Martin Bokeloh

Pattern-aware Deformation Using Sliding Dockers

This paper introduces a new structure-aware shape deformation technique. The key idea is to detect continuous and discrete regular patterns and ensure that these patterns are preserved during free-...

A connection between partial symmetry and inverse procedural modeling

In this paper, we address the problem of inverse procedural modeling: Given a piece of exemplar 3D geometry, we would like to find a set of rules that describe objects that are similar to the exemplar. We consider local similarity, i.e., each local neighborhood of the newly created object must match some local neighborhood of the exemplar. We show that we can find explicit shape modification rules that guarantee strict local similarity by looking at the structure of the partial symmetries of the object. By cutting the object into pieces along curves within symmetric areas, we can build shape operations that maintain local similarity by construction. We systematically collect such editing operations and analyze their dependency to build a shape grammar. We discuss how to extract general rewriting systems, context free hierarchical rules, and grid-based rules. All of this information is derived directly from the model, without user interaction. The extracted rules are then used to implement tools for semi-automatic shape modeling by example, which are demonstrated on a number of different example data sets. Overall, our paper provides a concise theoretical and practical framework for inverse procedural modeling of 3D objects.

Efficient reconstruction of nonrigid shape and motion from real-time 3D scanner data

We present a new technique for reconstructing a single shape and its nonrigid motion from 3D scanning data. Our algorithm takes a set of time-varying unstructured sample points that capture partial views of a deforming object as input and reconstructs a single shape and a deformation field that fit the data. This representation yields dense correspondences for the whole sequence, as well as a completed 3D shape in every frame. In addition, the algorithm automatically removes spatial and temporal noise artifacts and outliers from the raw input data. Unlike previous methods, the algorithm does not require any shape template but computes a fitting shape automatically from the input data. Our reconstruction framework is based upon a novel topology-aware adaptive subspace deformation technique that allows handling long sequences with complex geometry efficiently. The algorithm accesses data in multiple sequential passes, so that long sequences can be streamed from hard disk, not being limited by main memory. We apply the technique to several benchmark datasets, significantly increasing the complexity of the data that can be handled efficiently in comparison to previous work.

Reconstruction of deforming geometry from time-varying point clouds

In this paper, we describe a system for the reconstruction of deforming geometry from a time sequence of unstructured, noisy point clouds, as produced by recent real-time range scanning devices. Our technique reconstructs both the geometry and dense correspondences over time. Using the correspondences, holes due to occlusion are filled in from other frames. Our reconstruction technique is based on a statistical framework: The reconstruction should both match the measured data points and maximize prior probability densities that prefer smoothness, rigid deformation and smooth movements over time. The optimization procedure consists of an inner loop that optimizes the 4D shape using continuous numerical optimization and an outer loop that infers the discrete 4D topology of the data set using an iterative model assembly algorithm. We apply the technique to a variety of data sets, demonstrating that the new approach is capable of robustly retrieving animated models with correspondences from data sets suffering from significant noise, outliers and acquisition holes.

Isometric registration of ambiguous and partial data

This paper introduces a new shape matching algorithm for computing correspondences between 3D surfaces that have undergone (approximately) isometric deformations. The new approach makes two main contributions: First, the algorithm is, unlike previous work, robust to “topological noise” such as large holes or “false connections”, which is both observed frequently in real-world scanner data. Second, our algorithm samples the space of feasible solutions such that uncertainty in matching can be detected explicitly. We employ a novel randomized feature matching algorithm in order to find robust subsets of geodesics to verify isometric consistency. The paper shows shape matching results for real world and synthetic data sets that could not be handled using previous deformable matching algorithms.

Symmetry Detection Using Feature Lines

In this paper, we describe a new algorithm for detecting structural redundancy in geometric data sets. Our algorithm computes rigid symmetries, i.e., subsets of a surface model that reoccur several times within the model differing only by translation, rotation or mirroring. Our algorithm is based on matching locally coherent constellations of feature lines on the object surfaces. In comparison to previous work, the new algorithm is able to detect a large number of symmetric parts without restrictions to regular patterns or nested hierarchies. In addition, working on relevant features only leads to a strong reduction in memory and processing costs such that very large data sets can be handled. We apply the algorithm to a number of real world 3D scanner data sets, demonstrating high recognition rates for general patterns of symmetry.

Bayesian Point Cloud Reconstruction

In this paper, we propose a novel surface reconstruction technique based on Bayesian statistics: The measurement process as well as prior assumptions on the measured objects are modeled as probability distributions and Bayes’ rule is used to infer a reconstruction of maximum probability. The key idea of this paper is to define both measurements and reconstructions as point clouds and describe all statistical assumptions in terms of this finite dimensional representation. This yields a discretization of the problem that can be solved using numerical optimization techniques. The resulting algorithm reconstructs both topology and geometry in form of a well‐sampled point cloud with noise removed. In a final step, this representation is then converted into a triangle mesh. The proposed approach is conceptually simple and easy to extend. We apply the approach to reconstruct piecewise‐smooth surfaces with sharp features and examine the performance of the algorithm on different synthetic and real‐world data sets.

Animation cartography—intrinsic reconstruction of shape and motion

In this article, we consider the problem of animation reconstruction, that is, the reconstruction of shape and motion of a deformable object from dynamic 3D scanner data, without using user-provided template models. Unlike previous work that addressed this problem, we do not rely on locally convergent optimization but present a system that can handle fast motion, temporally disrupted input, and can correctly match objects that disappear for extended time periods in acquisition holes due to occlusion. Our approach is motivated by cartography: We first estimate a few landmark correspondences, which are extended to a dense matching and then used to reconstruct geometry and motion. We propose a number of algorithmic building blocks: a scheme for tracking landmarks in temporally coherent and incoherent data, an algorithm for robust estimation of dense correspondences under topological noise, and the integration of local matching techniques to refine the result. We describe and evaluate the individual components and propose a complete animation reconstruction pipeline based on these ideas. We evaluate our method on a number of standard benchmark datasets and show that we can obtain correct reconstructions in situations where other techniques fail completely or require additional user guidance such as a template model.

An algebraic model for parameterized shape editing

We present an approach to high-level shape editing that adapts the structure of the shape while maintaining its global characteristics. Our main contribution is a new algebraic model of shape structure that characterizes shapes in terms of linked translational patterns. The space of shapes that conform to this characterization is parameterized by a small set of numerical parameters bounded by a set of linear constraints. This convex space permits a direct exploration of variations of the input shape. We use this representation to develop a robust interactive system that allows shapes to be intuitively manipulated through sparse constraints.

Special Section: Point-Based Graphics: 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 63GB, demonstrating that the proposed technique can be used effectively in real-world applications.