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Blender in Research & Education

Arne Schmitz

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Overview• The RWTH Aachen University

• The Computer Graphics Group• Research Projects

• Blender in Research• Modeling and scripting• Video editing

• Blender in Education• Modeling• Simulation• Rendering

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RWTH Aachen University• Facts

• Founded 1870• About 27.000 students• About 7.000 personal• 410 professors

• Polytechnical University• 11 Computer Science

Institutes

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The Computer Graphics Group• Head of department

Prof. Dr. Leif Kobbelt• Founded in 2000• Main topics

• Computer Graphics• Multimedia

• Website http://www.graphics.rwth-aachen.de/

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Research Topics• Geometry• Computer Vision and 3D Reconstruction• Image- and Video-Processing• Global Illumination• Physical and Medical Simulation

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Overview• The RWTH Aachen University

• The Computer Graphics Group• Research Projects

• Blender in Research• Modeling and scripting• Video editing

• Blender in Education• Modeling• Simulation• Rendering

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Blender in Research• Blender as a modelling tool• Projects:

• Radio Wave Propagation• Global Illumination• Character Animation

[1] Wave Propagation Using the Photon Path Map, Arne Schmitz, Leif Kobbelt,ACM PE-WASUN 2006, pp. 158 ff[2] Character Animation from 2D Pictures and 3D Motion Data, Alexander Hornung, Ellen Dekkers, Leif Kobbelt, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), vol. 26(1), 2007

Modeling

Video EditingModeling

Modeling

Video Editing

Scripting

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Blender in Research• Blender as a modeller

• Create scenarios for simulation or rendering• For character animation: Rigging and vertex

weight painting

• More complex modeling tasks• Use proprietary software and algorithms

• Remeshing• Mesh decimation• Mesh repair (making it 2-manifold, filling holes)

• Using homegrown OpenMesh toolkit:• http://www.openmesh.org/

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Blender in Research• Radio Wave Propagation

• Modeling of wireless and GSM networks• Blender: Geometry and material assignment

Blender

Scene model

PhotonRT

3D intensity map

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Blender in Research• Blender as a video sequencer

• Supplemental material for conference submissions

• Done either completely in Blender

• Or captured with xvidcap and annotated in Blender

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Blender in Research• Blender scripting• Easy to implement

custom import filters• Modified OFF import

with extra data• Import filter for Acclaim

.asf skeleton files

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Overview• The RWTH Aachen University

• The Computer Graphics Group• Research Projects

• Blender in Research• Modeling and scripting• Video editing

• Blender in Education• Modeling• Simulation• Rendering

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Blender in Education• Why Blender?

• Free (as in beer)• Free (as in speech)

• Pros• Promote usage of free software• Choice and variety is always good• Help students to get to know a complex 3D

program for free• Students have access to sourcecode

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Modeling• Student project for 9th grade school-intern

• Goal: Offer an interesting CG related task• Problem: No sufficient math background for

theoretical work

• Solution: Modeling a theater from blueprints!• Ca. 2.8 million faces• Textured and lit scene

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Simulation• Student project: Cloth simulation

• Plugin/patch for Blender• Simulates cloth [1]

• Mass spring model• Supports self collisions and collisions with objects• Mixed explicit/implicit integration model

• For contact see our website and ask the students (Christian Ebke, Michael Kremer) [2]

[1] Simulation of Clothing with Folds and Wrinkles, Bridson, Marino and Fedkiw, Symposium on Computer Animation 2003[2] http://www.graphics.rwth-aachen.de/index.php?id=48

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Simulation

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Simulation

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Simulation

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Rendering• Diploma thesis: Image Synthesis using Photon

Mapping

• Global Illumination renderercalled Photon• C++ (40k LoC)• Photon Mapping• Distributed Raytracer• Advanced Materials• OpenEXR output

• Download? Not yet, workingon open-sourcing it . . .

Blender

Yafray XML

Photon

Image

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Rendering

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Rendering

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Rendering

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Rendering• Also supports lighting with environment maps

(This image: HDR example lightprobe by Spheron Inc.)

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Rendering

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Conclusion• What can education do for Blender?

• Enlarge user-base• Enlarge visibility• Enlarge group of possible contributors• Enlarge importance in scientific community

• Advantages of Blender• Free software (as in freedom)• Free software (as in free beer)• Scripting abilities• Good and fairly easy to use video sequencer

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Conclusion• Disadvantages of Blender

• Extending the core of Blender with C/C++ difficult for newbies (complex and ancient code)

• Only basic mesh repair, decimation and remeshing capabilities

• Video sequencer could use some additional basic features (e.g. fade to black/white, instead of workaround)