Annual Lecture- Implicit Modelling Comes of Age Brian Wyvill (University of Bath)

Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Annual Lecture

Despite great advances in computer graphics, it still takes many hours to build detailed computer models.  The manufacturing industry is entrenched in parametric models, and the triangle mesh still dominates, both as the subject of most modeling research, and as a medium for content creation for games and the movies. GPU hardware for processing and scanning hardware for capture, support the mesh modelling methodology over all else.  

In this talk I will resurrect the idea of the nearly extinct implicit modeling approach, and claim that such a methodology has some advantages over current popular techniques. In this paradigm, models are thought of as solids and it is easy to produce aesthetically pleasing blends and detect when objects are in contact.

Content creators want to build more complex models in an efficient fashion, but designers often are located in different places, perhaps across large distances. One way of accomplishing this is to develop prototypes in a networked collaborative system. Passing large meshes across a network becomes a bottleneck in such a system.  On the other hand, implicit models can be represented by a small hierarchy.  The information needed to build this can be highly condensed.   With the advent of more local processing power, efficient data structures can be used for complex implicit models. 

The talk will be illustrated by slides and video, and the latest results on an application to skinning for implicit characters for games will be shown.  At the end of the talk a short demonstration of something entirely different to astound your friends will be given. 

Thursday 7th November 2013 5.30pm at Reichel Hall Ffriddoedd Road, Â鶹Íø, LL57 2TR

Everyone welcome, no advance booking required Refreshments available from 5.00pm Everyone welcome, no advance booking required Refreshments available from 5.00pm

Publication date: 3 October 2013