Abstract

We introduce an alternative to Monte-Carlo techniques for solving radiance transport problems for participating media. We use a reformulation of the volume rendering equation from its standard integro-differential form to a purely differential form. We then leverage the large body of work in numerical methods for solving differential equations by framing and analyzing the problem as a differential equation. To our knowledge, this is the first application of such techniques in the area of photo-realistic rendering of volumes based on ray optics.

Abstract

We explore the use of tracked 2D object motion to enable novel approaches to interacting with video. These include moving annotations, video navigation by direct manipulation of objects, and creating an image composite from multiple video frames. Features in the video are automatically tracked and grouped in an off-line preprocess that enables later interactive manipulation. Examples of annotations include speech and thought balloons, video graffiti, path arrows, video hyperlinks, and schematic storyboards. We also demonstrate a direct-manipulation interface for random frame access using spatial constraints, and a drag-and-drop interface for assembling still images from videos. Taken together, our tools can be employed in a variety of applications including film and video editing, visual tagging, and authoring rich media such as hyperlinked video.