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The rapid technological advances in computing and computer graphics of the past three decades have in turn fueled the proliferation of the use of these technologies for Cultural Heritage. Formal educational courses for the application of computer graphics to Cultural Heritage are few and far between, and the courses that do exist tend to be targeted at archaeology students, with hardly any courses catering to computing or computer graphics students. To address this gap in education provision, we introduce a final year undergraduate course on ''CG and Animation for Cultural Heritage'', which provides students on technical and art & design computer graphics and animation courses with a broad introduction to the creation of Cultural Heritage applications of CG and animation techniques more commonly found in digital entertainment and visual effects. In this paper we describe this course and its curriculum and discuss its outcomes., Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage, Engaging with Cultural Heritage, 11, 19, Eike Falk Anderson, Valery Adzhiev, and Oleg Fryazinov

This paper describes a Cultural Heritage related project concerned with developing computer technology for reimagining a 2D painted still portrait made in a distinctive fine art style as an animated 3D sculpture whilst preserving the principal features of the initial painting yet resulting in an artefact of original quality. This work explores both artistic and technological aspects of a production pipeline. The case-study to prove the concept relies on Francis Bacon's ''Study for Portrait (Michel Leiris)''. A supplementary video shows the resulting animated piece with Bacon's voice-over., Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage, Short Papers I, 79, 82, Ellen Conlan Ellis and Valery Adzhiev, CCS Concepts: Computing methodologies --> Computer graphics; Applied Computing --> Arts and humanities

Space-time blending (STB) is an established technique allowing to implement a metamorphosis operation between geometric shapes. In this paper we significantly extend the STB method to make it possible to deal with heterogeneous objects, which are volumetric objects with attributes representing their physical properties. The STB method, used for geometry transformation, is naturally combined with space-time transfinite interpolation, used for attribute (e.g. colour) transformation. Geometry and attribute transformations are interconnected and happen simultaneously in an higher dimensional specific STB space. We use hybrid function representation, unifying function representation with signed distance fields and with adaptively sampled distance fields. We show how the new method works by applying it to 4D animated Cubism., Eurographics 2020 - Short Papers, Modelling - Shape, 45, 48, Alexander Tereshin, Eike Anderson, Alexander Pasko, and Valery Adzhiev, CCS Concepts: Shape modelling --> Volumetric models

This paper describes a novel framework allowing for a hybrid representation of heterogeneous objects. We consider advantages and drawbacks of the conventional representations based on scalar fields of different kinds. The main result is introducing a hybrid representation called Hybrid Function Representation (HFRep) that preserves the advantages of the Function Representation (FRep) and Signed Distance Fields (SDFs) without their drawbacks. This new representation allows for obtaining a continuous smooth distance field in the Euclidean space for the FRep. We present the mathematical basics for our approach that uses the Discrete Distance Transform (DDT) and a step-function. The procedure for generation HFRep using continuous interpolation and smoothing techniques are also described. A few examples show how the approach works in practice., Eurographics 2019 - Short Papers, Geometry Processing, 17, 20, Alexander Tereshin, Valery Adzhiev, Oleg Fryazinov, and Alexander Pasko, CCS Concepts: Shape modelling --> Volumetric models

Mass customisation has become a prospective business strategy for many industries. Despite the great efforts that have been put into producing such systems (e.g., NikeID), a survey indicated that nearly half of consumers still prefer to buy mass produced products [8]. Another study also concluded the increase in mass customisation has led to a decline in customer satisfaction of the sales process [9]. Given these considerations, this paper aims to, from the consumer’s perspective, investigate the factors influencing consumer purchase intention of online mass customisation. Overall, 15 participants were invited to customise a product using one of the selected websites and one-to-one interviews were conducted afterwards. We have found that consumer purchase intention is influenced by multiple factors and price is the primary concern. Based on the interview results, strategies have been given for both new start-up companies and companies that are already strongly established to employ mass customisation. These findings help us learn about the consumer experience of mass customisation and contribute to the implementation of best practices for mass customisation.

Digital technology provides an opportunity for people with disabilities to be involved in artistic activities, such as\ud virtual sculpting whose output can be fabricated using 3D printing. Existing accessible solutions, however, present\ud mainly a set of separate tools rather than a whole cohesive production pipeline which takes into an account the specific\ud needs of the user group. Challenges include accessible user interfaces for all pipeline steps, suitable shape modelling\ud operations, ”3D Print” button and model data formats that require no post-processing or clean-up operations for the\ud Direct Fabrication step. In this paper we discuss an accessible pipeline which includes 3D modelling and 3D printing,\ud providing an example of a 3D modelling system with developed special-purpose applications allowing children with\ud complex disabilities to participate in sculpting activities through accessible interfaces such as eye-gaze control.

This paper presents the latest advances and research in Computer Graphics education in a nutshell. It is concerned with topics that were presented at the Education Track of the Eurographics Conference held in Lisbon in 2016. We describe works corresponding to approaches to Computer Graphics education that are unconventional in some way and attempt to tackle unsolved problems and challenges regarding the role of arts in computer graphics education, the role of research-oriented activities in undergraduate education and the interaction among different areas of Computer Graphics, as well as their application to courses or extra-curricular activities. We present related works addressing these topics and report experiences, successes and issues in implementing the approaches.

Among educators, the promotion of undergraduate research is a much debated topic, with issues arising from questions as to how it can be integrated with undergraduate degree programmes and how to structure its delivery. Undergraduate research is also considered important by employers, as can be seen in case of the computer game development and visual effects industries who demand that universities produce graduate software developers with not only vocational but also with rather advanced research skills. In this paper we present a successful undergraduate research course, implemented for one of our undergraduate degree programmes. It includes teaching and learning focussed on the nature of small team research and development as encountered in the creative industries dealing with computer graphics, computer animation and game development. We discuss our curriculum design and issues in conducting undergraduate research that we have identified through several iterations of the course.

Enabling animators to smoothly transform between animated meshes of differing topologies is a long-standing problem in geometric modelling and computer animation. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid approach built upon the advantages of scalar field-based models (often called implicit surfaces) which can easily change their topology by changing their defining scalar field. Given two meshes, animated by their rigging-skeletons, we associate each mesh with its own approximating implicit surface. This implicit surface moves synchronously with the mesh. The shape-metamorphosis process is performed in several steps: first, we collapse the two meshes to their corresponding approximating implicit surfaces, then we transform between the two implicit surfaces and finally we inverse transition from the resulting metamorphosed implicit surface to the target mesh. The examples presented in this paper demonstrating the results of the proposed technique were implemented using an in-house plug-in for Maya™. © 2013 The Authors Computer Graphics Forum © 2013 The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

In this paper we present the SHIVA project which was designed to provide virtual sculpting tools for children with complex disabilities, to allow them to engage with artistic and creative activities that they might otherwise never be able to access. Modern 3D printing then allows us to physically build their creations. To achieve this, we combined our expertise in education, accessible technology, user interfaces and geometric modelling. We built a generic accessible graphical user interface (GUI), a suitable geometric modelling system and used these to produce two prototype modelling systems. These tools were deployed in a school for students with disabilities and are being used for a variety of educational purposes. In this paper, we present the project's motivations, approach and implementation details together with initial results, including 3D printed objects designed by children with disabilities.

The problem considered in this work is to find a dimension independent algorithm for the generation of signed scalar fields exactly representing polygonal objects and satisfying the following requirements: the defining real function takes zero value exactly at the polygonal object boundary; no extra zero-value isosurfaces should be generated; C1 continuity of the function in the entire domain. The proposed algorithms are based on the binary space partitioning (BSP) of the object by the planes passing through the polygonal faces and are independent of the object genus, the number of disjoint components, and holes in the initial polygonal mesh. Several extensions to the basic algorithm are proposed to satisfy the selected optimization criteria. The generated BSP-fields allow for applying techniques of function-based modelling to already existing legacy objects from CAD and computer animation areas, which is illustrated by several examples.

In this paper we address shape modelling problems, encountered in computer animation and computer games development that are difficult to solve just using polygonal meshes. Our approach is based on a hybrid modelling concept that combines polygonal meshes with implicit surfaces. A hybrid model consists of an animated polygonal mesh and an approximation of this mesh by a convolution surface stand-in that is embedded within it or is attached to it. The motions of both objects are synchronised using a rigging skeleton. This approach is used to model the interaction between an animated mesh object and a viscoelastic substance, normally modelled in implicit form. The adhesive behaviour of the viscous object is modelled using geometric blending operations on the corresponding implicit surfaces. Another application of this approach is the creation of metamorphosing implicit surface parts that are attached to an animated mesh. A prototype implementation of the proposed approach and several examples of modelling and animation with near real-time preview times are presented.