Multi-agent collaborative 3D design with geometric model at different levels of detail

This paper presents a scheme for collaborative 3D design using product model at various levels of detail (LODs). Design features are selectively hidden at each level from certain participants, depending on their actual needs and individual accessibility in the collaboration. A tree data structure represents the feature hierarchy of CAD construction, the link between feature and LOD, and 2D mesh data for display control of each feature. An XML/XSLT-based approach is proposed to enable real-time visualization of different LOD models in distributed environment. A collaborative design system is implemented using multi-agent technologies, which focuses on function design of each agent, interactions among agents, the client–server structure, and generation of the LOD data using the XML/XSLT approach. A scenario of synchronous 3D mold assembly demonstrates that geometric categorization of product model provides an operational mechanism for assuring security of information sharing in engineering collaborations over the Internet. It also validates the effectiveness of the agent technologies for automating complex engineering activities.     

Distance functions and skeletal representations of rigid and non-rigid planar shapes

Shape skeletons are fundamental concepts for describing the shape of geometric objects, and have found a variety of applications in a number of areas where geometry plays an important role. Two types of skeletons commonly used in geometric computations are the straight skeleton of a (linear) polygon, and the medial axis of a bounded set of points in the k-dimensional Euclidean space. However, exact computation of these skeletons of even fairly simple planar shapes remains an open problem.In this paper we propose a novel approach to construct exact or approximate (continuous) distance functions and the associated skeletal representations (a skeleton and the corresponding radius function) for solid 2D semi-analytic sets that can be either rigid or undergoing topological deformations. Our approach relies on computing constructive representations of shapes with R-functions that operate on real-valued halfspaces as logic operations. We use our approximate distance functions to define a new type of skeleton, i.e, the C-skeleton, which is piecewise linear for polygonal domains, generalizes naturally to planar and spatial domains with curved boundaries, and has attractive properties. We also show that the exact distance functions allow us to compute the medial axis of any closed, bounded and regular planar domain. Importantly, our approach can generate the medial axis, the straight skeleton, and the C-skeleton of possibly deformable shapes within the same formulation, extends naturally to 3D, and can be used in a variety of applications such as skeleton-based shape editing and adaptive motion planning.     

On the diameter of geometric path graphs of points in convex position

For a set S of n points in convex position in the plane, let P(S) denote the set of all plane spanning paths of S. The geometric path graph of S, denoted by Gn, is the graph with P(S) as its vertex set and two vertices P,Q∈P(S) are adjacent if and only if P and Q can be transformed to each other by means of a single edge replacement. Recently, Akl et al. [S.G. Akl, K. Islam, H. Meijer, On planar path transformation, Inform. Process. Lett. 104 (2007) 59-64] showed that the diameter of Gn is at most 2n−5. In this note, we derive the exact diameter of Gn for n?3.     

2-Covered paths by a set of antennas with minimum power transmission range

In this paper we describe and solve the following geometric optimisation problem: given a set S of n points on the plane (antennas) and two points A and B, find the smallest radial range r∈^ℜ+ (power transmission range of the antennas) so that a path with endpoints A and B exists in which all points are within the range of at least two antennas. The solution to the problem has several applications (e.g., in the planning of safe routes). We present an O(nlogn) time solution, which is based on the second order Voronoi diagram. We also show how to obtain a path with such characteristics.     

Interactive Cover Design Considering Physical Constraints

We developed an interactive system to design a customized cover for a given three‐dimensional (3D) object such as a camera, teapot, or car. The system first computes the convex hull of the input geometry. The user segments it into several cloth patches by drawing on the 3D surface. This paper provides two technical contributions. First, it introduces a specialized flattening algorithm for cover patches. It makes each two‐dimensional edge in the flattened pattern equal to or longer than the original 3D edge; a smaller patch would fail to cover the object, and a larger patch would result in extra wrinkles. Second, it introduces a mechanism to verify that the user‐specified opening would be large enough for the object to be removed. Starting with the initial configuration, the system virtually “pulls” the object out of the cover while avoiding excessive stretching of cloth patches. We used the system to design real covers and confirmed that it functions as intended.     

Agent-based negotiation and decision making for dynamic supply chain formation

Modern businesses are facing the challenge of effectively coordinating their supply chains from upstream to downstream services. It is a complex problem to search, schedule, and coordinate a set of services from a large number of service resources under various constraints and uncertainties. Existing approaches to this problem have relied on complete information regarding service requirements and resources, without adequately addressing the dynamics and uncertainties of the environments. The real-world situations are complicated as a result of ambiguity in the requirements of the services, the uncertainty of solutions from service providers, and the interdependencies among the services to be composed. This paper investigates the complexity of supply chain formation and proposes an agent-mediated coordination approach. Each agent works as a broker for each service type, dedicated to selecting solutions for each service as well as interacting with other agents in refining the decision making to achieve compatibility among the solutions. The coordination among agents concerns decision making at strategic, tactical, and operational level. At the strategic level, agents communicate and negotiate for supply chain formation; at the tactical level, argumentation is used by agents to communicate and understand the preferences and constraints of each other; at the operational level, different strategies are used for selecting the preferences. Based on this approach, a prototype has been implemented with simulated experiments highlighting the effectiveness of the approach.     

基于贝叶斯最大化后验估计方法的图片合成模型研究

在图像处理应用中,常常需要根据一些列相关的输入图片生成一张新的图片。现有的研究大都设定一些启发式规则用于图片的合成过程。为了提高图片合成的性能,提出了一种基于改进的贝叶斯方法的图片合成模型。在给定理想的图片合成模型后,对传感器误差和图片误差进行了分析。由于图片误差和几何误差之间是相关的,因此分析了它们之间的关系。在根据已有数据对模型进行后验估计时,通过最小化能量来得到模型的先验参数。在目标函数的优化过程中,基于现有研究通过重新赋权值的迭代方法进行优化问题的求解。最后,通过大量的实验表明,所提出的图片合成模型与相关方法相比具有更好的图片合成和渲染效果。     

Slice coherence in a query-based architecture for 3D heterogeneous printing

We report on 3D printing of artifacts with a structured, inhomogeneous interior. The interior is decomposed into cells defined by a 3D Voronoi diagram and their sites. When printing such objects, most slices the printer deposits are topologically the same and change only locally in the interior. The slicing algorithm capitalizes on this coherence and minimizes print head moves that do not deposit material. This approach has been implemented on a client/server architecture that computes the slices on the geometry side. The slices are printed by fused deposition, and are communicated upon demand.     

Pairwise Registration by Local Orientation Cues

Inspired by recent work on robust and fast computation of 3D Local Reference Frames (LRFs), we propose a novel pipeline for coarse registration of 3D point clouds. Key to the method are: (i) the observation that any two corresponding points endowed with an LRF provide a hypothesis on the rigid motion between two views, (ii) the intuition that feature points can be matched based solely on cues directly derived from the computation of the LRF, (iii) a feature detection approach relying on a saliency criterion which captures the ability to establish an LRF repeatably. Unlike related work in literature, we also propose a comprehensive experimental evaluation based on diverse kinds of data (such as those acquired by laser scanners, Kinect and stereo cameras) as well as on quantitative comparison with respect to other methods. We also address the issue of setting the many parameters that characterize coarse registration pipelines fairly and realistically. The experimental evaluation vouches that our method can handle effectively data acquired by different sensors and is remarkably fast.