Day 2 :
Keynote Forum
Michela Spagnuolo
Research Director, CNR-IMATI-Genova, Italy
Keynote: The role of similarity in the study of fractured artefacts in Cultural Heritage

Biography:
Michela Spagnuolo is Research Director at CNR-IMATI-GE, where she has been working since 11/07/2001. Her research interest include geometric and semantic modelling of 3D objects, approaches based on computational topology for the analysis of shapes, method for the evaluation of similarity at the structural and semantic level. On these research topics, she has co-supervised 6 PhD thesis (plus two ongoing) and several Laurea/Master degree thesis.
She authored more than 130 reviewed papers in scientific journals and international conferences, is associate editor of international journals in Computer Graphics (currently, The Visual Computer and Computers & Graphics). She actively works as chair of conferences and workshops, and she is member of the steering committee of Shape Modeling International and of the EG Workshops on 3D Object Retrieval. In 2014, she was nominated Fellow of the Eurographics Association.
Since 2005, she is responsible of the research unit of the CNR-IMATI identified as ICT.P10.009 Advanced techniques for the analysis and synthesis of 3D shapes; since 2007, she is also responsible of the research unit identified as INT.P02.008 / Modelling and analysis, tools of high-performance computing and grid computing for data and applications in bioinformatics, Interdept. Project on Bioinformatics (now within the CNR Flagship Project Interomics).
She has been working as scientific responsible fof several international and national projects.
Abstract:
Digital manipulation and analysis of tangible cultural objects has the potential to bring about a revolution in the way classification, stylistic analysis, or refitting of fragments is handled in the cultural heritage area. Similarity evaluation is underlying most of these challenges, as the ability to reason on the several and diverse artifact properties, which may relate to geometric attributes (e.g., spatial extent, aspect), to colorimetric properties (e.g., colour, texture), to specific traits that fragments exhibit (e.g., decorations), or to metadata documenting the artefacts. 3D modelling, processing and analysis are now mature enough to allow handling 3D digitized objects as if they were physical, and semantic models allow for a rich documentation of many different aspects of artefacts or assets of any complexity, as well as of contextual information about them. In this context, the talk will give an overview of issues and trends related to the analysis, presentation and documentation of digital cultural assets, with focus on the research challenges tackled within the EC project GRAVITATE: Re-unification, as the process of discovering parts of the same object held in different collections and evaluate if and how they could fit together; Re-assembly, which consists in digitally recreating an historical artefact by the set of its fragments; Re-association of objects, which allows researchers to look for new understanding and insights into the movement and links between different communities on the basis of similar artefacts found in different locations.
Keynote Forum
Yonghuai Liu
Senior Lecturer, Aberystwyth University, UK
Keynote: 3D shape matching for object modelling
Time : 10:00-10:35

Biography:
Yonghuai Liu is Senior Lecturer in Aberystwyth University. He completed his PhD (1993-1997) and PhD (1997-2000) respectively from Northwestern Polytechnical University, P. R. China and The University of Hull, UK. In 1997, during his PhD, he received an Overseas Research Students (ORS) award. He also Editorial board member of American Journal of Educational Research published by Science and Education: an open access and academic publisher from 2015 and associate editor in several journals. His research interests computer graphics, pattern recognition, visualization, robotics & automation, 3D imaging, analysis and its applications.
Abstract:
3D data can be easily captured nowadays using the latest laser scanners such as Microsoft Kinect. Since the scanners have limited field of view and one part of an object may occlude another, the captured data can only cover part of the object of interest and is usually described in the local scanner centred coordinate system. This means that multiple datasets have to be captured from different viewpoints. In order to fuse information in these datasets, they have to be registered into the same coordinate system for such applications as object modelling and animation. The purpose of scan registration is to estimate an underlying transformation so that one scan can be brought into the best possible alignment with another. To this end, various techniques have been proposed, in which the feature extraction and matching (FEM) is promising due to its wide applicability to different datasets subject to different sizes of overlap, geometry, transformation, imaging noise, and clutters. In this case, the established point matches usually include a large proportion of false ones.
3D data can be easily captured nowadays using the latest laser scanners such as Microsoft Kinect. Since the scanners have limited field of view and one part of an object may occlude another, the captured data can only cover part of the object of interest and is usually described in the local scanner centred coordinate system. This means that multiple datasets have to be captured from different viewpoints. In order to fuse information in these datasets, they have to be registered into the same coordinate system for such applications as object modelling and animation. The purpose of scan registration is to estimate an underlying transformation so that one scan can be brought into the best possible alignment with another. To this end, various techniques have been proposed, in which the feature extraction and matching (FEM) is promising due to its wide applicability to different datasets subject to different sizes of overlap, geometry, transformation, imaging noise, and clutters. In this case, the established point matches usually include a large proportion of false ones.
This talk will focus on how to estimate the reliability of such point matches from which the best possible underlying transformation will be estimated. To this end, I will first show some example 3D data captured by different scanners, from which some issues can be identified that the registration of multiple scans is challenging. Then I will review the main techniques in the literature. Inspired by the AdaBoost learning techniques, various novel algorithms will be proposed, discussed and reviewed. These techniques are mainly based on the real and gentle AdaBoost respectively and include several steps: weight initialization, underlying transformation estimation in the weighted least squares sense, estimation of the average and variance of the errors of all the point matches, error normalization, and weight update and learning. Such steps are iterated until either the average error is small enough or the maximum number of iterations has been reached. Finally, the underlying transformation is re-estimated in the weighted least squares sense using the weights estimated.
I will thirdly validate the proposed algorithms using various datasets captured using Minolta Vivid 700, Technical Arts 100X, and Microsoft Kinect and show the experimental results. To show the robustness of the proposed techniques different FEM methods will also be considered for the establishment of the potential point matches: signature of histograms of orientations (SHOT) and unique shape context (USC), for example. Finally, I will conclude the talk and indicate some future work.I will thirdly validate the proposed algorithms using various datasets captured using Minolta Vivid 700, Technical Arts 100X, and Microsoft Kinect and show the experimental results. To show the robustness of the proposed techniques different FEM methods will also be considered for the establishment of the potential point matches: signature of histograms of orientations (SHOT) and unique shape context (USC), for example. Finally, I will conclude the talk and indicate some future work.
Keynote Forum
J. Joshua Thomas
Senior Lecturer, KDU Penang University College, Malaysia
Keynote: Visual analytics solution for scheduling processing phases

Biography:
J. Joshua Thomas is a senior lecturer at KDU Penang University College, Malaysia since 2008. He started in April 2002 as a lecturer at the same university college. He obtained his PhD (Intelligent Systems) in 2015 from University Sains Malaysia, Penang, and Master’s degree in 1999 from Madurai Kamaraj University, India. From July to September 2005, he worked as a research assistant at the Artificial Intelligence Lab in University Sains Malaysia. From March 2008 to March 2010, he worked as a research associate at the same University. He is currently associate editor for the international journal: Intelligent Information Processing, an editorial board member for the Journal of Energy Optimization and Engineering (IJEOE), and invited guest editor for Journal of Visual Languages Communication (JVLC-Elsevier), Journal of Healthcare Engineering (JHE), and Information Visualization (SAGE). He is serving as a Special Session Chair (Optimization in Smart Data and Visualization) at the International Conference COMPSE2017 Thailand, and Workshop presenter at IVIC2017, Bangi Malaysia. He has invited as guest speaker for the public lecturers at SQL Saturday Malaysia 2015 and 2016 a training event for Microsoft Data Platform professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server, Business Intelligence and Analytics. He has been serving as programme committee member, external examiner, and referee for more than five international conferences. He has published more than 30 papers in leading international conference proceedings and peer reviewed journals.
Abstract:
Introducing Examviz, a novel tool designed for visualizing examination schedules and clashes at the initial level. Examviz uses a metaphor to visual analytics process (VAP) typically processed computationally with local search algorithm then visualized and interpreted by the user in order to perform problem solving with direct interactions between the primary data, processing and visualization. An integrated problem solving environment (PSE) that analyses the combined effect of user-driven steering with automatic tuning of algorithmic parameters based on constraintsand the criticality of the application for the simulations is proposed. It is important to allow the human timetabler to steer the ongoing simulation, especially in the case of critical clashes between conflicting courses to exams and to time slots. An integrated visual design Examvizwhich is based on the parallel coordinate’s style of visualization that uses a novel mapping of courses to exams and to time slots has been developed. Examviz has three processing phases which combines human factors and the algorithm to explore conflicting data through visualization particularly to provide incremental improvements over the solution.
- Computer Graphics | Computer Animation | Animation Industry | Modeling | Simulation | Game Design & Development | Gamification and Social Game Mechanics
Location: v. Hardenberg

Chair
Ines A G Boaventura
Sao Paulo State University, Brazil
Session Introduction
Juan Carlos Torres
Granada University, Spain
Title: Adding semantic information to geometric models
Time : 12:10

Biography:
Juan Carlos Torres is a Full Professor of Computer Graphics at the University of Granada, Spain. He is director of the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the University of Granada. He has been project leader of the “Cultural Heritage Information System” project developed with the Alhambra monument that has developed a 3D information system for cultural heritage that aim to add semantic information to the surface of 3D objects. He has participated in several digitizing projects of cultural heritage sites including the Alhambra Palace and the Roman city of Italica. He also is a member of the Eurographics association. He has been the chairman of the Esurographics Spanish Chapter and elected member Eurographics Executive Board. He has been co-chair of the Eurographics annual conference held in Granada, EUROGRAPHICS 2003, and chair of SIACG’04 held in Santiago de Compostela.
Abstract:
Both 3D software and hardware have matured. Nowadays it is possible to create precise 3D models of complex objects, edit them and print real objects from these 3D models. But for many applications this is not enough. For instance, to manage 3D models of Cultural heritage artefacts we need also to associate non-geometric information linked to the model. For industrial applications this has been addressed using Building information modeling (BIM), that have evolved from Computer Aided Design.
Nevertheless BIM are not a good approach to link data to 3D meshes, as those created using laser scanner of structure from motion. Special methods have been proposed to associate data to the surface of 3D meshes. One successful approach is to apply the same techniques used by the Geographic Science community. The usefulness of GIS comes from the relation they implement between data and locations, which allows the user to perform spatial queries. In fact all the data is structured in a set of layers or maps, and every layer point has a known geographic coordinate. These ideas are also useful for any 3D model if we have data associated to its surface.
Ines Aparecida Gasparotto Boaventura
Sao Paulo State University, Brazil
Title: Face recognition based on multi-scale local mapped pattern
Time : 12:35-13:00

Biography:
Ines Aparecida Gasparotto Boaventura graduated at Mathematics from Sao Paulo State University, UNESP, Brazil, master’s at Computer Science and Computational Mathematics and PhD at Electrical Engineering from University of Sao Paulo (USP). She has experience in Computer Science, focusing on Graphical Processing (Graphics), and acting on the following subjects: Biometrics, Image Processing, and Computer Vision. She is a full-time professor and head of the Department at Department of Computer Science and Statistics at UNESP, campus of Sao Jose do Rio Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2011-2012 she was a visiting researcher at PRIP Laboratory –CSE –Michigan State University.
Abstract:
Face recognition technology is a hot topic of research in the field of image processing and computer vision. Face feature has very high reference value in the identification, because it is easy to collect the characteristics. Face recognition technology is widely applied in many system related to information and public safety. In this work it is presented a face recognition algorithm based on a new version of Multi-Scale Local Mapped Pattern Method.
The Local Binary Pattern (LBP) and its extended forms, such as Mean Local Mapped Pattern (LMP) and Multi-Scale Local Binary Pattern (MSLBP), were developed with the purpose of analyzing textures in images. Such methods compare histograms generated by micropatterns extracted from textures. A micropattern may be understood as a structure formed by pixels and its respective gray levels capable of describing or representing a spatial context of some feature found in the image, such as borders, corners, texture and even more complex and abstract patterns, like those found in a face image. In the MSLBP, a histogram is built in each scale with the values generated by image patterns smoothened by the Gaussian filtering. The LMP technique consists of smoothening the image gray levels from the mapping made through a pre-defined function. For each image pixel, the mapping of the region is made on the basis of a specific region of its neighbors.
In the face features description problem, the LMP technique presented excellent results in considering the average of the locally mapped patterns, whereas the MSLBP, working in several scales, also reached higher performance compared with the original LBP. Thus, in this work we propose a new technique combining the LMP method and a new version of the MSLBP method, herein referred to as MSLMP (Multi-Scale Mean Local Mapped Pattern). The proposal of this new approach is to extract micropatterns and to attenuate noisy actions often occurring in digital images.
Therefore, in this talk we will present some results of the method applied on face image of some well known face Database, such as ESSEX, JAFE and ORL. The experiments have been carried out so far suggest that the presented technique provides detections with higher performance than the results presented in the state-of-the-art research in the specialized scientific literature. For the mentioned databases, the results have reached 100% of accuracy, using 7 scales of the proposed method.
Petyo Budakov
New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria. DAAD Visiting Researcher
Title: 3D Rendered images and their application in the interior design
Time : 13:45-14:10

Biography:
Petyo Vasilev Budakov graduated from the New Bulgarian University of Sofia, Bulgaria in December 2012 with PhD in Visual arts (3D in graphic design). He is a faculty in the Department “Cinema, advertising and show business”. As a chief assistant professor, most of his doctoral research has been devoted on the 3D Digital media, lighting and renders engines, brand identity development as well as designing and delivering effective presentations.
In 2016, he was awarded with a DAAD scholarship grant, and currently he is a visiting researcher in Germany. He is a co-founder of the online learning vocational training school – Adacademy®.
Abstract:
The main goal of this practice-led research is to make an in-depth investigation of the application of 3D in the interior design, focused on it is development and improvement over the time. It outlines the quality and productivity of the most commonly used 3D render engines. It illustrates the latest trends in area of graphic designs and interior design, as well as demonstrating various ways of applying 3D Studio Max as a powerful 3D software. However, this investigation is focused on the creation of photo-realistic 3D images and it explores their quality and level of realism. It makes a comparison between 3D screen captured renders and real photos of the same objects, without retouching. This research considers how colors, shapes, forms, lightings, shadows and cameras would be successfully recreated by using 3D Studio max. The author explains the main advantages of using 3D rendered images over the traditional photography.
William Hoff
Colorado School of Mines, USA
Title: Real-time gymnast detection and performance analysis with a portable 3D camera
Time : 14:10-14:35

Biography:
William Hoff is currently with the DAQRI Austria Research Center in Vienna. Prior to that, he was an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. His research interests include computer vision and pattern recognition, with applications to augmented reality, robotics, and interactive systems.
Abstract:
Sports analysis is a useful application of technology, providing value to athletes, coaches, and sports fans by producing quantitative evaluation of performance. To address this field in the context of men’s gymnastics, a team at the Colorado School of Mines (Brian Reily, Hao Zhang, and William Hoff) has developed a system that utilizes a Microsoft Kinect 2 camera to automatically evaluate the performance of a gymnast on the pommel horse apparatus, specifically in regards to the consistency of the gymnast’s timing and body angle. The Kinect’s ability to determine the depth at each pixel provides information not available to typical sports analysis approaches based solely on RGB data. Our approach consists of a three stage pipeline that automatically identifies a depth of interest, localizes the gymnast, detects when the gymnast is performing a certain routine, and finally provides an analysis of that routine. We demonstrate that each stage of the pipeline produces effective results: our depth of interest approach identifies the gymnast 97.8% of the time and removes over 60% of extraneous data; our activity recognition approach is highly efficient and identifies ‘spinning’ by the gymnast with 93.8% accuracy; and our performance analysis method evaluates the gymnast’s timing with accuracy only limited by the frame rate of the Kinect. Additionally, we validate our system and the proposed methods with a real-world online application, used by actual gymnastics coaches and viewed as a highly effective training tool.
Jingtian Li
University of the Incarnate Word, USA
Title: Simplify anatomy for character modeling
Time : 14:35-15:00

Biography:
Jingtian Li is an individual 3D Character Artist and Animator, he is also Assistant Professor of 3D Animation & Game Design (http://www.uiw3d.com) in the School of Media & Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. He also have been working in a variety of animation studios like Beijing Daysview Digital Image Co, Passion Picture NYC. He holds an MFA in Computer Animation form School of Visual Arts in New York City, and also a BFA of Digital Media from China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Abstract:
Character modelling is one of the most popular field in the 3D animation and game industry, most of the students consider being a character artist as their career, but few students can really overcome all the difficulties of character creation process and really reach the professional level. Anatomy is one of difficult skill we have to help the students to master, this presentation introduces a way of using big shapes and planes instead of complex muscle and their names to help students understand anatomy on the big scale, and gradually move on into smaller shapes and planes, exploring ways of helping students to learn to observe and understand shapes of any unknown kind and recreate them in 3D, train their mind to simplity complex objects into easy and manageable primary shapes, help them to control detail rather than being overwhelmed, eventually, train their eye to quickly recognize the characteristic of any shape and able to easily recreate it in 3D with out struggles of trying to figure out what is wrong blindly.
Matthew Tovar
University of the Incarnate Word, USA
Title: Production planning workshop for 3D animation
Time : 15:00-13:25

Biography:
Matthew Tovar is an Assisant Professor in the 3D Animation & Game Design department at the Univeristy of the Incarnate Word, USA. He worked and continues to work profesionally in the film and game industry with top studios such as Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Infinity Ward, and Naughty Dog. His most notable recent projects include The Last of Us, Call of Duty: Infinte Warfare and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
Abstract:
The 3D Animation and Game Design program at the University of the Incarnate Word require students to produce complete 3D narrative animations or video games. Although students know this is coming, the specifics of how to plan the production, and make the specific design and story decisions that provide a successful piece seems to come as a surprise when students are actually in the class. We have, therefore, implemented a one credit planning course: Senior Thesis Workshop in which students produce no digital assets, but propose multiple projects with various teams and work them up to a pitch state. Then, still within this course, the students do initial concept design and planning work in preparation for the upcoming production cycle.
In this presentation, we will show the course structure of the workshop, and the results created there. We will share lessons learned in the process and how it has strengthened the output of the production courses.
Networking & Refreshment Break: 15:25-15:40 @ Foyer
Chieh-Ju Huang
Chienkuo Technology University, Taiwan
Title: The sound of geothermal: animation and board game design
Time : 16:06-16:30

Biography:
Chieh-Ju Huang is Lecturer in Design, Department of Commercial Design at Chienkuo Technology University, Taiwan. She worked professionally with Service Design, Design Thinking, User Experience, and Educational Board Game Design. Now she is PhD Candidate in Doctoral Program in Design, College of Design, National Taipei University of Technology.
Abstract:
Using Chinese traditional story character “the god of fire” to design an animation describes the knowledge and mechanism of Geothermal power generation. The animation also show how people people can collaborate togeather to use renewable energy to solve the problem of community electricity shortage and the crisis of energy overuse. Beside the theory of Geothermal, the story teller will explain the development, operation and function from the energy of Geothermal.
In addition, a board game is designed from “Design Thinking” and “POEMS” design tools. When designing this board game, design thinking workshop was propused for investigating how and why the board game would be played. POEMS design tools support to the game rules from: People (users in this game), Objects (the objects in this game), Environment (the content and environment in this game), Messages (the knowledge from this game), and Service (the service and activities in this game). It is for multiple players, and the cards contains path cards and tool cards for interacting with others. The board game based on the rules derived from the application of green energy. The players will learn how the Hydraulic, Wind power, Fire power, Nuclear power, and Geothermal energy work by playing this board game.
In a comprehensive way, this animation and board game for educational and energy usages are teaching the users about the knowledge of power generation and environment protection.