Hierarchical multiresolution reconstruction of shell surfaces
We present an adaptive, hierarchical Hh-multiresolution reconstruction algorithm to model shell surface objects from a matched pair of triangulated surfaces. Shell surfaces are an interval of contours of trivariate functions with prismatic support. In the H-direction, a hierarchical representation of the scaffold is constructed. For any adaptively extracted scaffold from the hierarchy, a sequence of functions in the h-direction (regularly subdivided mesh) is constructed so that their contours approximate the input shell to within a given error e. The shell surfaces can be made to capture sharp curve creases on the shell while being C1 smooth everywhere else. Using an interval of iso-contours of smooth trivariate spline functions, rather than a pair of inner and outer surface splines, one avoids the need for interference checks between the inner and outer surface boundaries.

title: Automatic reconstruction of surfaces and scalar fields from 3D scans
abstract: We present an efficient and uniform approach for the automatic reconstruction of surfaces of CAD (computer aided design) models and scalar fields defined on them, from an unorganized collection of scanned point data. A possible application is the rapid computer model reconstruction of an existing part or prototype from a three dimensional (3D) points scan of its surface. Color, texture or some scalar material property of the physical part, define natural scalar fields over the surface of the CAD model. Our reconstruction algorithm does not impose any convexity or differentiability restrictions on the surface of the original physical part or the scalar field function, except that it assumes that there is a sufficient sampling of the input point data to unambiguously reconstruct the CAD model. Compared to earlier methods our algorithm has the advantages of simplicity, efficiency and uniformity (both CAD model and scalar field reconstruction). The simplicity and efficiency of our approach is based on several novel uses of appropriate sub-structures (alpha shapes) of a three-dimensional Delaunay Triangulation, its dual the three-dimensional Voronoi diagram, and dual uses of trivariate Bernstein-Bezier forms. The boundary of the CAD model is modeled using implicit cubic Bernstein-Bezier patches, while the scalar field is reconstructed with functional cubic Bernstein-Bezier patches.

title: Spline Approximations of Real Algebraic Surfaces
abstract: We use a combination of both symbolic and numerical techniques to construct several degree boundedG0andG1continuous, piecewise spline approximations of real implicit algebraic surfaces for both computer graphics and geometric modeling. These approximations are based upon an adaptive triangulation (aG0planar approximation) of the real components of the algebraic surface, and include both singular points and singular curves on the surface. A curvilinear wireframe is also constructed using minimum bending energy, parametric curves with additionally normals varying along them. The spline approximations over the triangulation or curvilinear wireframe could be one of several forms: either low degree, implicit algebraic splines (triangular A-patches) or multivariate functional B-splines (B-patches) or standardized rational Bernstein?Bezier patches (RBB), or triangular rational B-Splines. The adaptive triangulation is additionally useful for a rapid display and animation of the implicit surface.

title: Fast evaluation of the improved Loop's subdivision surfaces
abstract: For obtaining better curvature distributions of subdivision surfaces, various improvements for Loop's subdivision scheme (C. Loop, 1987) on triangular surface meshes have been made. A careful analysis shows that the fast evaluation technique of the subdivision surface proposed by Stam is no longer usable to these improved schemes. This paper describes a fast evaluating algorithm for improved Loop's subdivision surfaces. The algorithm is applicable to a vast class of subdivision schemes for triangular surface meshes. Using the proposed algorithm, one can evaluate the subdivision surface at any domain point for any set of input subdivision masks and a control mesh.

title: Directional smoothing of triangular meshes
abstract: In this paper, we propose a so-called directional smoothing method based mean curvature flow. The selection of the diffusion direction is based on the descent of some energy functional. We show that the directional diffusion flow is volume-preserving. Based on the local directional diffusion flow, we present a feature-preserving smoothing method. Finally, we provide a series of examples to graphically demonstrate the quality of our results.

title: Smooth Shell Construction with Mixed Prism Fat Surfaces
abstract: Several naturally occurring as well as manufactured objects have shell like structures, that is their boundaries consist of surfaces with thickness. In an earlier paper, we have provided a reconstruction algorithm for such shell structures using smooth fat surfaces within three-sided prisms. In this paper, we extend the approach to a scaffolding consisting of three and four-sided prisms. Within each prism the constructed function is converted to a spline representation. In addition to the adaptive feature of our earlier scheme, the new scheme has the following extensions: (a) four sided fat patches are employed; (b) the size of individual fat patches are bigger; (c) fairing techniques are combined to obtain nicely shaped fat surfaces.

title: Efficient Fourier-Based Approach for Detecting Orientations and Occlusions in Epipolar Plane Images for 3D Scene Modeling
abstract: This paper presents a Fourier-based approach for automatically constructing a 3D panoramic model of a natural scene from a video sequence. The video sequences could be captured by an unstabilized camera mounted on a moving platform on a common road surface. As the input of the algorithms, “seamles” panoramic view images (PVIs) and epipolar plane images (EPIs) are generated after image stabilization if the camera is unstabilized. A novel panoramic EPI analysis method is proposed that combines the advantages of both PVIs and EPIs efficiently in three important steps: locus orientation detection in the Fourier frequency domain, motion boundary localization in the spatio-temporal domain, and occlusion/resolution recovery only at motion boundaries. The Fourier energy-based approaches in literature were usually for low-level local motion analysis and are therefore not accurate for 3D reconstruction and are also computationally expensive. Our panoramic EPI analysis approach is both accurate and efficient for 3D reconstruction. Examples of layered panoramic representations for large-scale 3D scenes from real world video sequences are given.

title: Subject-independent natural action recognition
abstract: A primitive-based dynamic Bayesian networks are proposed for subject-independent natural action recognition. Inferred by high-level knowledge, primitives are distinctive features that describe the context information and the motion information representing human action as well as pose. Dynamic Bayesian networks could fuse multi-information so that many kinds of weak information could function as strong information for inference. The experimental results show that primitive-based dynamic Bayesian networks not only increase the recognition rate but also improve the robustness.

title: Error Analysis of Pure Rotation-Based Self-Calibration
abstract: Self-calibration using pure rotation is a well-known technique and has been shown to be a reliable means for recovering intrinsic camera parameters. However, in practice, it is virtually impossible to ensure that the camera motion for this type of self-calibration is a pure rotation. In this paper, we present an error analysis of recovered intrinsic camera parameters due to the presence of translation. We derived closed-form error expressions for a single pair of images with nondegenerate motion; for multiple rotations for which there are no closed-form solutions, analysis was done through repeated experiments. Among others, we show that translation-independent solutions do exist under certain practical conditions. Our analysis can be used to help choose the least error-prone approach (if multiple approaches exist) for a given set of conditions.

title: Hidden Markov Model Based Events Detection in Soccer Video
abstract: This paper presents an algorithm developed based on hidden Markov model for cues fusion and event inference in soccer video. Four events, shoot, foul, offside and normal playing, are defined to be detected. The states of the events are employed to model the observations of the five cues, which are extracted from the shot sequences directly. The experimental results show the algorithm is effective and robust in inferring events from roughly extracted cues.

title: Error analysis of pure rotation-based self-calibration
abstract: Self-calibration using pure rotation is a well-known technique and has been shown to be a reliable means for recovering intrinsic camera parameters. However, in practice, it is virtually impossible to ensure that the camera motion for this type of self-calibration is a pure rotation. In this paper, we present an error analysis of recovered intrinsic camera parameters due to the presence of translation. We derived closed-form error expressions for a single pair of images with nondegenerate motion; for multiple rotations for which there are no closed-form solutions, analysis was done through repeated experiments. Among others, we show that translation-independent solutions do exist under certain practical conditions. Our analysis can be used to help choose the least error-prone approach (if multiple approaches exist) for a given set of conditions.