Design Galleries: A General Approach to Setting Parameters for Computer Graphics and Animation J. Marks MERL

Image rendering maps scene parameters to output pixel values; animation maps motion-control parameters to trajectory values. Because these mapping functions are usually multidimensional, nonlinear, and discontinuous, nding input parameters that yield desirable output values is often a painful process of manual tweaking. Interactive evolution and inverse design are two general methodologies for computer-assisted parameter setting in which the computer plays a prominent role. In this paper we present another such methodology. Design GalleryTM (DG) interfaces present the user with the broadest selection, automatically generated and organized, of perceptually di erent graphics or animations that can be produced by varying a given input-parameter vector. The principal technical challenges posed by the DG approach are dispersion, nding a set of input-parameter vectors that optimally disperses the resulting output-value vectors, and arrangement, organizing the resulting graphics for easy and intuitive browsing by the user. We describe the use of DG interfaces for several parameter-setting problems: light selection and placement for image rendering, both standard and image-based; opacity and color transfer-function speci cation for volume rendering; and motion control for particle-system and articulatedgure animation. CR Categories: I.2.6 [Arti cial Intelligence]: Problem Solving, Control Methods and Search|heuristic methods; I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques| interaction techniques; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: ThreeDimensional Graphics and Realism.