Feature-Adaptive Catmull-Clark Subdivision on the GPU

Information

• Publication Type: Bachelor Thesis
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Photo-Guide: Image-Based City Exploration
• Date: 2013
• Date (Start): 15. May 2013
• Date (End): 30. September 2013
• Matrikelnummer: 0928004
• First Supervisor: Przemyslaw Musialski
• Keywords: subdivision surfaces, geometric modeling, GPU tessellation, computer graphics

Abstract

Catmull-Clark subdivision is a powerful standard modeling technique and has already been used extensively in CGI for motion pictures or computer games. An artist creates a coarse polygon mesh, that is computationally converted into a high-quality smooth surface. Due to the recursive nature of the subdivision algorithm and the large number of polygons, that are generated during the mesh-refinement, it is not well suited for realtime-environments. There exist several approaches to generate a Catmull-Clark subdivision surface which use current GPU technologies to overcome these issues.

In this thesis, we use Compute Shaders for subdivision and a Cubic Bezier Patch which takes advantage of the tessellation pipeline to get an optimized algorithm without the loss of visual quality. With the presented method, the support of (Semi)Sharp Creases, which are an important feature to achieve a more realistic look, is also given. The practical part of this thesis is integrated into the Helix 3D Toolkit SharpDX Framework.

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BibTeX

@bachelorsthesis{koessler-2013-BA,
  title =      "Feature-Adaptive Catmull-Clark Subdivision on the GPU",
  author =     "Christian K\"{o}{\ss}ler",
  year =       "2013",
  abstract =   "Catmull-Clark subdivision is a powerful standard modeling
               technique and has already been used extensively in CGI for
               motion pictures or computer games. An artist creates a
               coarse polygon mesh, that is computationally converted into
               a high-quality smooth surface. Due to the recursive nature
               of the subdivision algorithm and the large number of
               polygons, that are generated during the mesh-refinement, it
               is not well suited for realtime-environments. There exist
               several approaches to generate a Catmull-Clark subdivision
               surface which use current GPU technologies to overcome these
               issues.  In this thesis, we use Compute Shaders for
               subdivision and a Cubic Bezier Patch which takes advantage
               of the tessellation pipeline to get an optimized algorithm
               without the loss of visual quality. With the presented
               method, the support of (Semi)Sharp Creases, which are an
               important feature to achieve a more realistic look, is also
               given. The practical part of this thesis is integrated into
               the Helix 3D Toolkit SharpDX Framework. ",
  address =    "Favoritenstrasse 9-11/E193-02, A-1040 Vienna, Austria",
  school =     "Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms, Vienna
               University of Technology ",
  keywords =   "subdivision surfaces, geometric modeling, GPU tessellation,
               computer graphics",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2013/koessler-2013-BA/",
}