Atmospheric Sciences Division Seminar

Physics-based modeling and dynamic simulation have emerged from novel computational tools to become ubiquitous in 3D graphics, digital engineering, visual computing with a large variety of applications. In this talk, I will concentrate on Digital Clay, which is a novel and powerful data modeling, simulation, analysis, and processing paradigm for information technologies. At the geometric modeling level, my talk will focus on mesh-free, point-sampled geometry. At the computational physics level, I will demonstrate how physics can be integrated with point geometry for interactive simulation and animation for visual computing. Key applications include shape deformation based on the thin-shell finite element formulation, crack generation and propagation. Other applications in physics-based shape morphing, real-time free-form deformation, dynamic surface reconstruction/editing, haptic sculpting and painting, interactive sketching, and surface completion will also be presented. Besides mathematical formulations for both point geometry and physical laws, many video clips will be shown to demonstrate the efficacy of our point-based graphics system throughout my talk. Time permitting, I will briefly talk about our current and on-going research work in visual computing and highlight their new application potentials in medical imaging and simulation, reverse engineering, cyber-physical interface, and digital media.