Abstract: A method and system for synthesizing texture using upsampled pixel coordinates and a multi-resolution approach. The parallel texture synthesis technique, while based on a neighborhood matching technique having order-independent texture synthesis, extends that approach in at least two areas, including efficient parallel synthesis and intuitive user control. Pixel coordinates are upsampled instead of pixel colors, thereby reducing computational complexity and expense. These upsampled pixel coordinates then are jittered to provide texture variation. The jitter is controllable, such that a user has control over several aspects of the jitter. In addition, each neighborhood-matching pass is split into several sub-passes to improve correction. Using sub-passes improves correction speed and quality. The parallel texture synthesis system and method disclosed herein is designed for implementation on a parallel processor, such as a graphics processing unit.

Abstract: A technique for generating high-resolution bitmaps from low-resolution bitmaps. A low-resolution bitmap is magnified to form a magnified image. Edge detection is performed on the magnified image to find high contrast edges. A plurality of image patches of the magnified image are generated. These images patches are analyzed by performing connected components analysis on each of them using the high contrast edges to produce a plurality of foreground and background decisions determining whether a portion of an image patch is a background or a foreground region. Then the contrast of one or more pixels in each of the plurality of image patches is enhanced based on the foreground and background decisions. Finally, the system and method of the invention combines the luminance of the enhanced output pixels with the color values generated by the magnification algorithm. This produces a high-resolution bitmap from the contrast-enhanced pixels.

Abstract: A system and method for improving digital flash photographs. The present invention is a technique that significantly improves low-light imaging by giving the end-user all the advantages of flash photography without producing the jarring look. The invention uses an image pair—one taken with flash the other without—to remove noise from the ambient image, sharpen the ambient image using detail from the flash image, correct for color, and remove red-eye.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for providing a fine-to-coarse look ahead in connection with parametrization in a graphics system. The use of a variety of parametrization metrics may be supplemented and improved by the fine-to-coarse look ahead techniques of the invention. First, the metric of a parametrization is minimized using a coarse-to-fine hierarchical solver, and then accelerated with a fine-to-coarse propagation. The resulting parametrizations have increased texture resolution in surface regions with greater signal detail at all levels of detail in the progressive mesh sequence.

Abstract: Plural levels of detail of a terrain are stored in memory in regular grids. In one such example, a terrain is cached in a set of nested regular grids obtained from the plural levels as a function of distance from a viewpoint. In one such example, the plural levels of detail of terrain comprise terrain elevation and texture images. If the viewpoint moves relative to the terrain, the nested regular grids are incrementally refilled relative to the viewpoints movement in the terrain. In one such example, a transition region is introduced to help blend between grid levels. The regular grids are stored as vertex buffers in video memory in one example. In one such example, a vertex data includes an elevation values from another grid level for efficient grid level boundary blending.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for optimizing a parametrization scheme in accordance with information about the surface signal. A surface parametrization is created to store a given surface signal into a texture image. The signal-specialized metric of the invention minimizes signal approximation error, i.e., the difference between the original surface signal and its reconstruction from the sampled texture. A signal-stretch parametrization metric is derived based on a Taylor expansion of signal error. For fast evaluation, the metric of the invention is pre-integrated over the surface as a metric tensor. The resulting parametrizations have increased texture resolution in surface regions with greater signal detail. Compared to traditional geometric parametrizations, the number of texture samples can often be reduced by a significant factor for a desired signal accuracy.

Abstract: Reduction of aliasing artifacts along discontinuity edges of a rendered polygon mesh is achieved by overdrawing the edges as antialiased lines. The discontinuity edges are oriented consistently and blended as they approach silhouettes in the mesh to avoid popping at the edge, thereby achieving a temporal smoothness at the silhouettes. This temporal smoothness is balanced with a competing desire to maintain spatial sharpness by utilizing an asymmetric blending technique. To further improve results, the discontinuity edges can be sorted by depth prior to overdrawing them. These processes are effective at reducing the temporal artifact known as “crawling jaggies”.

Abstract: Techniques and tools for mesh processing are described. For example, a multi-chart geometry image represents arbitrary surfaces on object models. The multi-chart geometry image is created by resampling a surface onto a regular 2D grid, using a flexible atlas construction to map the surface piecewise onto charts of arbitrary shape. This added flexibility reduces parameterization distortion and thus provides greater geometric fidelity, particularly for shapes with long extremities, high genus, or disconnected components. As another example, zippering creates a watertight surface on reconstructed triangle meshes. The zippering unifies discrete paths of samples along chart boundaries to form the watertight mesh.

Abstract: Systems and methods for discontinuity edge overdraw are described. In one aspect, a polygonal mesh is rendered to produce a computer-generated image. The image exhibits aliasing at its discontinuity edges. The discontinuity edges are sorted prior to overdrawing. The discontinuity edges are overdrawn as anti-aliased lines to reduce the aliasing.

Abstract: A regional progressive mesh provides support for real-time rendering of large-scale surfaces with locally adapting surface geometric complexity according to changing view parameters. The regional progressive mesh is constructed by subdividing an initial detailed mesh one or more times into multiple sub-regions as an iterative or recursive process. Each sub-region is separately simplified, and the localized transformations recorded in separate segments in a sequence of mesh refinement transformations that form the progressive mesh representation. The resulting regionalized organization of mesh refinement transformations reduces the working set of memory pages containing progressive mesh data needed for real-time view-dependent adaptation and rendering of the mesh surface.

Abstract: A regional progressive mesh provides support for real-time rendering of large-scale surfaces with locally adapting surface geometric complexity according to changing view parameters. The regional progressive mesh is constructed by subdividing an initial detailed mesh one or more times into multiple sub-regions as an iterative or recursive process. Each sub-region is separately simplified, and the localized transformations recorded in separate segments in a sequence of mesh refinement transformations that form the progressive mesh representation. The resulting regionalized organization of mesh refinement transformations reduces the working set of memory pages containing progressive mesh data needed for real-time view-dependent adaptation and rendering of the mesh surface.

Abstract: A regional progressive mesh provides support for real-time rendering of large-scale surfaces with locally adapting surface geometric complexity according to changing view parameters. The regional progressive mesh is constructed by subdividing an initial detailed mesh one or more times into multiple sub-regions as an iterative or recursive process. Each sub-region is separately simplified, and the localized transformations recorded in separate segments in a sequence of mesh refinement transformations that form the progressive mesh representation. The resulting regionalized organization of mesh refinement transformations reduces the working set of memory pages containing progressive mesh data needed for real-time view-dependent adaptation and rendering of the mesh surface.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for optimizing the geometric stretch of a parametrization scheme. Given an arbitrary mesh, the systems and methods construct a progressive mesh (PM) such that all meshes in the PM sequence share a common texture parametrization. The systems and methods minimize geometric stretch, i.e., small texture distances mapped onto large surface distances, to balance sampling rates over all locations and directions on the surface. The systems and methods also minimize texture deviation, i.e., “slippage” error based on parametric correspondence, to obtain accurate textured mesh approximations. The technique(s) begin by partitioning the mesh into charts using planarity and compactness heuristics. Then, the technique(s) proceed by creating a stretch-minimizing parametrization within each chart, and by resizing the charts based on the resulting stretch. Then, the technique(s) simplify the mesh while respecting the chart boundaries.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for optimizing the geometric stretch of a parametrization scheme. Given an arbitrary mesh, the systems and methods construct a progressive mesh (PM) such that all meshes in the PM sequence share a common texture parametrization. The systems and methods minimize geometric stretch, i.e., small texture distances mapped onto large surface distances, to balance sampling rates over all locations and directions on the surface. The systems and methods also minimize texture deviation, i.e., “slippage” error based on parametric correspondence, to obtain accurate textured mesh approximations. The technique(s) begin by partitioning the mesh into charts using planarity and compactness heuristics. Then, the technique(s) proceed by creating a stretch-minimizing parametrization within each chart, and by resizing the charts based on the resulting stretch. Then, the technique(s) simplify the mesh while respecting the chart boundaries.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for optimizing the geometric stretch of a parametrization scheme. Given an arbitrary mesh, the systems and methods construct a progressive mesh (PM) such that all meshes in the PM sequence share a common texture parametrization. The systems and methods minimize geometric stretch, i.e., small texture distances mapped onto large surface distances, to balance sampling rates over all locations and directions on the surface. The systems and methods also minimize texture deviation, i.e., “slippage” error based on parametric correspondence, to obtain accurate textured mesh approximations. The technique(s) begin by partitioning the mesh into charts using planarity and compactness heuristics. Then, the technique(s) proceed by creating a stretch-minimizing parametrization within each chart, and by resizing the charts based on the resulting stretch. Then, the technique(s) simplify the mesh while respecting the chart boundaries.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for optimizing the geometric stretch of a parametrization scheme. Given an arbitrary mesh, the systems and methods construct a progressive mesh (PM) such that all meshes in the PM sequence share a common texture parametrization. The systems and methods minimize geometric stretch, i.e., small texture distances mapped onto large surface distances, to balance sampling rates over all locations and directions on the surface. The systems and methods also minimize texture deviation, i.e., “slippage” error based on parametric correspondence, to obtain accurate textured mesh approximations. The technique(s) begin by partitioning the mesh into charts using planarity and compactness heuristics. Then, the technique(s) proceed by creating a stretch-minimizing parametrization within each chart, and by resizing the charts based on the resulting stretch. Then, the technique(s) simplify the mesh while respecting the chart boundaries.

Abstract: Reduction of aliasing artifacts along discontinuity edges of a rendered polygon mesh is achieved by overdrawing the edges as antialiased lines. The discontinuity edges are oriented consistently and blended as they approach silhouettes in the mesh to avoid popping at the edge, thereby achieving a temporal smoothness at the silhouettes. This temporal smoothness is balanced with a competing desire to maintain spatial sharpness by utilizing an asymmetric blending technique. To further improve results, the discontinuity edges can be sorted by depth prior to overdrawing them. These processes are effective at reducing the temporal artifact known as “crawling jaggies”.

Abstract: Methods for vertex caching to decrease geometry bandwidth and to reduce bus traffic between a graphics subsystem and memory include a strip-growing technique and a local optimization technique. The strip-growing technique determines an ordering of the faces in memory for the purpose of maximizing the use of the cache. This technique minimizes the number of vertices that are retrieved from a vertex buffer, and maximizes the number of needed vertices that are obtained from a vertex cache. The local optimization technique improves the results of the strip-growing technique by exploring a set of perturbations to the face ordering. The order is perturbed semi-randomly to determine if the perturbation improves the caching behavior. Types of perturbations include reflection and insertion. Thus, data is preprocessed to optimize the use of the cache stored data so that when the data is rendered at a future time, the rendering speed is improved.

Abstract: A quadric error metric is provided that allows fast and accurate geometric simplification of meshes having attribute values. In particular, the quadric error metric is used to determine the position of a new vertex created during an edge collapse, and the order in which edges are collapsed. In addition, the quadric error metric handles meshes with appearance attributes at their vertices, such as normals, colors, and texture coordinates. Thus, the quadric error metric can be used to simultaneously determine both the geometric position of a new vertex and the values of the appearance attributes associated with the new vertex.