Output details

Shape manipulation using physically based wire deformations

Originality: This work has made two theoretical contributions. First, it proposes spine-based shape manipulation, which quickly achieves global shape control for geometric models used in animation and product design. Second, it introduces the physics of curve deformation into shape manipulation of 3D surfaces, which helps improve realism. To our knowledge, no existing research study has addressed these two issues. Through the introduction of spline and profile wires and the underlying physics, our approach enables simpler control and fast computation of curve based deformation. Because the physical simulation is only calculated on the wires, it is much faster than existing physically based methods.

Significance: Object shape manipulation is an important research topic with many applications in computer animation, computer assisted industrial and artistic design, modelling and deformation in game development and film visual effects. Existing works can be categorized into two groups, geometric based methods and physically based techniques. Because the underlying physics and materials are considered, physically based techniques usually offer a more realistic and physically accurate result. However due to the computational cost, physically based methods are usually less responsive than geometric methods. This work makes physics-based shape manipulation more efficient.

Rigour: The proposed approach defines the relationship between the curves representing the surface geometry and the underlying physics. Transforming geometric curves into physical wires is achieved by determining the material and geometric properties together with external forces. The underlying physics are introduced to deform profile and spine wires accurately through the closed form solution to the governing differential equations. Extensive experiments on shape manipulation and character animation were undertaken that validated the technical soundness of this work.