EVASION%20Environnements%20Virtuels%20pour%20l

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EVASIONEnvironnements Virtuels pour
lAnimation et la Synthèse dImages dObjets
Naturels Virtual Environments for Modeling,
Animating and Rendering Natural Scenes

• INRIA Rhône-Alpes
• Équipe du laboratoire GRAVIR/IMAG
• Future équipe du LJK (CNRS, INPG, INRIA, UJF)

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Who are we?

• The team
• 6 faculties
• 2 full profs GP Bonneau (UJF), MP Cani (INPG)
  Scientific leader
• 2 assistant profs F Faure (UJF), F. Hetroy
  (INPG, sept 2004)
• 2 CR1 researchers F. Neyret (CNRS), L. Revéret
  (INRIA)
• 4 post-doc, engineer or designer
• 12 PhD students (8 with MENRT grants)
• History
• Created in January 2003, after the scission of
  iMAGIS
• Basis Computer Graphics (modeling, animation,
  rendering)

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Scientific focus Modeling Visualizing Nature

• Fascinating problem (vegetable, mineral, animal
  worlds)
• Still unsolved to a large extent
• Many industrial applications (from realism to
  real-time)
• 3D feature films, Special effects, Video games
• Virtual prototyping Pedagogical Simulators
• (environment, geology, energy, aeronautics,
  surgery, cosmetics)

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Modeling Visualizing Nature Main challenges

• Extreme complexity
• Number of elements, shape, aspect, motion and
  deformation
• Re-using models from other sciences is not always
  possible
• Virtual clouds? Fluid dynamics meteorology
  study other scales
• Hair animation? FEM collisions not applicable
  for 100 000 strands
• Use existing knowledge Collaborate with other
  disciplines
• Combine efficiency and realism?
• Specific methodology New fundamental tools

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Scientific basisMethodology for handling
complexity

• Characterize the observed sub-phenomena
• Represent them by coupled sub-models
• Of different nature physical model, geometry,
  texture, ...
• Applied at different scales
• Dynamically adapt the sub-models to the needs
• By changing their local space and time resolution
• By switching from one model to another
• Validate based on human perception

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Methodology for handling complexityExample
meadow blowing in the wind

1. Wind pattern action
2. Receever precomputed dynamics
3. Grass geometry 3 levels of detail

I3D01,Computer Animation03
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Contributions1. New fundamental tools

• Geometry
• New shape representations
• Interactive deformations
• Animation
• Motion control from video analysis
• Physically-based simulation
• Visualization of massive data-sets
• Multiresolution analysis adaptive rendering
• Realistic rendering
• Textures, shaders, point-based rendering

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New fundamental toolsExample Constant volume
space deformations

• Foldover-free space deformation
• Rings of constant volume  swirls 
•  
• Applications
• Modeling virtual clay
• Animating fluids

Pacific Graphics04, SCA05
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Contributions2. Application to specific natural
scenes

• Mineral world
• Animation of lava-flows, sea, streams
• Simulation of water, smoke, clouds
• Vegetable world
• Real-time rendering of forest
• Animating meadows (grass, trees)
• Animal world
• Wild animals animated from video
• Virtual humans hair, skin, muscles, clothes
• Real-time organs for surgery simulators

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Application to specific natural scenesExample
Simulation of Natural Hair

• New Lagrangian deformable model Super-helices
• Predicts the shape of static hair
• Efficient and stable simulation of hair dynamics
• Identification of hair interaction parameters
• Bridging the gap between wisps continuum
• Interdisciplinary work (cosmetics, mechanics)
• Industrial partnership (LOréal)

EG05 short, SIGGRAPH06
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Application to specific natural scenesExample
Simulation of Natural Hair
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3. Software development SOFA with
CIMIT/Harvard, INRIA, ETHZ, CWU

• An Open Framework for Medical Simulation
• Multi-institution, international effort
• Aim component sharing / exchange / comparison
• Kernel (release Dec 06)
• Communication interfaces
• Modules
• FEM, Mass springs, Particles
• Rendering algorithms,
• Collision detection response

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Scientific Collaborations

• International
• Joint team with DGP, University of Toronto
  (2004-2006)
• 6 Eurodoc grants 6 month visit of PhD students
  to
• U. of Washington, Davis, Berkeley, Calgary,
  Montreal
• European Network of Excellence Aim_at_shape
• (other joint papers with UBC, ETHZ, U. of
  Tuebingen, UC Davis)
• National
• Co-advised PhDs SIAMES, MOVI, APACHE, LMC, TIMC
• DEREVE 2 with LIRIS ICA, MIDAS with TIMC, ICP
• ARCs with ALCOVE, EPIDAURE, ISA, Geometrica

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with Other Disciplines

• 2003-2005 Collaborations with the fields of
• Mechanics (CEMAGREF, LEGI, L3S)
• Medicine (IRCAD, TIMC)
• Cognitive Sciences (U. of Geneva)
• Cosmetics (lOreal research labs)
• 2005-2009 Interdisciplinary research clusters
• Environnement Santé (Rhône-Alpes Region)
• 2006-2009 Multidiciplinary ANR Projects
• Biomechanics Neurosciences (project Kameleon)
• Botanics (project NatSim)

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Industrial grants transfer

• Public projects with technology transfer
• European project Odysseous
• RIAM Virtual Actors RNTL PARI with Galilea
• RIAM projects Vertigo Prodige with Bionatics
  and Thales
• Direct grants from the industry
• LOreal (contract 2004-2006)
• CEA / CESTA (PhD grant 2004-2006)
• EDF (PhD grant 2005-2007)

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Results Visibility

• Publications (20 journal, 48 conf, 6 chapters)
• Editors GMOD, IEEE TVCG
• Conference co-chairs
• EG-IEEE Visualisation2003, IEEE Shape Modeling
  Applications05
• Paper co-chairs
• EUROGRAPHICS04, ACM-EG Symp. on Computer
  Animation06
• PC members
• SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, Pacific Graphics
• IEEE Vis, SMI, SCA, CASA, NPAR, etc

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Grand challenge ?Specify and control a full,
animated natural scene

• Creation of digital content, in a difficult case
• High number of similar, but different details
• Allow user-input / fit specific distributions
• Control motion while maintaining realism
• Animate and render efficiently
• Reasons for tackling it?
• Real-size tests interactions between different
  phenomena
• Interactive exploration (GPU, GRimage PC grid)
• Validation through the science of human perception

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Objectives for the next 4 years

• Creation of Natural Scenes
• Exploit real images, data, sketching
• Combine user control with procedural details
• Animating Nature multi-disciplinary projects
• Promote interactive virtual scenes as a support
  for experimenting and validating hypotheses
• Model natural phenomena never achieved in CG
• Efficient Visualization of very large scenes
• Interactive exploration of hybrid data-masses
• Fast, realistic rendering of natural scenes

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Conclusion

• Computer Graphics group
• Competences modeling, animation, visualization,
  rendering
• Focus Virtual natural scenes and phenomena
• Strategic aspects within French research
• Combining simulation, visualization and virtual
  reality
• Processing huge data-sets
• Applications to Environmental simulations
• Applications to Biology/Health-care

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Thank you!