The use of computer animated interactive faces in film, TV, games is ever growing, with new application areas emerging also on the Internet and mobile environments. Morph targets are one of the most popular methods to animate the face. Up until now 3D artists had to design each morph target defined by the MPEG-4 standard by hand. This is a very monotonous and tedious task. With the newly developed method of Facial Motion Cloning [11]the heavy work is relieved from the artists. From an already animated face model the morph targets can now be copied onto a new static face model. For the Facial Motion Cloning process there must be a subset of the feature points specified by the MPEG-4 standard defined. The purpose of this is to correlate the facial features of the two faces. The goal of this project is to develop a graphical editor in which the artists can define the feature points for a face model. The feature points will be saved in a file format that can be used in a Facial Motion Cloning software.

To give a realistic impression in a driving simulator for nighttime driving, there are many challenging aspects to consider. One of the most important aspects is the illumination caused by the headlights of the own vehicle. To give a realistic impression there is the need to consider the characteristics of the headlight in use to be able to represent main and dipped beam, but also to represent different models and types of headlights. Another important aspect is the dazzling effects caused by the light cast by other vehicles upon the driver. These effects are not only important to give a realistic and visually appealing simulation, but also to simulate blinding effects which may affect the drivers ability to perceive the traffic environment to a large degree. This thesis describes methods to simulate these vital aspects of night-drive simulation in real-time using the capabilities of today's graphics cards.

The mainstream of current VLSI design and logic synthesis is based on traditional CMOS logic circuits. However, in the past two decades, various new logic circuit design styles based on pass-transistor logic (PTL) have been proposed. Compared with CMOS circuits, these PTL-based circuits are claimed to have better results in area, speed, and power in some particular applications, such as adder and multiplier designs. Since most current automatic logic synthesis tools (such as Synopsys Design Compiler) are based on conventional CMOS standard cell library, the corresponding logic minimization for CMOS logic cannot be directly employed to generate efficient PTL circuits. In this dissertation, we develop two novel PTL synthesizers that can efficiently generate PTL-based circuits. One is based on pure PTL cells; the other mixes CMOS and PTL cells in the standard cell library to achieve better performance in area, speed, and power. Since PTL-based circuits are constructed by only a few basic PTL cells, the layouts in PTL cells can be easily updated to design large SoC systems as the process technology migrates rapidly in current Nano technology era. The proposed PTL logic synthesis flows employ the popular Synopsys Design Compiler (DC) to perform logic translation and minimization based on the standard cell library composed of PTL and CMOS cells, thus, the PTL design flow can be easily embedded in the standard cell-based ASIC design flow. In this dissertation, we also discuss PTL-based designs of some fundamental hardware components. Furthermore, the proposed PTL cell library is used to synthesize large processor systems in applications of computer arithmetic and 3D graphics.

<p>The use of computer animated interactive faces in film, TV, games is ever growing, with new application areas emerging also on the Internet and mobile environments. Morph targets are one of the most popular methods to animate the face. Up until now 3D artists had to design each morph target defined by the MPEG-4 standard by hand. This is a very monotonous and tedious task. With the newly developed method of Facial Motion Cloning [11]the heavy work is relieved from the artists. From an already animated face model the morph targets can now be copied onto a new static face model. </p><p>For the Facial Motion Cloning process there must be a subset of the feature points specified by the MPEG-4 standard defined. The purpose of this is to correlate the facial features of the two faces. The goal of this project is to develop a graphical editor in which the artists can define the feature points for a face model. The feature points will be saved in a file format that can be used in a Facial Motion Cloning software.</p>

Web applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated and functionality that was once exclusive to regular desktop applications can now be found in web applications as well. One of the more recent advances in this field is the ability for web applications to render 3D graphics. Coupled with the growing number of devices with graphics processors and the ability of web applications to run on many different platforms using a single code base, this represents an exciting new possibility for developers of 3D graphics applications. This thesis aims to explore and evaluate the technologies for 3D graphics that can be used in web applications, with the final goal of using one of them in a prototype application. This prototype will serve as a foundation for an application to be included in a commercial product. The evaluation is performed using general criteria so as to be useful for other applications as well, with one part presenting the available technologies and another part evaluating the three most promising technologies more in-depth using test programs. The results show that, although some technologies are not production-ready, there are a few which can be used in commercial software, including the three chosen for further evaluation; WebGL, the Java library JOGL and Stage 3D for Flash. Among these, there is no clear winner and it is up to the application requirements to decide which to use. The thesis demonstrates an application built with WebGL and shows that fairly demanding 3D graphics web applications can be built. Also included are the lessons learned during the development and thoughts on the future of 3D graphics in web applications.

À quel point les mouvements humains sont-ils optimaux ? Cette thèse aborde cette question en se concentrant particulièrement sur les mouvements en escalade, étudiés ici sous trois aspects complémentaires que sont la collecte expérimentale de séquences de grimpe, l'analyse biomécanique de ces données, et la synthèse de gestes par optimisation temporelle. La marche fut l'objet de nombreux travaux, avec de bons résultats notamment en animation [Mordatch 2013]. Nous nous intéressons ici spécialement au problème original des mouvements d'escalade, dont la diversité et leur caractère multicontact présentent une complexité intéressante pour l'évaluation des caractéristiques du mouvement humain. L'hétérogénéité du répertoire gestuel rencontrée en escalade s'explique par plusieurs facteurs que sont l'évolution sur des parois de formes variées, la multiplicité des niveaux d'expertise des pratiquants, et des disciplines différentes au sein même de l'activité, à savoir le bloc, la difficulté, ou encore l'escalade de vitesse. Notre démarche d'exploration de ce sport se décompose en trois étapes : la collecte de données par une capture de mouvements multicaméra avec marqueurs, couplée à un ensemble de capteurs de force montés sur un mur de bloc en laboratoire ; une analyse du geste par dynamique inverse, prenant exclusivement des données cinématiques pour entrées, basée sur une minimisation des couples internes pour résoudre l'ambiguïté du multicontact, intrinsèque à l'activité d'escalade, validée par comparaison avec les mesures capteurs ; et enfin, l'utilisation d'un critère d'efficacité énergétique pour synthétiser la meilleure temporisation associée à une séquence de déplacements donnés. Les enregistrements expérimentaux se sont fait à l'université McGill qui dispose d'un mur instrumenté de 6 capteurs de forces, et d'un dispositif de capture de mouvements 24 caméras, nous ayant permis de collecter des données sur une population de 9 sujets. L'analyse de ces données constitue la deuxième partie de cette thèse. Le défi abordé est de retrouver les forces externes et les efforts internes à partir uniquement des déplacements du grimpeur. Nous supposons pour cela une répartition optimale des efforts internes. Après analyse, cette répartition s'avère être plutôt uniforme que proportionnelle aux capacités musculaires des différentes articulations du corps. Finalement, dans une troisième et dernière partie, nous nous intéressons à la temporisation des gestes en escalade, en prenant en entrée la trajectoire du grimpeur, éventuellement issue de cinématique inverse pour s'affranchir de la nécessité d'une capture par marqueurs et caméras infra-rouges. En sortie, une temporisation idéale pour cette trajectoire est trouvée. Cette temporisation s'avère réaliste, mais manque d'une modélisation des instants d'hésitation et de prise de décision, ainsi que d'un modèle d'établissements de contact, phénomène présentant un délai temporel non pris en compte pour l'instant. / How optimal are human movements ? This thesis tackles this issue by focusing especially on climbing movements, studied here under three complementary aspects which are the experimental gathering of climbing sequences, the biomechanical analysis of these data, and the synthesis of gestures by timing optimization. Walking has been largely studied, with good results in animation [Mordatch 2013]. We are interested here especially in the original question of climbing motions, whose diversity and multicontact aspect present an interesting complexity for the evaluation of the human motion characteristics. The heterogeneity of climbing gestures can be linked to several factors which are the variety of wall shapes, the multiplicity of climber skill levels, and different climbing categories, namely bouldering, route climbing or speed climbing. Our exploratory approach of this sport consists in three steps: the data collection by multicamera marker-based motion capture, combined with a set of force sensors mounted on an in-laboratory bouldering wall; a gesture analysis by inverse dynamics, taking only kinematic data as inputs, based on the minimization of internal torques to resolve the multicontact ambiguity, intrinsic to the climbing activity, validated by comparison with sensor measurements; and finally, the use of the energy efficiency criterion for synthesizing the best timing associated with a given sequence of movements. Experimental recordings were made at McGill University which has a climbing wall instrumented of 6 force sensors, and a motion capture device of 24 cameras, which allowed us to collect data on a population of nine subjects. The analysis of these data is the second part of this thesis. The addressed challenge is to find the external forces and internal torques from the climber's movements only. To this end we assume an optimal distribution of internal torques. After analysis, the distribution turns out to be rather uniform than proportional to the muscle capacity associated to each body joint. Finally, in a third and last part, we focus on the timing of climbing gestures, taking as input the path of the climber, possibly after inverse kinematics in order to overcome the need for a capture with markers and infrared cameras. As output, an optimal timing for this path is found. This timing is realistic, but lacks of a modelization for hesitation and decision making instants, as well as a model for the contact establishment, with the associated temporal delay currently not taken into account.

This study investigates how post-processing effects affect the realism and aesthetics of digital game graphics. Four focus groups explored a digital game environment and were exposed to various post-processing effects. During qualitative interviews these focus groups were asked questions about their experience and preferences and the results were analysed. The results can illustrate some of the different pros and cons with these popular post-processing effects and this could help graphical artists and game developers in the future to use this tool (post-processing effects) as effectively as possible. / Denna studie undersöker hur post-processing effekter påverkar realismen och estetiken hos digital spelgrafik. Fyra fokusgrupper utforskade en digital spelmiljö medan olika post-processing effekter exponerades för dem. Under kvalitativa fokusgruppsintervjuer fick de frågor angående deras upplevelser och preferenser och detta resultat blev sedan analyserat. Resultatet kan ge en bild av de olika för- och nackdelarna som finns med dessa populära post-processing effekter och skulle möjligen kunna hjälpa grafiker och spelutvecklare i framtiden att använda detta verktyg (post-processing effekter) så effektivt som möjligt.

This thesis describes the process of creation of a game for web browsers using Babylon.js framework. It also touches on subjects of 3D graphics on the web, 3D animation and structure of web applications. Game itself is created using Typescript language and it is shared using a Node.js module as its web server. It is a fighting game for two players, where their characters fight using martial arts.

This master's thesis deals with the creation of visual effects in 3D graphics applications. Rendering scenes using rasterization method and OpenGL library is assumed. The theoretical part describes several selected effects and then analyzes the approach used for their implementation. It focuses on the principles of rendering passes. Subsequently, the thesis focuses on the development of a software library which aims to simplify the process of programming effects. The resulting library reduces the time and knowledge required for the creation of effects. Automatic shader code generation is performed. Substantial feature is also the possibility to combine definitions of effects into a single unit.

The thesis deals with the creation of a three-dimensional virtual view with the use of the new WebGL standard in combination with O3D javascript framework. The result is freely available web application which generates a virtual tour of sent series of photographs. Afterwards, the photographs are processed by the server, which on the basis of found corresponding points creates 3D scene. The application is based on a freeware application Bundler [40] which is used for identifying 3D points in uploaded photographs and related cameras (the places from which the photographs were taken). Bundler outputs are processed by Jetty web server with the use of Java script. At this point, all data required for the creation of a view are gathered. The display of the final result is then realized via HTML5, CSS, WebGL and Javascript using O3D.