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Real-time rendering of large animated crowds consisting of thousands of virtual humans is important for several applications including simulations, games, and interactive walkthroughs but cannot be performed using complex polygonal models at interactive frame rates. For that reason, methods using large numbers of precomputed image-based representations, called impostors, have been proposed. These methods take advantage of existing programmable graphics hardware to compensate for computational expense while maintaining visual fidelity. Thanks to these methods, the number of different virtual humans rendered in real time is no longer restricted by computational power but by texture memory consumed for the variety and discretization of their animations. This work proposes a resource-efficient impostor rendering methodology that employs image morphing techniques to reduce memory consumption while preserving perceptual quality, thus allowing higher diversity or resolution of the rendered crowds. Results of the experiments indicated that the proposed method, in comparison with conventional impostor rendering techniques, can obtain 38 % smoother animations or 87 % better appearance quality by reducing the number of key-frames required for preserving the animation quality via resynthesizing them with up to 92 % similarity on real time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital music performance requires a high degree of interaction with input controllers that can provide fast feedback on the user's action. One of the primary considerations of professional artists is a powerful and creative tool that minimizes the number of steps required for the speed-demanding processes. Nowadays, mobile devices have become popular digital instruments for musical performance. Most of the applications designed for mobile devices use touch screen, keypad, or accelerometer as interaction modalities. In this paper, we present a novel interface for musical performance that is based on a magnetic interaction between a user and a device. The proposed method constitutes a touchless interaction modality that is based on the mutual effect between the magnetic field surrounding a device and that of a properly shaped magnet. Extending the interaction space beyond the physical boundary of a device provides the user with higher degree of flexibility for musical performance which, in turn, can open doors to a wide spectrum of new functionalities in digital music performance and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]