Abstract

The development of simple and intuitive interactive deformation techniques for 3D point-based models is essential if they have to find wide-spread application in different domains. In this thesis we describe an interactive technique for editing the surface of a point-based model by adapting a physically-based mesh-free shape deformation formulation to work in conjunction with data input from an electronic glove. Each finger tip of the glove forms an interaction point in 3D space, whose movement into/away from the surface is used as a directed force applied on the surface for deforming the model in an intuitive yet computationally stable manner. After the glove is spatially registered with the point-based model, one or more fingers can be simultaneously used for deforming the model. For editing large 3D point based models, we have proposed two heuristic techniques which yield interactive response times for both global and locally detailed deformations on a large model. The heuristics use a localized deformable region or use a reduced model set with offline transfer of shape modification to the larger model. The proposed technique is simple to implement and its effectiveness has been demonstrated through a number of illustrative examples and videos.