Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inc (ita)

Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inl

Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inl. (ita)

Sarah F Gibson

Joseph W Marks

Hanspeter Pfister

Takeo Kanade

Ron Kikinis

Markus Schill

William Eric Grimson

An improvement to a voxel-based system to permit rapidly deforming volumetric objects made up of inhomogeneous material provides different material constraints assigned to different elements, with the constraints of a link between two neighboring elements being calculated from contributions of the two affected elements. The order in which neighbors of moved element are considered for a move determines where in the body information is propagated first. The processing order can therefore be used to model different direction-dependent propagation speeds in the material.

Voxel-based system to permit rapidly deforming volumetric objects made up of inhomogeneous material

A system for generating a surface representation from binary sampled data cludes means for iteratively smoothing the surface representation, while constraining the surface to conform to details in the surface of the binary data. Means are also provided to convert the surface representation into a form useful for polygon rendering and for volume rendering, with the subject system useable to generate a smooth surfaces for high quality rendering of objects stored as binary-sampled data.

Surface net smoothing for surface representation from binary sampled data

A patient simulation includes a patient generator for providing an image of a body of a patient on a display, where at least one portion of the body an be examined in greater detail; at least one communication device for allowing interaction between the patient and a user; and a behavior generator which causes the patient to appear to respond to treatment. The behavior generator includes psychological state data that allows the patient to react to the user's 'bedside manner.' Further, the simulation operates on a non-stop basis and in real time.

Personal patient simulation

A voxel-based system for rapidly deforming volumetric objects performs simple deformation calculations for each element of the graphical object to be deformed such that when the object is manipulated, the object stretches or contracts through the movement of a selected element, followed by movement of neighboring elements only if a maximum or minimum preset distance is exceeded between the moved element and its neighbor. Thus elements are moved only if they need to be, which eliminates calculating movements of elements not affected by movement of the selected element. This in turn allows fast propagation of the deformation through the volume represented by the object to the deformed, with the motion constraints being similar to the motion provided by a set of linked elements in a chain.

System for rapidly deforming a graphical object

A linked volumetric representation for graphical objects is presented together with techniques for physically-plausible modeling of object cutting, joining and tearing. In one embodiment, each element is may be explicitly linked to its six nearest neighbors by storing pointers to those neighbors in the element's data structure. The link between two elements can be cut when a graphical representation of cutting tool passes between the elements by setting the appropriate neighbor pointers in the two elements to point to NULL instead of to each other. If material limits in the link between two elements are exceeded during simulation of object deformation, the link can be torn apart by setting the appropriate neighbor pointers in the two elements to NULL. When a joining tool is applied to two volumetric objects in close proximity, edge elements in the two objects that have complimentary neighbors set to NULL can be joined by setting these missing neighbors to point to each other.

cutting, jointing and tearing volumetric objects

A volumetric data representation for graphical objects encodes the distance of data elements to the nearest object surface, with means being provided for estimating the direction and magnitude of surface normals from the tance values. The subject system can be used to accurately reconstruct the normal direction of a slowly varying surface in volume sampled data for high quality Volume Rendering, accurate force reflection in haptic feedback, and accurate force calculation and object penetration estimation in physically-based graphics.

System for depicting surfaces using volumetric distance maps

A system generates and arranges images depicting volume data using opacity nd color transfer functions for review and selection by a user. In volume rendering, an opacity and/or color transfer function is applied to three-dimensional scalar field data. The transfer functions have different characteristics represented as input parameters, such as control points of the function. The input parameters are then processed to determine images of the volumes and corresponding output vectors. The output vectors can be pixels in the images, or other characteristics of interest. The input vectors are selected to provide a dispersed set of output vectors. A large number of random input vectors can be generated and then culled to leave a dispersed set of output vectors. Alternatively, a set of randomly generated input vectors of a predetermined size are randomly perturbed, to further disperse the output vectors. The output vectors are displayed so that positions represent distances between the output vectors. The user can then select specific output vectors so that the corresponding animation sequence is displayed.

System for color and opacity transfer function specification in volume

A system for simultaneously creating similar constructive solid geometry G) representations for multiple objects in bit map or voxel form iteratively creates, mutates and optimizes a population of potential CSG representations of the objects. The system includes a first part which creates and revises two identical populations of CSG representations. Initially, the populations are randomly generated. Thus, each CSG tree includes a random number of primitives of different types, sizes and positions. The primitives are randomly organized in a tree structure which includes randomly selected boolean operators at the nodes. The trees are then modified through an evolutionary process to improve the CSG representations of the objects. Corresponding trees in each population are randomly mutated in the same manner to form new trees. Mutations can include (1) changes in types of primitives, (2) changes in a subtree structure, (3) addition of new subtrees, and (4) deletions of subtrees. If the new trees better represents the objects, then the old trees are replaced with the new trees. Mutations continue until no further improvements are obtained.

Simultaneous constructive solid geometry (CSG) modeling for multiple

A system for creating a constructive solid geometry (CSG) representation of bjects in bit map or voxel form iteratively creates, mutates and optimizes a population of potential CSG representations of the object. The system includes a first part which randomly generates and revises a population of CSG representations. Each CSG tree includes a random number of primitives of different types, sizes and positions. The primitives are randomly organized in a tree structure which includes randomly selected boolean operators at the nodes. The trees are modified through an evolutionary process to improve the CSG representation of the object. Trees are randomly mutated to form new trees. Mutations can include (1) changes in types of primitives, (2) changes in a subtree structure, (3) addition of new subtrees, and (4) deletions of subtrees. If the new tree better represents the object, then the old tree is replaced with the new tree. Mutations continue until no further improvements are obtained. The population may be periodically reinitialized by replacing the worst trees with the best trees. A second part of the system locally optimizes each tree upon creation or mutation. Optimization includes iterative modification of the size, position, and orientation of each of the primitives in a tree in order to better represent the object. The representation can be judged based upon the number of primitives, and the number of voxels in the representation which are not in the object and in the object which are not in the representation.

Method and apparatus for differential object modeling using

A three degree-of-freedom locator device for the control of graphical objects on a computer display mimics natural two-dimensional movement of the user's hand by providing for simultaneous translation and rotation of the graphical object. In one embodiment, a computer mouse-type locator with two trackball and position-encoder sensor systems detects movement of the locator over a stationary pad or like device. The graphical object is selected by a mouse button click. Subsequent two-dimensional translation and rotation of the locator are detected by the dual trackball system and used to control the position and orientation of the graphical object. The result is intuitive control of the placement of the selected object on the computer screen. The natural movement of the mouse in the user's hand is transformed into simultaneously translation and rotation of the object.

Growing community of inventors

Arlington, MA, United States of America

Sarah F Gibson