Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T18:51:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Trenhago2.pdf: 15966707 bytes, checksum: 00c5e69b3e4ccb8745765adf1d2fa0a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-23 / Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior / This work describes the development of a software structure that currently controls the CAVE at LNCC, as well as its use for biological data visualization. This work also includes the adaptation and configuration of the InstantReality framework considering all particularities of the CAVE built at LNCC, which amongst other things does not have square walls all around (two walls have a particular shape). In order to accompish this task we make use of the emerging X3D technology. This work also proposes a process for fast development of biological data visualization. Such process has been used to develop a series of sample applications, which included geometric description of parts of the human cardiovascular system as well as other structures such as parts of worms and other creatures, visualization of proteine models and virus envelops both relying or not on some programming language. This work also introduces important aspects of complex surface visualization and describes the implementation of a GPU based ilumination model. Additionally, some justifications are presented regarding the use of Virtual Reality as a tool for bioinformatics visuzalization or biologic applications. Finally, this work evaluates the CAVE prototype, considering each of its components, in the light of the results achieved in the biologic visualization applications developed. Problems are identified and further improvements are proposed. / Este trabalho descreve o desenvolvimento de uma estrutura lógica de software para o controle do CAVE do LNCC e sua utilização na visualização de dados biológicos. Configuramos e adaptamos o framework InstantReality para fazer funcionar todos os componentes singulares do CAVE do LNCC ( uma parede não ortogonal, duas paredes com cinco lados, projetores convencionais, entre outros ) por meio de uma tecnologia emergente, o X3D, usado para distribuir conteúdo 3D multimídia pela Internet. Propomos um processo para o rápido desenvolvimento, recorrendo ou não a uma linguagem de programação, de aplicações para visualização de dados biológicos, tais como: descrição geométrica de parte do sistema cardiovascular humano, de parte de uma larva, visualização de modelos de proteínas e capsídios de vírus. Apresentamos questões importantes na visualização de superfícies complexas, como a importância do modelo de iluminação utilizado e descrevemos a implementação de um modelos de iluminação em GPU. Adicionalmente, justificamos o emprego da Realidade Virtual como ferramenta valiosa para a visualização em bioinformática, e mesmo na biologia. Finalmente, avaliamos a eficiência geral do CAVE e de cada componente,através dos resultados obtidos na visualização de cenários temáticos de interesse biológico. Identificamos possíveis problemas e sugerimos opções para uma melhoria geral do desempenho.

Este trabalho descreve o desenvolvimento de uma estrutura lógica de software para o controle do CAVE do LNCC e sua utilização na visualização de dados biológicos. Configuramos e adaptamos o framework InstantReality para fazer funcionar todos os componentes singulares do CAVE do LNCC ( uma parede não ortogonal, duas paredes com cinco lados, projetores convencionais, entre outros ) por meio de uma tecnologia emergente, o X3D, usado para distribuir conteúdo 3D multimídia pela Internet. Propomos um processo para o rápido desenvolvimento, recorrendo ou não a uma linguagem de programação, de aplicações para visualização de dados biológicos, tais como: descrição geométrica de parte do sistema cardiovascular humano, de parte de uma larva, visualização de modelos de proteínas e capsídios de vírus. Apresentamos questões importantes na visualização de superfícies complexas, como a importância do modelo de iluminação utilizado e descrevemos a implementação de um modelos de iluminação em GPU. Adicionalmente, justificamos o emprego da Realidade Virtual como ferramenta valiosa para a visualização em bioinformática, e mesmo na biologia. Finalmente, avaliamos a eficiência geral do CAVE e de cada componente,através dos resultados obtidos na visualização de cenários temáticos de interesse biológico. Identificamos possíveis problemas e sugerimos opções para uma melhoria geral do desempenho. / This work describes the development of a software structure that currently controls the CAVE at LNCC, as well as its use for biological data visualization. This work also includes the adaptation and configuration of the InstantReality framework considering all particularities of the CAVE built at LNCC, which amongst other things does not have square walls all around (two walls have a particular shape). In order to accompish this task we make use of the emerging X3D technology. This work also proposes a process for fast development of biological data visualization. Such process has been used to develop a series of sample applications, which included geometric description of parts of the human cardiovascular system as well as other structures such as parts of worms and other creatures, visualization of proteine models and virus envelops both relying or not on some programming language. This work also introduces important aspects of complex surface visualization and describes the implementation of a GPU based ilumination model. Additionally, some justifications are presented regarding the use of Virtual Reality as a tool for bioinformatics visuzalization or biologic applications. Finally, this work evaluates the CAVE prototype, considering each of its components, in the light of the results achieved in the biologic visualization applications developed. Problems are identified and further improvements are proposed.

[Truncated abstract] This research addresses endemic problems in the fields of computer graphics and simulation such as jittery motion, spatial scalability, rendering problems such as z-buffer tearing, the repeatability of physics dynamics and numerical error in positional systems. Designers of simulation and computer graphics software tend to map real world navigation rules onto the virtual world, expecting to see equivalent virtual behaviour. After all, if computers are programmed to simulate the real world, it is reasonable to expect the virtual behaviour to correspond. However, in computer simulation many behaviours and other computations show measurable problems inconsistent with realworld experience, particularly at large distances from the virtual world origin. Many of these problems, particularly in rendering, can be imperceptible, so users may be oblivious to them, but they are measurable using experimental methods. These effects, generically termed spatial jitter in this thesis, are found in this study to stem from floating point error in positional parameters such as spatial coordinates. This simulation error increases with distance from the coordinate origin and as the simulation progresses through the pipeline. The most common form of simulation error relevant to this study is spatial error which is found by this thesis to not be calculated, as may be expected, using numerical relative error propagation rules but using the rules of geometry. ... The thesis shows that the thinking behind real-world rules, such as for navigation, has to change in order to properly design for optimal fidelity simulation. Origincentric techniques, formulae, terms, architecture and processes are all presented as one holistic solution in the form of an optimised simulation pipeline. The results of analysis, experiments and case studies are used to derive a formula for relative spatial error that accounts for potential pathological cases. A formula for spatial error propagation is then derived by using the new knowledge of spatial error to extend numerical relative error propagation mathematics. Finally, analytical results are developed to provide a general mathematical expression for maximum simulation error and how it varies with distance from the origin and the number of mathematical operations performed. We conclude that the origin centric approach provides a general and optimal solution to spatial jitter. Along with changing the way one thinks about navigation, process guidelines and formulae developed in the study, the approach provides a new paradigm for positional computing. This paradigm can improve many aspects of computer simulation in areas such as entertainment, visualisation for education, industry, science, or training. Examples are: spatial scalability, the accuracy of motion, interaction and rendering; and the consistency and predictability of numerical computation in physics. This research also affords potential cost benefits through simplification of software design and code. These cost benefits come from some core techniques for minimising position dependent error, error propagation and also the simplifications and from new algorithms that flow naturally out of the core solution.

<p>Computer animated faces have found their way into a wide variety of areas. Starting from entertainment like computer games, through television and films to user interfaces using “talking heads”. Animated faces are also becoming popular in web applications in form of human-like assistants or newsreaders. </p><p>This thesis presents a few aspects of dealing with human face animations, namely: editing, playing and transmitting such animations. It describes a standard for handling human face animations, the MPEG-4 Face Animation, and shows the process of designing, implementing and evaluating applications compliant to this standard. </p><p>First, it presents changes introduced to the existing components of the Visage|toolkit package for dealing with facial animations, offered by the company Visage Technologies AB. It also presents the process of designing and implementing of an application for editing facial animations compliant to the MPEG-4 Face Animation standard. Finally, it discusses several approaches to the problem of streaming facial animations over the Internet or the Local Area Network (LAN).</p>

<p>The aim with this thesis is to develop a plugin; Lovefish, for the purpose of allowing non-realistic renderings (NPR) for visualisation in Newtek Lightwave3D. The main purpose with Lovefish is to offer textured tones, something that has not been offered before by any previously existing shader for Lightwav3D. The textured tones are a substantially widening of what is possible to imitate in the field of classical art techniques. Among others has a number of SIGGRAPH papers has been the foundation and a source of inspiration for what has been achieve in this project. Further has this thesis treated a number of questions: what is non-photorealistic rendering is and how it works; an overview of the Lightwave3Ds software development kit (SDK).</p>

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to find ways to make the extent and constant movement in the blogosphere visible. An application has been developed using C# and OpenGL. The application is an interactive screensaver to be run on the Windows platform. It visualizes data combining 3D and 2D elements. Geographical data is rendered using a model of the Earth, where the blog posts are constantly updated. Various statistics are displayed to give information on the current state of the blogosphere.</p>

A modular and area-efficient 3D graphics accelerator for tile based rendering in FPGA systems has been designed and implemented. The accelerator supports a subset of OpenGL, with features such as mipmapping, multitexturing and blending. The accelerator consists of a software component for projection and clipping of triangles, as well as a hardware component for rasterization, coloring and video output. Trade-offs made between area, performance and functionality have been described and justified. In order to evaluate the functionality and performance of the accelerator, it has been tested with two different applications. / En modulär och utrymmeseffektiv 3D-grafikaccelerator för tile-baserad rendering i FPGA-system har designats och implementerats. Acceleratorn stöder en delmängd av OpenGL med funktioner som mipmapping, multitexturering och blending. Acceleratorn är uppdelad i en mjukvarudel för projektion och klippning av trianglar och en hårdvarudel för rastrering, färgsättning och utritning till skärm. Avvägningar som gjorts mellan area, prestanda och funktionalitet har beskrivits och motiverats. För att evaulera funktionalitet och prestanda har acceleratorn testats med två olika applikationer.

Computer animated faces have found their way into a wide variety of areas. Starting from entertainment like computer games, through television and films to user interfaces using “talking heads”. Animated faces are also becoming popular in web applications in form of human-like assistants or newsreaders. This thesis presents a few aspects of dealing with human face animations, namely: editing, playing and transmitting such animations. It describes a standard for handling human face animations, the MPEG-4 Face Animation, and shows the process of designing, implementing and evaluating applications compliant to this standard. First, it presents changes introduced to the existing components of the Visage|toolkit package for dealing with facial animations, offered by the company Visage Technologies AB. It also presents the process of designing and implementing of an application for editing facial animations compliant to the MPEG-4 Face Animation standard. Finally, it discusses several approaches to the problem of streaming facial animations over the Internet or the Local Area Network (LAN).

The aim with this thesis is to develop a plugin; Lovefish, for the purpose of allowing non-realistic renderings (NPR) for visualisation in Newtek Lightwave3D. The main purpose with Lovefish is to offer textured tones, something that has not been offered before by any previously existing shader for Lightwav3D. The textured tones are a substantially widening of what is possible to imitate in the field of classical art techniques. Among others has a number of SIGGRAPH papers has been the foundation and a source of inspiration for what has been achieve in this project. Further has this thesis treated a number of questions: what is non-photorealistic rendering is and how it works; an overview of the Lightwave3Ds software development kit (SDK).

With the growing demand of embedded graphics applications, how to provide an efficient graphics hardware acceleration solution has drawn much attention. It is well known that computer graphics contains two major domains: two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) graphics. Each domain owns large amounts of applications, such that general embedded platforms will require both graphics acceleration supports. This thesis proposes an advanced texture unit architecture which can provide various 3D texture filtering functions including trilinear, anistrophics filtering etc , and 2D coloring, painting, and texturing functions. Our proposed design consists of a core computation unit, and a set of data registers. The equations for those supported functions are decomposed into a series of basic arithmetic operations such as multiply-add-accumulation, multiply, etc executed by the core computation unit. To evaluate those equations for each pixel may require some pre-computed parameters which will be computed outside our unit in advance by the system¡¦s micro-controller. The equations can be computed by our texture unit based on the selected finite-state machine sequences which is stored in the on-chip control table. By updating those sequences can change the functionality provided by our chip. The overall cost of the proposed unit is about 28.36k gates. In addition to various texturing functions, this thesis also proposes an implementation of texture function for high-dynamic range (HDR) textures. HDR textures can provide various color details according to the frame¡¦s global illumination environment. Therefore, the 3D rendering system has to incorporate a tone-mapping mechanism to map the HDR image into normal color range of output display system. To reduce the overall tone-mapping implementation cost, this thesis uses an extra accumulator between the standard per-fragment rendering pipeline stages to accumulate the global illumination intensity based on the depth comparison result of the incoming pixel. After all of the pixels have passed through the pipeline stages, every pixel of the stored rendering result will be fetched into a mapping unit which will generate its mapping color in the normal dynamic range. The overall cost of the additional hardware for the realization of HDR textures is about 6.98k gates.