Novel technologies for the manipulation of meshes on the CPU and GPU : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Computer Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
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Date
2007
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Massey University
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Abstract
This thesis relates to research and development in the field of 3D mesh data for computer graphics. A review of existing storage and manipulation techniques for mesh data is given followed by a framework for mesh editing. The proposed framework combines complex mesh editing techniques, automatic level of detail generation and mesh compression for storage. These methods work coherently due to the underlying data structure. The problem of storing and manipulating data for 3D models is a highly researched field. Models are usually represented by sparse mesh data which consists of vertex position information, the connectivity information to generate faces from those vertices, surface normal data and texture coordinate information. This sparse data is sent to the graphics hardware for rendering but must be manipulated on the CPU.
The proposed framework is based upon geometry images and is designed to store and manipulate the mesh data entirely on the graphics hardware. By utilizing the highly parallel nature of current graphics hardware and new hardware features, new levels of interactivity with large meshes can be gained. Automatic level of detail rendering can be used to allow models upwards of 2 million polygons to be manipulated in real time while viewing a lower level of detail. Through the use of pixels shaders the high detail is preserved in the surface normals while geometric detail is reduced. A compression scheme is then introduced which utilizes the regular structure of the geometry image to compress the floating point data. A number of existing compression schemes are compared as well as custom bit packing.
This is a TIF funded project which is partnered with Unlimited Realities, a Palmerston North software development company. The project was to design a system to create, manipulate and store 3D meshes in a compressed and easy to manipulate manner. The goal is to create the underlying technologies to allow for a 3D modelling system to become integrated into the Umajin engine, not to create a user interface/stand alone modelling program. The Umajin engine is a 3D engine created by Unlimited Realities which has a strong focus on multimedia. More information on the Umajin engine can be found at www.umajin.com.
In this project we propose a method which gives the user the ability to model with the high level of detail found in packages aimed at creating offline renders but create models which are designed for real time rendering.
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Keywords
Computer graphics, Three-dimensional modelling, Mesh data, Mesh editing techniques