US 6,608,631 B1Granted

Method, apparatus, and computer program product for geometric warps and deformations

AssigneePixar Amination Studios

InventorTimothy S. Milliron

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Abstract

Techniques for geometric deformations in computer graphics are described, including a flexible and general modular methodology for constructing, analyzing, and evaluating geometric warps and deformations. Described techniques include establishing a set of source/target features (and related information) or parameter set for controlling deformation of a graphical model; a set of strength fields are established for controlling how strongly the transformation caused by the mapping of source feature to target feature will be applied to model points. A set of weighting fields modulates the influence of multiple source/target feature mappings on model points. Also described are variations on this technique that allow achieving results similar to conventional methods and additional functionality.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method for generating graphical warps or deformations through transformation of an undeformed model to a deformed model, said computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving said undeformed model and a set of feature specifications each of said set of feature specifications comprising a source feature, a target feature, and related deformation parameters;
receiving a set of transformations corresponding to said set of feature specifications and for mapping said source feature to said target feature in each of said set of feature specifications;
receiving a set of strength fields corresponding to said set of feature specifications and defined over said undeformed model for scaling the magnitude of each of said set of transformations, establishing a set of scaled transformations;
receiving a set of weighting fields corresponding to said set of feature specifications and defined over said undeformed model for determining the relative influence of said set of scaled transformations;
computing a sum of said set of scaled transformations weighted by said set of weighting fields, for deforming said undeformed model to generate said deformed model;
and
returning said deformed model.

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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.