System and method for interactive masking and modifying of 3D objects

Abstract

A system and method for providing an intuitive and efficient mechanism to select areas of interest on a 3D model, and modify a pose or shape of the 3D model. A masking module allows an artist to interactively mask portions of a 3D object and leave other portions of the object unmasked. A posing module provides various tools to allow the artist to apply a posing or reshaping action on the unmasked areas of the 3D object. The computer artist masks portions of the 3D object by clicking and dragging the user input device on an area of the 3D object. All vertices whose topological distances are closer to the vertex associated with the initial click position than the final dragged position are masked. The artist then draws an action line on or partially on the 3D object to define a coordinate system. The artist clicks on a point on the action line, and drags the user input device for corresponding transformations of the unmasked portions of the 3D object.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 902,557, filed on Feb. 20, 2007, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to systems and methods for modifying the shape or pose of a 3D object, and more specifically, to a system and method for interactively modifying the shape or pose via improved posing tools and masking interface.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]In the field of 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is used to modify the shape or pose of geometry meshes. Geometry meshes typically contain vertices with coordinates in 3D space (x,y,z) along the Cartesian axis, that are connected to form a continuous surface of faces whose edges link these vertices together. These faces are typically triangles connecting three vertices, or quadrilaterals connecting four vertices. Geometry meshes are used to represent the visual shape of 3D objects suc...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]This topology-based masking allows an artist to quickly mask off parts of the 3D model by clicking on the model and dragging the cursor to different areas of the model that the artist would like to work on. This allows the automatic identification of areas that the artist is likely to work on. The areas that may be found include the entire upper body, lower body, each leg and arm, lower leg, forearm, hand, individual fingers, head and neck, just the head area, edge-looped areas such as the mouth and eyes, the lower lip, upper lip, and others.

[0025]Thus, a person of skill in the art should appreciate that the invention according to the above embodiments allows the posing or reshaping of a geometry mesh in an intuitive and efficient manner. The improved posing tools and masking interface allow an artist to quickly mask a geometry mesh, and subsequently interactively modify its pose or shape. These modifications do not require the tedious process of binding the geometry mesh to a virtual skeleton in order to reshape or pose it. Furthermore, the masking and reshaping according to the various embodiments of the present invention allow the artist to quickly achieve a dramatic pose even for high-vertex count geometry meshes.

Problems solved by technology

Even if the artist is producing sample work and wants to quickly pose the mesh, the artist nonetheless goes through this tedious process of assigning weights or manually moving the vertices of the mesh.

The tediousness is exacerbated by high polygon counts in a typical geometry mesh used to produce high quality work, and correspondingly high vertex counts.

Images