PhD Thesis Proposal Defence


"Differential Methods for Intuitive 3D Shape Modeling"

by

Mr. Hongbo FU


Abstract:

Modeling 3D digital shapes, such as curves and meshes, manually is
challenging for three main reasons. First, realistic shapes are
generally complex and involve many unknown degrees of freedom. Second,
users usually only have 2D input devices, which are inadequate for
manipulating 3D shapes. Third, unlike sculptors, ordinary people
usually have no precise depth perception, making the accurate locating
of 3D shapes even harder.

This proposal presents several novel intuitive techniques that make
the modeling process significantly less labor-intensive. We achieve a
balance between the control intuitiveness of tools and the geometric
complexity of modeling output. Our techniques allow the user to easily
control the modeling effect through only a small set of manipulators.
The unknown vertex positions of the final models are then computed by
solving a large set of linear partial differential equations (i.e.,
the Laplace or Poisson equations) subject to the constraints derived
from the manipulators. These differential-based techniques contribute
to three important modeling applications: mesh deformation, mesh
merging and hairstyle modeling. The differential mesh deformation
technique allows the user to deform existing highly detailed meshes
interactively to achieve physically plausible deformation effects. The
differential mesh merging framework relieves the user's burden of both
precise locating of 3D models and precise specification of merging
boundaries over meshes to be merged. We design a sketching interface
and adapt an incremental solver to allow users to design compelling
hairstyles by drawing only a small set of strokes. For all these
algorithms, we pre-compute the most computationally expensive
components to achieve interactive modeling with fast response.
Extensive experiments demonstrate the robustness and usefulness of our
techniques.


Date:     		Monday, 21 May 2007

Time:                   4:00p.m.-6:00p.m.

Venue:                  Room 3405
			lifts 17-18

Committee Members:      Dr. Chiew-Lan Tai (Supervisor)
			Dr. Huamin Qu (Chairperson)
			Prof. Long Quan
			Dr. Pedro Sander


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