Methods and system for general skinning via hardware accelerators

A method of rendering a computer generated shape, comprising:

• providing a mesh comprising at least three points, each point defined in three-dimensional space, said mesh indicative of the shape in a base position;
• providing information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at predefined positions wherein the shape has changed about the joint with respect to the base position;
• approximating the shape associated with a new position based upon a movement about a joint parameter;
• generating a correction to the approximation of the shape associated with the new position by interpolating between the information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at at least two selected positions from the predefined positions;
• wherein the at least two positions are identified as the closest positions in parameter space to a desired position;
• correcting the shape associated with the new position;
• and
• rendering the shape associated with the new position.

A system for rendering a computer generated shape, comprising:

• a memory device for storing a mesh comprising at least three points, each point defined in three-dimensional space, said mesh indicative of the shape in a base position;
• a memory device for storing information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at predefined positions wherein the shape has changed about the joint with respect to the base position;
• a processor device for approximating the shape associated with a new position based upon a movement about a joint parameter;
• a processor device for generating a correction to the approximation of the shape associated with the new position by interpolating between the information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at at least two selected positions from the predefined positions;
• wherein the at least two positions are identified as the closest positions in parameter space to a desired position;
• a processor device for correcting the shape associated with the new position;
• and
• a processor device for rendering the shape associated with the new position.

A computer-readable medium bearing computer readable instructions for carrying out the steps of:

• providing a mesh comprising at least three points, each point defined in three-dimensional space, said mesh indicative of the shape in a base position;
• providing information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at predefined positions wherein the shape has changed about the joint with respect to the base position;
• approximating the shape associated with a new position based upon a movement about a joint parameter;
• generating a correction to the approximation of the shape associated with the new position by interpolating between the information indicative of the position of the points in the mesh corresponding to the shape at at least two selected positions from the predefined positions;
• wherein the at least two positions are identified as the closest positions in parameter space to a desired position;
• correcting the shape associated with the new position;
• and
• rendering the shape associated with the new position.