Programming in the Large SS 2004

For the software engineering lecture "Programming in the Large" during the summer semester 2004 we had the opportunity to create games using the Eiffel programming language and an Eiffel wrapper for the SDL library called ESDL.

Advanced Image Synthesis and Physically Based Rendering SS2006

For the lecture in Advanced Image Synthesis and Physically Based Rendering during the summer semester 2006 we created a small demo application. This includes the simulation of water and fire as well as some bumpmapping effects.

Geometric Modeling and Surface Representations SS2006

Reading Assignment: Subdivision Surfaces in Character Animation

The goal was to write an essay about the following paper from Pixar Animation Studios
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/readings/derose98.pdf

Programming Exercise: Surface Representation Using Quadric Error Metrics

The goal was to implement a simplified version of the technique described in
http://mgarland.org/files/papers/quadrics.pdf
where only neighbouring vertices which are also connected may be merged.

Reading Assignment: Modelling with Implicit Surfaces that Interpolate

The goal was to write an essay about the following paper from Greg Turk and James F. O'Brien
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/my_papers/vimp_tog.pdf

Semester Thesis in Information Security: Translation of Usage Control Policies

Data management and protection in general is an important topic in computer science. Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are widely spread and use different standards to implement Usage Control (UC) policies. This thesis provides a framework to translate UC policies from one language to another. It is able to translate policies between OSL (Obligation Specification Language) and XrML (eXtensible rights Markup Language).

Semester Thesis in Visual Computing: Matrix Palette Skinning and Dual Quaternions

Skinning is one of the most important techniques for character animation and deformation. The geometry of a model is often represented by a mesh of connected vertices. Usually, the deformation process is based upon a skeleton underlying the actual model geometry and each model vertex gets influenced by some of its nearest bones. This thesis provides two approaches to hardware accelerated skinning. Both are implemented as GPU shader programs written using NVidia's Cg - C for graphics. The first approach is based on matrix palette skinning while the latter implementes skinning via dual quaternions. 

Master Thesis in Visual Computing: Eye Simulation

Animated movies and computer games entertain us in our daily lives. This thesis aims to improve the way a scene can be perceived by the user. A game or movie scene is usually presented to the user by placing a camera into the scene and setting the appropriate parameters such as field of view, near plane, and far plane. The perspective projection onto this placed camera is what the user sees on his displaying device and this approach corresponds to the scene being evaluated with geometric optics and a pinhole camera. We extend this approach by introducing a post-processing effect which re-evaulates the scene using wave optics, a more refined model for light propagation.