Higher Order Barycentric Coordinates

In recent years, a wide range of generalized barycentric coordinates has been suggested. However, all of them lack control over derivatives. We show how the notion of barycentric coordinates can be extended to specify derivatives at control points. This is also known as Hermite interpolation. We introduce a method to modify existing barycentric coordinates to higher order barycentric coordinates and demonstrate, using higher order mean value coordinates, that our method, although conceptually simple and easy to implement, can be used to give easy and intuitive control at interactive frame rates over local space deformations such as rotations.     

Correlation Between Structural and Optical Properties of Composite Polymer/Fullerene Films for Organic Solar Cells

We investigate thin poly(3‐hexylthiophene‐2,5‐diyl)/[6,6]‐phenyl C₆₁ butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT/PCBM) films, which are widely used as active layers in plastic solar cells. Their structural properties are studied by grazing‐incidence X‐ray diffraction (XRD). The size and the orientation of crystalline P3HT nanodomains within the films are determined. PCBM crystallites are not detected in thin films by XRD. Upon annealing, the P3HT crystallinity increases, leading to an increase in the optical absorption and spectral photocurrent in the low‐photon‐energy region. As a consequence, the efficiency of P3HT/PCBM solar cells is significantly increased. A direct relation between efficiency and P3HT crystallinity is demonstrated.     

Spatial inverse query processing

Traditional spatial queries return, for a given query object q, all database objects that satisfy a given predicate, such as epsilon range and k-nearest neighbors. This paper defines and studies inverse spatial queries, which, given a subset of database objects Q and a query predicate, return all objects which, if used as query objects with the predicate, contain Q in their result. We first show a straightforward solution for answering inverse spatial queries for any query predicate. Then, we propose a filter-and-refinement framework that can be used to improve efficiency. We show how to apply this framework on a variety of inverse queries, using appropriate space pruning strategies. In particular, we propose solutions for inverse epsilon range queries, inverse k-nearest neighbor queries, and inverse skyline queries. Furthermore, we show how to relax the definition of inverse queries in order to ensure non-empty result sets. Our experiments show that our framework is significantly more efficient than naive approaches.     

Processing and interactive editing of huge point clouds from 3D scanners

This paper describes a new out-of-core multi-resolution data structure for real-time visualization, interactive editing and externally efficient processing of large point clouds. We describe an editing system that makes use of the novel data structure to provide interactive editing and preprocessing tools for large scanner data sets. Using the new data structure, we provide a complete tool chain for 3D scanner data processing, from data preprocessing and filtering to manual touch-up and real-time visualization. In particular, we describe an out-of-core outlier removal and bilateral geometry filtering algorithm, a toolset for interactive selection, painting, transformation, and filtering of huge out-of-core point-cloud data sets and a real-time rendering algorithm, which all use the same data structure as storage backend. The interactive tools work in real-time for small model modifications. For large scale editing operations, we employ a two-resolution approach where editing is planned in real-time and executed in an externally efficient offline computation afterwards. We evaluate our implementation on example data sets of sizes up to 63 GB, demonstrating that the proposed technique can be used effectively in real-world applications.     

Scanning tunneling spectroscopy studies on YBa2Cu3O7−δ

Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy (STS) measurements have been carried out on the high T_c superconductor (HTS) YBa₂Cu₃O_7– (YBCO). Using very high quality single crystals as well as hard tips, we obtained differential conductance spectra which showed various conductance features in agreement with other spectroscopic techniques. The reproducibility of our spectra allowed us to map for the first time the vortex lattice on a HTS using a STS technique¹. The vortices are arranged in a short range order oblique lattice, while the cores of the flux lines show an anisotropic shape. These observations can be related to the in-plane anisotropy of YBCO.     

Scanning/friction force microscopy study of YBa2Cu3O7−δ single crystals grown in BaZrO3 crucibles

Very pure YBa₂Cu₃O_7– (YBCO) single crystals grown in BaZrO₃ crucibles are studied in the as-grown and the oxidized state by scanning force (SFM), friction force (FFM) and scanning tunneling microscopies (STM). The images show clean terraces with step-heights of one unit cell along YBCO(001), i.e. 1.2 nm. Only close to step edges is material contrast observed by FFM indicating traces af flux. Some crystal surfaces exhibit over-layer features, such as star-like, ribbon-like and checkerboard-like structures, which exhibit friction contrast implying the presence of different materials on the surface. Tunneling spectroscopy at 4.7 K in high vacuum reveals a superconducting energy gap of 2 26 me V.     

Crease Surfaces: From Theory to Extraction and Application to Diffusion Tensor MRI

Crease surfaces are two-dimensional manifolds along which a scalar field assumes a local maximum (ridge) or a local minimum (valley) in a constrained space. Unlike isosurfaces, they are able to capture extremal structures in the data. Creases have a long tradition in image processing and computer vision, and have recently become a popular tool for visualization. When extracting crease surfaces, degeneracies of the Hessian (i.e., lines along which two eigenvalues are equal) have so far been ignored. We show that these loci, however, have two important consequences for the topology of crease surfaces: First, creases are bounded not only by a side constraint on eigenvalue sign, but also by Hessian degeneracies. Second, crease surfaces are not, in general, orientable. We describe an efficient algorithm for the extraction of crease surfaces which takes these insights into account and demonstrate that it produces more accurate results than previous approaches. Finally, we show that diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) stream surfaces, which were previously used for the analysis of planar regions in diffusion tensor MRI data, are mathematically ill-defined. As an example application of our method, creases in a measure of planarity are presented as a viable substitute.     

Estimating body shape of dressed humans

The paper presents a method to estimate the detailed 3D body shape of a person even if heavy or loose clothing is worn. The approach is based on a space of human shapes, learned from a large database of registered body scans. Together with this database we use as input a 3D scan or model of the person wearing clothes and apply a fitting method, based on ICP (iterated closest point) registration and Laplacian mesh deformation. The statistical model of human body shapes enforces that the model stays within the space of human shapes. The method therefore allows us to compute the most likely shape and pose of the subject, even if it is heavily occluded or body parts are not visible. Several experiments demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of our approach to recover occluded or missing body parts from 3D laser scans.     

Animating Pictures of Fluid using Video Examples

We propose a system that allows the user to design a continuous flow animation starting from a still fluid image. The basic idea is to apply the fluid motion extracted from a video example to the target image. The system first decomposes the video example into three components, an average image, a flow field and residuals. The user then specifies equivalent information over the target image. The user manually paints the rough flow field, and the system automatically refines it using the estimated gradients of the target image. The user semi-automatically transfers the residuals onto the target image. The system then approximates the average image and synthesizes an animation on the target image by adding the transferred residuals and warping them according to the user-specified flow field. Finally, the system adjusts the appearance of the resulting animation by applying histogram matching. We designed animations of various pictures, such as rivers, waterfalls, fires, and smoke.