Publications

YMCA - Your Mesh Comparison Application

J. Schmidt, R. Preiner, T. Auzinger, M. Wimmer, M. E. Gröller, and S. Bruckner

Abstract

Polygonal meshes can be created in several different ways. In this paper we focus on the reconstruction of meshes from point clouds, which are sets of points in 3D. Several algorithms that tackle this task already exist, but they have different benefits and drawbacks, which leads to a large number of possible reconstruction results (i.e., meshes). The evaluation of those techniques requires extensive comparisons between different meshes which is up to now done by either placing images of rendered meshes side-by-side, or by encoding differences by heat maps. A major drawback of both approaches is that they do not scale well with the number of meshes. This paper introduces a new comparative visual analysis technique for 3D meshes which enables the simultaneous comparison of several meshes and allows for the interactive exploration of their differences. Our approach gives an overview of the differences of the input meshes in a 2D view. By selecting certain areas of interest, the user can switch to a 3D representation and explore the spatial differences in detail. To inspect local variations, we provide a magic lens tool in 3D. The location and size of the lens provide further information on the variations of the reconstructions in the selected area. With our comparative visualization approach, differences between several mesh reconstruction algorithms can be easily localized and inspected.

J. Schmidt, R. Preiner, T. Auzinger, M. Wimmer, M. E. Gröller, and S. Bruckner, "YMCA - Your Mesh Comparison Application," in Proceedings of IEEE VAST 2014, 2014, p. 153–62. doi:10.1109/VAST.2014.7042491
[BibTeX]

Polygonal meshes can be created in several different ways. In this paper we focus on the reconstruction of meshes from point clouds, which are sets of points in 3D. Several algorithms that tackle this task already exist, but they have different benefits and drawbacks, which leads to a large number of possible reconstruction results (i.e., meshes). The evaluation of those techniques requires extensive comparisons between different meshes which is up to now done by either placing images of rendered meshes side-by-side, or by encoding differences by heat maps. A major drawback of both approaches is that they do not scale well with the number of meshes. This paper introduces a new comparative visual analysis technique for 3D meshes which enables the simultaneous comparison of several meshes and allows for the interactive exploration of their differences. Our approach gives an overview of the differences of the input meshes in a 2D view. By selecting certain areas of interest, the user can switch to a 3D representation and explore the spatial differences in detail. To inspect local variations, we provide a magic lens tool in 3D. The location and size of the lens provide further information on the variations of the reconstructions in the selected area. With our comparative visualization approach, differences between several mesh reconstruction algorithms can be easily localized and inspected.
@INPROCEEDINGS {Schmidt-2014-YMC,
author = "Johanna Schmidt and Reinhold Preiner and Thomas Auzinger and Michael Wimmer and Meister Eduard Gr{\"o}ller and Stefan Bruckner",
title = "YMCA - Your Mesh Comparison Application",
booktitle = "Proceedings of IEEE VAST 2014",
year = "2014",
pages = "153--62",
month = "nov",
abstract = "Polygonal meshes can be created in several different ways. In this  paper we focus on the reconstruction of meshes from point clouds,  which are sets of points in 3D. Several algorithms that tackle this  task already exist, but they have different benefits and drawbacks,  which leads to a large number of possible reconstruction results  (i.e., meshes). The evaluation of those techniques requires extensive  comparisons between different meshes which is up to now done by either  placing images of rendered meshes side-by-side, or by encoding differences  by heat maps. A major drawback of both approaches is that they do  not scale well with the number of meshes. This paper introduces a  new comparative visual analysis technique for 3D meshes which enables  the simultaneous comparison of several meshes and allows for the  interactive exploration of their differences. Our approach gives  an overview of the differences of the input meshes in a 2D view.  By selecting certain areas of interest, the user can switch to a  3D representation and explore the spatial differences in detail.  To inspect local variations, we provide a magic lens tool in 3D.  The location and size of the lens provide further information on  the variations of the reconstructions in the selected area. With  our comparative visualization approach, differences between several  mesh reconstruction algorithms can be easily localized and inspected.",
pdf = "pdfs/Schmidt-2014-YMC.pdf",
images = "images/Schmidt-2014-YMC.jpg",
thumbnails = "images/Schmidt-2014-YMC.png",
youtube = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s-AmFCQRzM",
doi = "10.1109/VAST.2014.7042491",
event = "IEEE VIS 2014",
keywords = "visual analysis, comparative visualization, 3D data exploration, focus+context, mesh comparison",
location = "Paris, France",
proceedings = "Proceedings of IEEE VAST 2014",
url = "//www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2014/ymca/"
}
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