In this work we describe the design and implementation of a general framework for visualizing and editing motion planning environments, problem instances, and their solutions. The motion planning problem consists of finding a valid path between a start and a goal configuration for a movable object. The workspace is, in traditional robotics and animation applications, composed of one or more objects (called obstacles) that cannot overlap with the robot. As even the simplest motion planning problems have been shown to be in- tractable, most practical approaches to motion planning use randomization and/or compute approximate solutions. While the tool we present allows the manipulation and evaluation of planner solutions and the animation of any path found by any plan- ner, it is specialized for a class of randomized planners called probabilistic roadmap methods (PRMs). PRMs are roadmap-based methods that generate a graph or roadmap where the nodes represent collision-free configurations and the edges represent feasible paths between those configurations. PRMs typically consist of two phases: roadmap con- struction, where a roadmap is built, and query, where the start and goal configura- tions are connected to the roadmap and then a path is extracted using graph search techniques.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Mark L. Knapp. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-68).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Computer Science, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-95).

Thesis--University of Alberta. / Title from screen (viewed Mar. 26, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989.

Network Rendering is an important problem in computer graphics and visualization applications. Reduction of the data needed for transmission over the network can greatly improve the performance. Many methods, such as mesh simplification, image tiling, level of detail and user action prediction, have been developed to solve this problem.. In this thesis, a new approach tackling the problem has been explored. A textured depth map (called Terrain Instance Map, TIM) based on re-projection method is introduced to render highly detailed terrain models. TIMs are created by a rendering server with a specified viewpoint from the client. Re-projection of the textured depth map in TIM can satisfy user requests for rendering in the client. In order to achieve an interactive frame rate at the client side and to reduce the workload of the server, a client side cache system is designed to reconstruct in-between screen shots from previously rendered results sparsely provided by the server. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective for network rendering. By changing the projection plane and splitting the viewport into small blocks, Screen Instance Map (SIM) is developed for arbitrary models with or without texture. The implemented network rendering system can satisfy interactive rendering in the client. Compared with existing methods, the new method needs virtually no additional storage space for the server and supports a wide range of inputs other than meshes. Finally, computation of camera frames for the virtual camera control is studied as a part of the network rendering system. A new Single Reflection method (SRM) to solve the rotation-minimizing directed frame (RMDF) problem is proposed and it is shown that the method is more robust and twice as fast than the existing method. Based on the new method, a simple and effective scheme for camera frames interpolation is devised. The methods and concepts introduced in this thesis are useful and effective for interactive network rendering. The TIM and SIM methods can be applied to network rendering for models with or without texture. The SRM method is essential for real-time camera frame computation and its extension can be applied to user interaction for viewing virtual environments. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Electrical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

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