list advantages and disadvantages of each algorithm.     

Photoelasticity Raycasting

We present a novel physically‐based method to visualize stress tensor fields. By incorporating photoelasticity into traditional raycasting and extending it with reflection and refraction, taking into account polarization, we obtain the virtual counterpart to traditional experimental polariscopes. This allows us to provide photoelastic analysis of stress tensor fields in arbitrary domains. In our model, the optical material properties, such as stress‐optic coefficient and refractive index, can either be chosen in compliance with the subject under investigation, or, in case of stress problems that do not model optical properties or that are not transparent, be chosen according to known or even new transparent materials. This enables direct application of established polariscope methodology together with respective interpretation. Using a GPU‐based implementation, we compare our technique to experimental data, and demonstrate its utility with several simulated datasets.     

Heat Transfer Simulation for Modeling Realistic Winter Sceneries

This paper presents a physically based method for simulating the heat transfers between the different environmental elements to synthesize realistic winter sceneries. We simulate the snow fall over the ground, as well as the conductive, convective and radiative thermal transfers using a finite volume method according to the variations of air and dew point temperatures, the amount of snow, cloud cover and day‐night cycles. Our approach takes into account phase changes such as snow melting into water or water freezing into ice.     

An Adaptive Contact Model for the Robust Simulation of Knots

In this paper, we present an adaptive model for dynamically deforming hyper‐elastic rods. In contrast to existing approaches, adaptively introduced control points are not governed by geometric subdivision rules. Instead, their states are determined by employing a non‐linear energy‐minimization approach. Since valid control points are computed instantaneously, post‐stabilization schemes are avoided and the stability of the dynamic simulation is improved. Due to inherently complex contact configurations, the simulation of knot tying using rods is a challenging task. In order to address this problem, we combine our adaptive model with a robust and accurate collision handling method for elastic rods. By employing our scheme, complex knot configurations can be simulated in a physically plausible way.     

Pose Controlled Physically Based Motion

In this paper we describe a new method for generating and controlling physically‐based motion of complex articulated characters. Our goal is to create motion from scratch, where the animator provides a small amount of input and gets in return a highly detailed and physically plausible motion. Our method relieves the animator from the burden of enforcing physical plausibility, but at the same time provides full control over the internal DOFs of the articulated character via a familiar interface. Control over the global DOFs is also provided by supporting kinematic constraints. Unconstrained portions of the motion are generated in real time, since the character is driven by joint torques generated by simple feedback controllers. Although kinematic constraints are satisfied using an iterative search (shooting), this process is typically inexpensive, since it only adjusts a few DOFs at a few time instances. The low expense of the optimization, combined with the ability to generate unconstrained motions in real time yields an efficient and practical tool, which is particularly attractive for high inertia motions with a relatively small number of kinematic constraints.     

Elastic Tubes: Modeling Elastic Deformation of Hollow Tubes

The Cosserat theory of elastic rods has been used in a wide range of application domains to model and simulate the elastic deformation of thin rods. It is physically accurate and its implementations are efficient for interactive simulation. However, one requirement of using Cosserat rod theory is that the tubular object must have rigid cross‐sections that are small compared to its length. This requirement make it difficult for the approach to model elastic deformation of rods with large, non‐rigid cross‐sections that can change shape during rod deformation, in particular, hollow tubes. Our approach achieves this task using a hybrid model that binds a mesh elastically to a reference Cosserat rod. The mesh represents the surface of the hollow tube while the reference rod models bending, twisting, shearing and stretching of the tube. The cross‐sections of the tube may take on any arbitrary shape. The binding is established by a mapping between mesh vertices and the rod's directors. Deformation of the elastic tube is accomplished in two phases. First, the reference rod is deformed according to Cosserat theory. Next, the mesh is deformed using Laplacian deformation according to its mapping to the rod and its surface elastic energy. This hybrid approach allows the tube to deform in a physically correct manner in relation to the bending, twisting, shearing, and stretching of the reference rod. It also allows the surface to deform realistically and efficiently according to surface elastic energy and the shape of the reference rod. In this way, the deformation of elastic hollow tubes with large, non‐rigid cross‐sections can be simulated accurately and efficiently.     

A Layered Particle‐Based Fluid Model for Real‐Time Rendering of Water

We present a physically based real‐time water simulation and rendering method that brings volumetric foam to the real‐time domain, significantly increasing the realism of dynamic fluids. We do this by combining a particle‐based fluid model that is capable of accounting for the formation of foam with a layered rendering approach that is able to account for the volumetric properties of water and foam. Foam formation is simulated through Weber number thresholding. For rendering, we approximate the resulting water and foam volumes by storing their respective boundary surfaces in depth maps. This allows us to calculate the attenuation of light rays that pass through these volumes very efficiently. We also introduce an adaptive curvature flow filter that produces consistent fluid surfaces from particles independent of the viewing distance.     

Convolution‐Based Simulation of Homogeneous Subsurface Scattering

This paper introduces a new method for simulating homogeneous subsurface light transport in translucent objects. Our approach is based on irradiance convolutions over a multi‐layered representation of the volume for light transport, which is general enough to obtain plausible depictions of translucent objects based on the diffusion approximation. We aim at providing an efficient physically based algorithm that can apply arbitrary diffusion profiles to general geometries. We obtain accurate results for a wide range of materials, on par with the hierarchical method by Jensen and Buhler.     

4D Reconstruction of Blooming Flowers

Flower blooming is a beautiful phenomenon in nature as flowers open in an intricate and complex manner whereas petals bend, stretch and twist under various deformations. Flower petals are typically thin structures arranged in tight configurations with heavy self‐occlusions. Thus, capturing and reconstructing spatially and temporally coherent sequences of blooming flowers is highly challenging. Early in the process only exterior petals are visible and thus interior parts will be completely missing in the captured data. Utilizing commercially available 3D scanners, we capture the visible parts of blooming flowers into a sequence of 3D point clouds. We reconstruct the flower geometry and deformation over time using a template‐based dynamic tracking algorithm. To track and model interior petals hidden in early stages of the blooming process, we employ an adaptively constrained optimization. Flower characteristics are exploited to track petals both forward and backward in time. Our methods allow us to faithfully reconstruct the flower blooming process of different species. In addition, we provide comparisons with state‐of‐the‐art physical simulation‐based approaches and evaluate our approach by using photos of captured real flowers.