International Business Machines Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.

New York University

Henning Biermann

Fausto Bernardini

Ioana Maria Martin

Denis Zorin

Kenneth Perlin

Gabriel Taubin

Baback Moghaddam

Holly Edith Rushmeier

Aaron P Hertzmann

Dimitris Margaritis

Silvio Savarese

Jon Meyer

In this invention there are described a set of algorithms based on multiresolution subdivision surfaces that perform at interactive rates and enable intuitive surface cut-and-paste operations. The method includes separating a source region of interest of a source surface into a source base surface and a source detail surface; separating a target region of interest of a target surface into a target base surface and a target detail surface; and pasting the source detail surface onto the target base surface in accordance with a mapping. The step of pasting includes parameterizing and mapping the parameterized regions of interest of the source and target surfaces into an intermediate plane, and aligning the parameterizations using a linear transformation that compensates for first order distortions.

Methods and apparatus for cut-and-paste editing of multiresolution surfaces

A method for representing a sharp feature on a surface of a model comprises the steps of defining at least one feature curve on the surface; reparameterizing the surface; and creating the feature on the reparameterized surface so as to be generally coincident with the feature curve, where the feature lies along boundaries between piecewise-smooth patch surfaces where patch surfaces with distinct tangent planes are joined. The surface is reparameterized by moving a control mesh relative to the surface to sample the feature curve with vertices of the control mesh, and creating the feature includes a subdivision step where edges and diagonals are treated as creases in the control mesh, and piecewise-smooth subdivision rules are applied to obtain a sharp feature on the surface. The surface may be defined in a Catmull-Clark multiresolution subdivision surface representation.

Method and apparatus for providing sharp features on multiresolution subdivision surfaces

A system for viewing a scene from a remote location. The system includes a client machine. The system includes a network connected to the client machine. The system includes a server machine having a 3D environment stored in it. The server machine is connected to the network and remote from the client machine, wherein the client machine predicts a next view of the 3D environment based on a previous view of the 3D environment by the client machine, and the server machine predicts the next view also based on the previous view and sends to the client machine by way of the network only the difference between the predicted view and the previous view. Methods for viewing a scene from a remote location.

Stateless remote environment navigation

A method for representing an image in an image retrieval database first separates and filters images to extract color and texture features. The color and texture features of each image are partitioned into a plurality of blocks. A joint distribution of the color features and a joint distribution of the texture features are estimated for each block. The estimated joint distributions are stored in the database with each image to enable retrieval of the images by comparing the estimated joint distributions.

Method for image retrieval with multiple regions of interest

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for obtaining the shape of an object by observing silhouettes of the object. At least one point light source is placed in front of the object, thereby casting a shadow of the object on a translucent panel that is placed behind the object. A camera, or other imaging device, captures an image of the shadow from behind the translucent panel. The object's full silhouette is obtained from the image of the shadow as the region of the shadow is substantially darker than the region outside of the shadow. The full silhouette thus obtained may be processed by any suitable shape from silhouette algorithm, and thus objects are not limited in topological type. A color image of the object can optionally be obtained simultaneously with the shadow image using a camera placed on the same side of the object as the light source. Multiple silhouettes can be captured for one object position, reducing the number of rotations needed on a turntable system, and reducing the post-processing needed to register geometries obtained from multiple different positions.

System, method, and program product for acquiring accurate object silhouettes for shape recovery

Growing community of inventors

New York, NY, United States of America

Henning Biermann