Abstract: A method, computer program product, and apparatus for specifying, making, and displaying measurements within a 3D range data set obtained using a 3D rangefinder device. A 3D range data set is provided and represented as a first 2D displayed image and a second displayed image. The second displayed image is selected from the group consisting of a second 2D displayed image and a 3D displayed image. At least one feature is identified in the first 2D displayed image and the second displayed image, such that a measurement can be computed based on the identified features. The computed measurement is displayed in at least one of the first 2D displayed image and the second displayed image.

Abstract: A method for hierarchical visualization of multi-dimensional data is provided. A first dimension-reduction process is applied to a multi-dimensional data set to obtain a first visualization. A subset of the multi-dimensional data set associated with a selected region of the dimension-reduced first visualization is selected. A second dimension-reduction process is applied to the selected subset of the multi-dimensional data set to obtain at least one additional visualization.

Abstract: A unified system of programming communication. The system encompasses the prior art (television, radio, broadcast hardcopy, computer communications, etc.) and new user specific mass media. Within the unified system, parallel processing computer systems, each having an input (e.g., 77) controlling a plurality of computers (e.g., 205), generate and output user information at receiver stations. Under broadcast control, local computers (73, 205), combine user information selectively into prior art communications to exhibit personalized mass media programming at video monitors (202), speakers (263), printers (221), etc. At intermediate transmission stations (e.g., cable television stations), signals in network broadcasts and from local inputs (74, 77, 97, 98) cause control processors (71) and computers (73) to selectively automate connection and operation of receivers (53), recorder/players (76), computers (73), generators (82), strippers (81), etc.

Abstract: A unified system of programming communication. The system encompasses the prior art (television, radio, broadcast hardcopy, computer communications, etc.) and new user specific mass media. Within the unified system, parallel processing computer systems, each having an input (e.g., 77) controlling a plurality of computers (e.g., 205), generate and output user information at receiver stations. Under broadcast control, local computers (73, 205), combine user information selectively into prior art communications to exhibit personalized mass media programming at video monitors (202), speakers (263), printers (221), etc. At intermediate transmission stations (e.g., cable television stations), signals in network broadcasts and from local inputs (74, 77, 97, 98) cause control processors (71) and computers (73) to selectively automate connection and operation of receivers (53), recorder/players (76), computers (73), generators (82), strippers (81), etc.

Abstract: A unified system of programming communication. The system encompasses the prior art (television, radio, broadcast hardcopy, computer communications, etc.) and new user specific mass media. Within the unified system, parallel processing computer systems, each having an input (e.g., 77) controlling a plurality of computers (e.g., 205), generate and output user information at receiver stations. Under broadcast control, local computers (73, 205), combine user information selectively into prior art communications to exhibit personalized mass media programming at video monitors (202), speakers (263), printers (221), etc. At intermediate transmission stations (e.g., cable television stations), signals in network broadcasts and from local inputs (74, 77, 97, 98) cause control processors (71) and computers (73) to selectively automate connection and operation of receivers (53), recorder/players (76), computers (73), generators (82), strippers (81), etc.

Abstract: A system and method recognizes and tracks human motion from different motion classes. In a learning stage, a discriminative model is learned to project motion data from a high dimensional space to a low dimensional space while enforcing discriminance between motions of different motion classes in the low dimensional space. Additionally, low dimensional data may be clustered into motion segments and motion dynamics learned for each motion segment. In a tracking stage, a representation of human motion is received comprising at least one class of motion. The tracker recognizes and tracks the motion based on the learned discriminative model and the learned dynamics.

Abstract: The present invention is a system that allows a user to physically rotate a three-dimensional volumetric display enclosure with a corresponding rotation of the display contents. The rotation of the enclosure is sampled with an encoder and the display is virtually rotated by a computer maintaining the scene by an amount corresponding to the physical rotation before being rendered. This allows the user to remain in one position while viewing different parts of the displayed scene corresponding to different viewpoints. The display contents can be rotated in direct correspondence with the display enclosure or with a gain (positive or negative) that accelerates the rotation of the contents with respect to the physical rotation of the enclosure. Any display widgets in the scene, such as a virtual keyboard, can be maintained stationary with respect to the user while scene contents rotate by applying a negative rotational gain to the widgets.

Abstract: Techniques that enable users (e.g., animators) to accurately animate models in a scene without having to load all the models involved in the scene concurrently in computer memory. For a particular model that a user wishes to animate, only a minimal set of models involved in the scene that are needed for the particular model to evaluate correctly are determined and loaded into computer memory. Additionally, if a particular model is to be unloaded from computer memory, then all models that depend, either directly or indirectly, on the particular model and that are loaded in memory are also unloaded from memory in order to avoid incorrect animation.

Abstract: An intersection of a cut plane with a proxy geometry representing a scan volume is determined with a processor. The intersection is simplified, such as identifying a quadrilateral or triangle most closely enclosing the intersection. The vertex processor of a GPU deforms a reference grid and determines Cartesian coordinates and the texture coordinates for grid points of the reference grid as a function of the input intersection. The vertex processor provides coordinates for data for subsets of cut planes. The fragment processor inputs the texture coordinates and retrieves the data from the texture memory. The data is blended. The blended subsets are then blended together in the frame buffer of the GPU.

Abstract: A multiple-level graphics processing system and method (e.g., of an operating system) for providing improved graphics output including, for example, smooth animation. One such multiple-level graphics processing system comprises two components, including a tick-on-demand or slow-tick high-level component, and a fast-tick (e.g., at the graphics hardware frame refresh rate) low-level component. In general, the high-level, less frequent component performs computationally intensive aspects of updating animation parameters and traversing scene data structures, in order to pass simplified data structures to the low-level component. The low-level component operates at a higher frequency, such as the frame refresh rate of the graphics subsystem, to process the data structures into constant output data for the graphics subsystem. The low-level processing includes interpolating any parameter intervals as necessary to obtain instantaneous values to render the scene for each frame of animation.

Abstract: Animation editing apparatus for editing animation data, comprising data storage means, processing means, visual display means and a manually responsive input device configured to allow a user to indicate a selected point on the visual display means. The visual display means displays an image representing a simulated three-dimensional world-space including a plurality of simulated objects, and the manually responsive input device provides an input signal indicating a location within the image corresponding to one of the simulated objects. In response to receiving the input signal, the processing means identifies the selected simulated object, and retrieves data from the data storage means of one or more related items related to the selected simulated object within a defined degree of relationship. The visual display means displays labels identifying the selected simulated object and the related items only.

Abstract: In visual display devices such as LCD devices with backlight illumination, the backlight typically consumes most of device battery power. In the interest of displaying a given pixel pattern at a minimized backlight level, the pattern can be transformed while maintaining image quality, with a transform determined from pixel luminance statistics. Aside from, or in addition to such minimizing, a transform also can be used for image enhancement, for a displayed image better to meet a visual perception quality. In either case, the transform preferably is constrained for enforcing one or several display attributes.

Abstract: Systems and methods for computing three-dimensional (3D) Euclidean Voronoi diagrams are disclosed. For some embodiments, a set of 3D objects is accessed, in which each 3D object is mathematically defined. Thereafter, a Voronoi region associated with each of the 3D objects is computed, thereby resulting in a complete Euclidean Voronoi diagram of the set of 3D objects. In some embodiments, the 3D objects are spheres, each of which is defined by a center and a radius. For other embodiments, the 3D objects are convex objects, each of which is mathematically-definable (e.g., cylinders, sphero-cylinders, etc.). Unlike prior approaches that suggested using a numerical approach to computing the Voronoi diagram, the present disclosure employs mathematical approaches for computing the Euclidean Voronoi diagram, thereby improving efficiency in the computation of the Euclidean Voronoi diagram.

Abstract: A game developer can “tag” an item in the game environment. When an animated character walks near the “tagged” item, the animation engine can cause the character's head to turn toward the item, and mathematically computes what needs to be done in order to make the action look real and normal. The tag can also be modified to elicit an emotional response from the character. For example, a tagged enemy can cause fear, while a tagged inanimate object may cause only indifference or indifferent interest.

Abstract: Apparatus and systems, as well as methods and articles, may operate to store portions of a spherical image in a storage medium as a pair of triangles included in a convex quadrilateral. The triangles may form a portion of one or more substantially uniformly tessellated spherical surfaces.

Abstract: The present invention comprises a computer implemented process and system for rendering curves or surfaces as 3D graphics on a display. The system of the present invention includes a computer system having a processor, a bus, and a 3D graphics rendering pipeline. The curves or surfaces are modeled by non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). The process of the present invention functions by receiving a NURBS model for rendering from a software program running on the host processor. The NURBS model defines a curve or surface. The process of the present invention efficiently converts the NURBS model to a Bezier model using the hardware of the graphics rendering pipeline. The Bezier model describes the same curve or surface. The process of Bezier model and the graphics rendering pipeline. The points are then used by the graphics rendering pipeline to render the curve or surface defined by the Bezier model.

Abstract: An adaptive texture regeneration method and system for generating a sequence of images over time (an animation sequence) that gives the appearance of texture flowing over a surface. The adaptive texture regeneration method and system helps keep synthesized texture flow over a surface from becoming so distorted such that it no longer resembles the original exemplar. This is achieved in part by using pixel coordinates instead of colors. By using pixel coordinates, distortion of the texture can be measured. Based on this distortion measurement, the texture can be adaptively regenerated if necessary. The distortion measurement of the texture is measured and compared to a distortion threshold. If the measured distortion does not exceed the threshold, then the current synthesized texture is retained. On the other hand, if the measured distortion exceeds the threshold, the current synthesized texture is regenerated.

Abstract: A polarized image acquisition section shoots a subject through a polarizing element operable to set principal axes of which directions are different from each other. An incident plane specifying section specifies an incident plane of each pixel, and an incident angle computation section computes an incident angle of each pixel. A classifying section clusters pixels similar to each other in both incident plane and incident angle. A reflection component separation section performs reflection component separation on each clustered pixel set on the assumption of probabilistic independence between the diffuse reflection component and the specular reflection component.

Abstract: In an image processing system for generating an image of a three dimensional structure using a volume data, having a plurality of nodes coupled via a network, said one of plurality of nodes is constituted in combination with a control portion comprising at least a processor, a memory, and a communication control portion, said control portion is operative to segment each of a plurality of image processing requests into a plurality of jobs in an image processing operation that use the volume data, monitor a calculation resource amount for each of said plurality of nodes on the job accepting side to obtain a calculation resource information, said calculation resource information being calculated from at least any one of a current load factor, a performance record in the past, a node status specification, and a distance to the node on the network, select at least one node on the job accepting side based on said calculation resource information, and transmit one of said segmented jobs to said selected node.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention blend frames over a specified spatial and temporal extent to produce a smoothly animated appearance at a reduced frame rate. As the window moves further or closer to the viewer, motion blur may be accomplished by a combination of spatial and temporal averaging. Spatial averaging is used in conjunction with temporal averaging to reduce the rate at which images, including desktop images, are composed and to reduce the amount of graphics memory bandwidth needed for the composition.