Injectivity Conditions of 2D and 3D Uniform Cubic B-Spline Functions
Uniform cubic B-spline functions have been used for mapping functions in various areas such as image warping and morphing, 3D deformation, and volume morphing. The injectivity (one-to-one property) of a mapping function is crucial to obtaining desirable results in these areas. This paper considers the injectivity conditions of 2D and 3D uniform cubic B-spline functions. We propose a geometric interpretation of the injectivity of a uniform cubic B-spline function, with which 2D and 3D cases can be handled in a similar way. Based on our geometric interpretation, we present sufficient conditions for injectivity which are represented in terms of control point displacements. These sufficient conditions can be easily tested and will be useful in guaranteeing the injectivity of mapping functions in application areas.

title: Out-of-Core Remeshing of Large Polygonal Meshes
abstract: We propose an out-of-core method for creating semi-regular surface representations from large input surface meshes. Our approach is based on a streaming implementation of the MAPS remesher of Lee et al. Our remeshing procedure consists of two stages. First, a simplification process is used to obtain the base domain. During simplification, we maintain the mapping information between the input and the simplified meshes. The second stage of remeshing uses the mapping information to produce samples of the output semi-regular mesh. The out-of-core operation of our method is enabled by the synchronous streaming of a simplified mesh and the mapping information stored at the original vertices. The synchronicity of two streaming buffers is maintained using a specially designed write strategy for each buffer. Experimental results demonstrate the remeshing performance of the proposed method, as well as other applications that use the created mapping between the simplified and the original surface representations

title: Motif analysis of noisy regular textures
abstract: A regular texture contains a periodic arrangement of a determinable pattern. Motifs of a regular texture are the minimal parallelogrammic sub-regions that can reproduce the texture by tiling. A motif extracted from a regular texture can be used for texture reproduction, texture recognition, and texture compression. However, it is not simple to accurately capture a motif of a regular texture, as the motif may be non-rectangular or arranged in an arbitrary direction. Moreover, when the texture contains additive noises, such as are created by the scanning process, motif analysis becomes more difficult. In this paper, we present an algorithm to obtain a motif of a noisy regular texture in O( mn log mn ) time, where m × n is the size of the texture. The analysis examples demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can robustly derive motifs of noisy regular textures.

title: Motion retargeting and evaluation for VR-based training of free motions
abstract: Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as one of the important and effective tools for education and training. Most VR-based training systems are situation based, where the trainees are trained for discrete decision making in special situations presented by the VR environments. In contrast, this paper discusses the application of VR to a different class of training, for learning free motion, often required in sports and the arts. We propose a VR-based motion-training framework that contains an intuitive motion-guiding interface, posture-oriented motion retargeting, and an evaluation and advice scheme for corrective feedback. Applications of the proposed framework to simple fencing training and a dance imitation game are demonstrated .

title: Feature sensitive mesh segmentation with mean shift
abstract: Feature sensitive mesh segmentation is important for many computer graphics and geometric modeling applications. In this paper, we develop a mesh segmentation method, which is capable of producing high-quality shape partitioning. It respects fine shape features and works well on various types of shapes, including natural shapes and mechanical parts. The method combines a procedure for clustering mesh normals with a modification of the mesh clarification technique. For clustering of mesh normals, we adopt Mean Shift, a powerful general purpose technique for clustering scattered data. We demonstrate advantages of our method by comparing it with two state-of-the-art mesh segmentation techniques.

title: Mesh parameterization with a virtual boundary
abstract: Parameterization of a 3D triangular mesh is a fundamental problem in various applications of meshes. The convex combination approach is widely used for parameterization because of its good properties, such as fast computation and one-to-one embedding. However, the approach has a drawback: most boundary triangles have high distortion in the embedding compared with interior ones. In this paper, we present an extension of the convex combination approach that resolves the drawback by using a virtual boundary. Since the virtual boundary is fixed onto a given convex polygon instead of the real boundary, the real boundary triangles can better reflect the shape of the corresponding 3D triangles. The proposedapproach obtains a parameterization of a 3D mesh with less d istortion than with the original convex combination approach.

title: 3D Medical Volume Reconstruction Using Web Services
abstract: We address the problem of 3D medical volume reconstruction using Web services. The use of proposed Web services is motivated by the fact that the problem of 3D medical volume reconstruction requires significant computer resources and human expertise in medical and computer science areas. Web services were implemented as an additional layer to a dataflow framework called data to knowledge. In the collaboration between UIC and NCSA, pre-processed input images at NCSA were made accessible to medical collaborators for registration. Every time medical collaborators inspected images and selected corresponding features for registration, the Web server at NCSA was contacted and the registration processing query was executed using the image to knowledge library of registration methods. Co-registered frames were returned for verification by medical collaborators in a new window. This paper presents 3D volume reconstruction problem requirements, architecture of the developed prototype system and the tradeoffs of our system design.

title: Eyes alive
abstract: For an animated human face model to appear natural it should produce eye movements consistent with human ocular behavior. During face-to-face conversational interactions, eyes exhibit conversational turn-taking and agent thought processes through gaze direction, saccades, and scan patterns. We have implemented an eye movement model based on empirical models of saccades and statistical models of eye-tracking data. Face animations using stationary eyes, eyes with random saccades only, and eyes with statistically derived saccades are compared, to evaluate whether they appear natural and effective while communicating.

title: Striping delay-sensitive packets over multiple burst-loss channels with random delays
abstract: Multi-homed mobile devices have multiple wireless communication interfaces, each connecting to the Internet via a long range but low speed and bursty WAN link such as a cellular link. We propose a packet striping system for such multi-homed devices - a mapping of delay-sensitive packets by an intermediate gateway to multiple channels, such that the overall performance is enhanced. In particular, we model and analyze the striping of delay-sensitive packets over multiple burst-loss channels with random delays. We first derive the expected packet loss ratio when forward error correction (FEC) is applied for error protection over multiple channels. We next model and analyze the case when the channels are bandwidth-limited with shifted-gamma-distributed transmission delays. We develop a dynamic programming-based algorithm that solves the optimal striping problem for the ARQ, the FEC, and the hybrid FEC/ARQ case.

title: An Embedding Framework for Myocardial Velocity Processing with MRI
abstract: This paper presents an embedding framework for myocardial velocity processing with MRI based on a hollow, semi-spherical template. The relationship between vector bundle and manifold mapping is analysed and three different mapping methods that include tangent mapping, normal mapping, and normal-tangent mapping are assessed for their practical value of myocardial contractility analysis. The proposed method provides a basis for consistent volume matching and vector correspondence, in addition to the ease of calculating biomechanical indices such as radial, circumferential and longitudinal strain rates without the concern of boundary effects. Detailed analysis results with both synthetic and in vivo MR velocity data sets are provided.

title: Creativity in Digital Libraries and Information Retrieval Environments
abstract: Inspired by Weisberg’s [20] argument that creativity exists in everyone and on the assumption that every information seeker is creative and undergoes a creative process in information seeking, this paper synthesizes a holistic “creativity” model and “information seeking” model to identify stages in a creative process for information seeking. A pilot study was conducted to verify these stages and also examine if present digital libraries and information retrieval environments provide “creative” features to support creative information seeking. We discussed these initial findings and made recommendations for further work to better support creative information seeking in digital libraries and information retrieval environments.