Abstract: Representing digital objects with structured meshes that embed a coarse block decomposition is a relevant problem in applications like computer animation, physically-based simulation and Computer Aided Design (CAD). One of the key ingredients to produce coarse block structures is to achieve a good alignment between the mesh singularities (i.e., the corners of each block). In this paper we improve on the polycube-based meshing pipeline to produce both surface and volumetric coarse block-structured meshes of general shapes. To this aim we add a new step in the pipeline. Our goal is to optimize the positions of the polycube corners to produce as coarse as possible base complexes. We rely on re-mapping the positions of the corners on an integer grid and then using integer numerical programming to reach the optimal. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to solve the singularity misalignment problem directly in polycube space. Previous methods for polycube generation did not specifically address this issue. Our corner optimization strategy is efficient and requires a negligible extra running time for the meshing pipeline. In the paper we show that our optimized polycubes produce coarser block structured surface and volumetric meshes if compared with previous approaches. They also induce higher quality hexahedral meshes and are better suited for spline fitting because they reduce the number of splines necessary to cover the domain, thus improving both the efficiency and the overall level of smoothness throughout the volume.
Authors: G. Cherchi, M. Livesu, R. Scateni.
Polycube Simplification for Coarse Layouts of Surfaces and Volumes.
Computer Graphics Forum, 35(5):11-20, (SGP 2016, Berlino, Germania).
Wiley, June 2016.
Abstract: The number and quality of smartphones on the market has dramatically raised lately. Researchers and developers are, thus, more and more pushed to bring algorithms and techniques from desktop environments to mobile platforms. One of the biggest constraints in mobile applications is the fine control of computing power and the relative power consumption. Although smartphones’ manufactures are offering better computing performance and longer battery life, the mobile architecture is not always powerful enough. Furthermore, nowadays, the touchless interaction (e.g., the usage of voice commands) on mobile devices is particularly attractive. The device can also possibly answer to our questions (e.g., Siri-Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface, which according to Apple is “the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking”). The use of talking avatars can improve the quality of the interaction and make it more useful and pleasant. Since avatars are static models, but the interaction requires dynamics, it is almost obliged to introduce avatars’ animations.