Nahomi Maki

Simple wavelength division rendering method for transparent objects using common 3DCG software

Transparent objects, such as diamonds, show rainbow-like colors because of the dispersion of light that passes through such objects; white light is dispersed because it comprises light waves with different wavelengths. This phenomenon has been considered to reproduce realistic material in computer graphics (SUN 2000). However, the use of dedicated renderer is necessary to perform rendering that considers the dispersion of light.

Display of diamond dispersion using wavelength-division rendering and integral photography

Various colors, such as in a prism, are observed in properly cut diamond even under white light because of dispersion. Properly-cut diamond brings about scintillation when viewing angle is changed, because total reflection inside a diamond tends to occur frequently due to the large refractive index. Moreover, strong rainbow colors are seen because of high dispersion ratio.

Skeleton-based diverse creature design tool for mass production

The purpose of our project is to develop digital tools that will help to simplify the task of creature design in large-scale media projects. When working on an animation or game that requires hundreds of unique creature designs, many artists find it challenging to maintain consistency and quality in every new design. As a result, even the most creative artists must often go through a long and tedious period of revisions before they arrive at final creature designs that are satisfactory to the director. To reduce the amount of time and resources needed for this critical revisions stage, we have designed a prototyping tool which can use existing designs to rapidly generate unique iterations.

Natural user interface for integral photography of dispersion-rendered diamond

The color of the diamond is dependent on the difference in the refractive indexes by wavelength, so we developed a dispersion rendering system using wavelength division [Maki et al. 2014]. Although various rainbow-like colors can be reproduced in the stone by this technique, another technology is necessary to reproduce the brilliance of a diamond, which is caused by the ray entered from outside that reflects and refracts many times on the surface. We introduced the extend fractional view (EFV) integral photography (IP)[Yanaka 2008], which is considered to be a display method of four-dimensional light field [Levoy et al. 1996, Gortler et al. 1996 ]. We developed an IP system reproducing a three-dimensional image that changes color depending on the direction an observer looks at in about 30 degrees of the primary viewing zone. [Maki et al. 2015] However, the observer cannot choose the direction of looking at a diamond beyond the viewing zone. To remove this limitation, we developed a more sophisticated system in which the viewer can look at the diamond from any direction they like, by naturally rotating it with his/her hand.

Attention Value of Motion Graphics on Digital Signages

In recent years, movie advertisements in digital signages have been shown at various places, such as train stations and street corners. Digital signages are installed in busy environments where people come and go. Therefore, people watch advertisements in digital signages in a shorter time than they do on TV commercials at home. Accordingly, movie advertisements shown in digital signages should attract attention the moment people look at them. In this study, we discuss the attention value of colors, which is mainly utilized in still media, and combine this concept with motion graphics elements.

Real-time integral photography using a game engine

To use the advanced content creation functions of a game engine and develop contents in which displaying real-time integral photography images is important, we implemented multi-viewpoint rendering and IP image synthesis functions by adding a shader and C# scripts to the game engine.

Creation of 3DCG animation using a four-plane depth-fused display

A four-plane depth-fused display (DFD) is an autostereoscopic system that can display four images at different depth positions using a single liquid crystal display and mirrors or half mirrors. This system increases the number of images in the depth direction, thereby enhancing stereoscopic effect. To date, however, the contents of proposed DFD remain limited to still images. Therefore, we introduced an animation that included object motion in the XYZ space in four planes into DFD. This approach considerably increased the sense of depth.

Production of a VR Horror Movie Using a Head-Mounted Display with a Head-Tracking System

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) that feature a stereoscopic wide-viewing angle and head-tracking function for virtual reality environments have emerged recently. As a result of this development, various contents that use the special qualities of HMDs have begun to be produced suddenly. In this study, we propose a short horror movie for HMDs using a free viewpoint that takes advantage of the features of the head-tracking system.

Virtual Aquarium: Mixed Reality Consisting of 3DCG Animation and Underwater Integral Photography

Virtual aquariums have various advantages when compared with real aquariums. First, imaginary creatures and creatures that are difficult to maintain in real aquariums can be displayed. Second, virtual aquariums have similar soothing effects as an actual aquarium. Therefore, we developed a new virtual aquarium through integral photography (IP), wherein virtual fishes are created with 3DCG animation and real water. Stereoscopic view is possible from all directions above the water tank through the IP and without the need for special glasses. A fly’s eye lens is sunk in the water resulting in larger focal length for the fly’s eye lens and an increase in the amount of popping out. Therefore, a stronger stereoscopic effect is obtained. The displayed fishes appear to be alive and swimming in the water, an effect achieved through three-dimensional computer graphics animation. This system can also be appreciated as an artwork. This system can also be applied to exhibit already-extinct ancient creatures in aquariums or museums in the future.

Underwater integral photography

A novel integral photography (IP) system in which the amount of popping out is more than three times larger than usual is demonstrated in this study. If autostereoscopic display is introduced into virtual reality, IP is an ideal candidate because not only the horizontal but also the vertical parallax can be obtained. However, the amount of popping out obtained by IP is generally far less than that obtained by head-mounted display because the ray density decreases when the viewer is distant from the flys eye lens. Although a solution is to extend the focal length of the flys eye lens, this lens is difficult to manufacture. We address this problem by simply immersing the flys eye lens into water to extend the effective focal length.