Comenius University Towards Physics-based Models in Computer Animation: Growth Simulation, Liquid Dynamics, Photographic Effects and Real-time Rendering

Preface During the past few years, physics-based animation has emerged as an important new approach to computer graphics and modeling. Although physics-based modeling (PBM) is inherently a physical and mathematical subject, the models involved are simplified to such extend that they can be calculated in real-time. One important aspect of the physical-based animation is the user interaction, therefore physical models should enable us to convert the inputs from user interaction to certain parameters in the model, such as external forces,. .. . This habilitation addresses the author contribution and demonstrates how PBM offers the power and generality needed in many medical, computer animation and computer rendering applications. I will demonstrate through a series of examples and illustrations, how PBM methods can be applied to address difficult, real world problems. The author presents a large variety of methods and associated experiments in medical graphics, animation and rendering that help the reader better understand the presented material. I addition special emphasis has been given on the development of techniques with interactive performance. Chapter 2, demonstrates an interesting medical application of physical model embedded into a formal language called Lyndenmayer-system, to simulate the growth of human organs. This theory stems from the 1996 PhD thesis of the author in the Department of Engineering at the Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan, under the supervision of Professors Nakamae, Nishita and Yamashita. It was the first thesis in PBM to address the problems in reconstruction of shape organs in medical graphics. Later this theory was significantly advanced by formal languages to simulate the growth processes, since the author joined Hiroshima University as postdoctoral fellow. has conducted most of his research in PBM techniques with applications to medical graphics, computer animation and rendering. The rest of the chapters was done in joint work with Dr. Konstantin Kolchin, Dr. Silvester Czanner and master students Shinya Abe and Ryou Kimura. Application of PBM in computer animation is a hot topic in research community and it still gains the popularity. Chapter 3, describes the animation of soap bubbles dynamics followed by Chapter 4 introducing the methods needed to do the real-time animation of single phase liquids. PBM methods in computer rendering are used for quite a long time to simulate the light transport and material properties. Application of PBM into a Perception of a strong illuminator can be correctly described by PBM as shown in Chapter 5. Modern trends in computer …