My research is about Rope Design. The design of, but more importantly, by and with the ropes. I have worked with ropes all my life, in many ways; sailing, circus, rigging, knots, etc. They have had a big impact on me and my life. In my research I am looking at what they can do and who or what they can be. On stage, in my practice and in my daily life. With me, as well as without me. I want to find an equal partnership with them, where I acknowledge that we both have agency and where both of us constantly keep changing and learning from each other. I am discovering how they can change my movement and the way I look at the world.

3D modelling is a technology in massive demand now and can potentially become a key factor for enabling subsequent technological evolutions such as metaverses, digital twins, and virtual reality. Current 3D modellings include high-precision 3D human body modelling and rapid modelling through single or multiple monocular photos. However, some problems persist in both modellings. The modelling based on high-precision equipment has low practicability, few applicable scenarios, and high cost. Modelling through monocular photos, on the other hand, has low accuracy and is sensitive to noisy data. And both modellings generate static 3D models. Therefore, to realize the model's dynamic effect in various fields while retaining fast modelling, we propose a system that recovers a 3D model from a single photo to fuse skeleton animation extracted from videos, for a realization of the Digital Twin (DT). DT is defined as "digital replications of living as well as non-living entities that enable data to be seamlessly transmitted between the physical and virtual worlds". Rigging is setting up the skeleton-based animation to combine the 3D model and skeleton animation. Traditional rigging method is time-consuming and non-reusable, since rigging is often done manually or semi-automatically. In this thesis, we propose an automatic rigging method to achieve a loose coupling fusion of one-to-many or many-to-one 3D models and skeletal animations. Our rigging method is fast and efficient, and only needs a single photo as input.

The subject of digital animation witnessed the indispensable role of rigging in enabling movement and functionality, particularly within the context of game development. While animation principles (Thomas & Johnston, 1995) form the foundation of this discipline, rigging principles remain somewhat elusive, lacking the same fundamental status even to this day. As a highly technical subject, rigging can pose challenges to students who may not be aware of its intricate logic, yet still have to contend with it. This study presents an epistemic solution designed to elucidate the logic of rigging by emphasizing fundamental concepts over ready-made solutions. A full list of concepts was defined. To evaluate the effectiveness of this pedagogical approach, a workshop was held, focusing on experiential (Kolb, 2014), concept-based, teaching. It was compared with a control group whose workshop inherited the traditional pedagogical methodology. Afterwards, both groups were handed a convergent and a divergent test assignment (Guilford, 1968). Qualitative data was gathered through interviews, capturing student’s reflections and opinions on the respective workshops and test assignments. Results show a positive attitude towards both teaching methods. However, there was a particular alacrity among the students in the concept workshop, and they appreciated its pedagogical differences. Some students appeared to pick up on the epistemology and even expressed a realization of "why", and in doing so, stated the epistemic goal verbatim. Moreover, the traditional methodology entails less engagement in the convergent test assignment, further proving the potential for creative thinking (Runco, 2014) in the procedural test assignment. This demonstrated the potential benefit of this approach to education. This study is meant to start a discourse on effective pedagogical strategies in the context of rigging for digital animation, shedding light on the benefits of concept-based teaching. With more resources, it would have also focused on how the concepts affect game development directly.

Come with Me is the process of making a short 3D animation. Introducing the practice as a research method, I explored 3D animation production steps in a non-linear workflow. Each production step is then introduced along with the mind processes as Come with Me was developed from the story to the final animated scenes. The failed attempts are also included as an important part of this research. In the end, the workflows that allow for mistakes at each step of the 3D animation production are being explored. / Master of Fine Arts

Facial expression and animation are important aspects of the 3D environment featuring human characters. These animations are frequently used in many kinds of applications and there have been many efforts to increase the realism. Three aspects are still stimulating active research: the detailed subtle facial expressions, the process of rigging a face, and the transfer of an expression from one person to another. This dissertation focuses on the above three aspects. A system for freely designing and creating detailed, dynamic, and animated facial expressions is developed. The presented pattern functions produce detailed and animated facial expressions. The system produces realistic results with fast performance, and allows users to directly manipulate it and see immediate results. Two unique methods for generating real-time, vivid, and animated tears have been developed and implemented. One method is for generating a teardrop that continually changes its shape as the tear drips down the face. The other is for generating a shedding tear, which is a kind of tear that seamlessly connects with the skin as it flows along the surface of the face, but remains an individual object. The methods both broaden CG and increase the realism of facial expressions. A new method to automatically set the bones on facial/head models to speed up the rigging process of a human face is also developed. To accomplish this, vertices that describe the face/head as well as relationships between each part of the face/head are grouped. The average distance between pairs of vertices is used to place the head bones. To set the bones in the face with multi-density, the mean value of the vertices in a group is measured. The time saved with this method is significant. A novel method to produce realistic expressions and animations by transferring an existing expression to a new facial model is developed. The approach is to transform the source model into the target model, which then has the same topology as the source model. The displacement vectors are calculated. Each vertex in the source model is mapped to the target model. The spatial relationships of each mapped vertex are constrained.

The thesis provides for a comprehensive legal overview of bid rigging and its manifestation in public procurement. Bid rigging is defined as coordination of competitors in tenders which is not necessary and which is executed when these competitors submit bids according to the conditions agreed among them. The thesis briefly sums up available information on occurrence of bid rigging with emphasis on the only two cases of bid rigging that have been identified, proved and sanctioned in the Czech Republic. This information suggests that despite the fact that the risk of bid rigging is higher at certain markets, notably markets with limited number of competitors present thereon, it may take place in any market. Bid rigging is further analysed as a prohibited agreement distorting competition which always distorts or prevents competitions and as such is considered one of the most serious anti- competitive practices capable of causing immense economic damage. A separate chapter tackles bid rigging in public procurement. This chapter analyses legal basis of prohibition of bid rigging in public procurement, its impact on principles of efficiency, effectiveness and expediency, and points out factors that may support occurrence of bid rigging. With regards to this analysis, the thesis formulates several...

In this thesis I provide statistical evidence documenting rigging of football matches in German long-term championship Bundesliga. For the purpose I use 8326 matches played in top three German long-term competitions through years 1995 -- 2012. The championship is based on a point collection in a standings table divided by strict success margins, e.g. title or relegation. The margins lead to a non-linear incentive structure in which one point is worth more for teams close to the margin. Uncertainty about the final outcome, however, postpones the equilibrating effect to the last rounds of a season. I find evidence of increased point earnings as a reaction on relegation margin closeness at the end of a season. Increased effort of the marginal teams cannot explain the findings as players exert no better performance in the incentive situation. In the same time, their opponents with long margin distance decrease their performance. In addition to that I provide evidence on cheating cooperation proxied by variance of players' performance. The variance does not react on the incentive situation suggesting that teammates behave unitedly. Performance of referees seems to exert stable performance with no reaction on teams' incentives. Overall, the results show strong evidence of systemic point trading in German Bundesliga.

This thesis is a case study examining Czech public procurement in medi- cal machinery industry. It proposes and applies several practical methods for identifying risk of bid rigging, such as: frequency analysis of participation of the same small groups of firms, analyzing ownership structure of participating firms and frequency analysis of systematically excluded bids of firms. Results include presence of cases of the same small groups of firms which bid more fre- quently together with no other competitors. Main contribution of the work lays in outlining some analytical possibilities for practical detection of bid rigging risk. JEL Classification H57, H75, K42 Keywords public procurement, bid rigging, Czech Repub- lic, medical machinery Author's e-mail janamar@atlas.cz Supervisor's e-mail jskuhrovec@gmail.com Abstrakt Tato práce je případovou studií zkoumající veřejné zakázky z oblasti me- dicínského vybavení. Práce navrhuje a aplikuje následující praktické metody pro odhalení rizika bid riggingu: frekvenční analýza účasti stejné malé skupiny firem, analýzu vlastnické strukury firem a frekvenční analýzu počtu vyřazených nabídek. Analýza odhalila případy skupin malých firem, které spolu často soutěží v omezené konkurenci. Hlavním přínosem práce je nastínění...

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William H. Hsu / Automatic rigging is a targeting approach that takes a 3-D character mesh and an adapted skeleton and automatically embeds it into the mesh. Automating the embedding step provides a savings over traditional character rigging approaches, which require manual guidance, at the cost of occasional errors in recognizing parts of the mesh and aligning bones of the skeleton with it. In this thesis, I examine the problem of reducing such errors in an auto-rigging system and apply a density-based clustering algorithm to correct errors in a particular system, Pinocchio (Baran & Popovic, 2007). I show how the density-based clustering algorithm DBSCAN (Ester et al., 1996) is able to filter out some impossible vertices to correct errors at character extremities (hair, hands, and feet) and those resulting from clothing that hides extremities such as legs.

In the transition between 2D and 3D animation animators tried to be able to replicate all of the styles and techniques in 3D that they utilized in 2D. Motion blur eventually came to replace a popular 2D technique known as a smear frame. A smear frame is much more than a path of motion or a blur though, it has a style that cannot be replicated with such methods. I present a creative project with the intent on creating 3D smear frames in a self-made character rig. In order to achieve this I will be designing, modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, and rendering the character of Champ Champions.