Information Systems and Computer Engineering
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A Sketch-Based Interface for Modeling Articulated Figures João Pedro Borges Pereira Thesis to obtain the Master of Science Degree in: Information Systems and Computer Engineering Supervisors: Prof. Dr. João António Madeiras Pereira, Dr. Daniel Simões Lopes Examination Committee Chairperson: Prof. Dr. João Emílio Segurado Pavão Martins Supervisor: Prof. Dr. João António Madeiras Pereira Members of the Committee: Prof. Dr. Alfredo Manuel Dos Santos Ferreira Júnior November 2017 Acknowledgments In this section, I would like to like to thank each and every one that in some way contributed to the accomplish- ment of this thesis. To my supervisors and professors of the same department, Prof. João Madeiras Pereira for giving me the chance to expand on this subject, giving me guidelines as well as walking through with me the last pieces of my work. To Prof. Joaquim Jorge that helped me to decipher the mysteries of the CALI library and with the design of the forms for the user study. To Dr. Daniel Simões Lopes, with whom along the whole year I made weekly meetings and helped define the next steps to take, besides reading and looking into my work. He was an exceptional help to my project; for that I am deeply grateful. To national funds, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology with reference IT-MEDEX PTDC/EEI-SII/6038/2014, for the financial support. To my parents, that along the years supported me in having a multilingual education, helped me hone my skills by simply being present at every step of the way and allowing me to into programs like Erasmus. To my mother especially for her invaluable help and support to hear me out on my different problems, while probably not under- standing everything, to take me to my working place and the constant need of being updated with how things were going. To my siblings and grandparents that constantly tried to keep me motivated and focused on my goals and helped me review my text. To the rest of my family that not only needed to be updated as well, but also offered me a room during the month of August when my usual working place is not available. Tio Paulo, this one is for you! To all my friends that helped me when I was stuck at some point. Hugo Braz with his invaluable council and advise, Gonçalo Polónia de Matos with his geek curiosity, José Serrano with the useful resources and brainstorm sessions and last but not least, António Sarmento with all of his invaluable help along all the steps of the way. To every test user that had the patience and kindness to lend me their time. To everyone, thank you! ii Abstract Building articulated models with contact surfaces is a common task in Computer Graphics and Multibody Dynamics settings. However, articulated models such as armatures, rigs or kinematic structures are usually built with tedious mouse-keyboard inputs or, even worse, text-based interfaces where the user numerically specifies body transfor- mations and joint types. Programs like Blender, Maya or OpenSim use this kind of approach. Alternatively, sketch- ing on an interactive surface provides a familiar way to define such articulated models as the user can draw directly the content. In this paper, a sketch-based interface which aids the design of articulated models is here presented. In order to evaluate modeling efficiency, we did a comparative study between the proposed interface and conventional WIMP software, as well as integrating superovoidal shapes as primitives in our piece of software due to its vast use in illustration. User tests were done on both lay and professional users that did 3D modeling, along with some others trying to determine how to calligraphically recognize superovoids. We prove that the interface enables speed sculpt- ing that can be used not only in humanoid design but for an arbitrary character or mechanical system and determine a way to classify superovoids calligraphically. A type of interface that, even though it gained the reputation of being used for “quick and dirty” tasks, has increasingly surprised us of its viability in the completion of highly detailed tasks. Keyword: Sketched Based Interface and Modeling, 3D articulated models, dynamic interaction, ovoidal shapes. There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. - Pythagoras, quoted in The Mystery of Matter (1965) edited by Louise B. Young, p. 113 iii Resumo Construir modelos articulados com superfícies tácteis é uma tarefa comum em Computação Gráfica e nas definições de Multibody Dynamics. No entanto, rigs, estruturas esqueléticas ou kinemáticas são habitualmente construídos através de interfaces entediantes com parâmetros de entrada baseados em teclado e rato, ou pior ainda, em texto no qual o utilizador tem de especificar numericamente todas as transformações geométricas bem como as juntas. Pro- gramas como o Blender, Maya ou OpenSim abordam a modelação 3D desta maneira. Não obstante, esboçar numa superfície táctil proporciona ao utilizador não só uma forma intuitiva de definir os mesmos modelos articulados, mas também pode fazê-lo enquanto desenha o conteúdo directamente. Neste paper, será apresentado uma interface baseada em esboços servindo de ferramenta no design de modelos articulados. Para avaliar a eficiência da modela- ção, fizemos um estudo comparativo entre a interface proposta e os softwares convencionais equipados com inte- racção WIMP, assim como a utilização de figuras denominadas superovoids como primitivas no nosso software devido ao uso frequente das mesmas em ilustração. Foram realizados testes com utilizadores leigos e profissionais na área de modelação 3D, juntamente com outros testes tentando determinar como classificar caligraficamente um superovoid. Provamos que a interface permite speed sculpting que pode ser usado tanto em design de humanoides como numa personagem arbitraria ou sistema mecânico e descobrimos uma maneira de reconhecer superovoids caligraficamente. Um tipo de interface que apesar de ter ganho a reputação de “rapido e sujo”, tem vindo a surpre- ender-nos cada vez mais com sua viabilidade em realizar tarefas altamente detalhados. Palavras-chave: Sketched Based Interface and Modeling, modelos articulados 3D, interacção dinâmica, formas ovoidais. iv Table of Contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Motivation ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Scopes and objectives ................................................................................................................ 5 2 Related Work ................................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Skeleton generation ................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Posing and animation ................................................................................................................. 8 2.3 Drawing recognition applications ............................................................................................ 10 3 Windows Icons Menus and Pointer (WIMP) interfaces............................................................. 12 3.1 Blender .................................................................................................................................... 13 3.2 Other WIMP interfaces ............................................................................................................ 18 4 Multibody Sketcher, a SBIM application for 3D modeling ....................................................... 19 4.1 Skeleton Mode ......................................................................................................................... 19 4.2 Joint and Physics Mode ........................................................................................................... 21 4.3 Hitbox Mode ............................................................................................................................ 22 4.4 Open-box camera widget ......................................................................................................... 23 4.5 Superellipsoid parameter widget ............................................................................................. 23 4.6 Superovoid parameter widget .................................................................................................. 24 4.7 Image Model Background ....................................................................................................... 25 4.8 Other features .......................................................................................................................... 25 5 User studies .................................................................................................................................... 26 5.1 Calligraphic recognition of ovoidal shapes ............................................................................. 26 5.2 WIMP vs. SBIM ...................................................................................................................... 28 5.2.1 Lay users ...............................................................................................................................