Browsing by Author "Davison, Timothy"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Interactive example-palettes for discrete element texture synthesis
    (2018-04-02) Davison, Timothy; Samavati, Faramarz; Jacob, Christian
    Textures composed of individual discrete elements are found in everything from human-made glass-tilings to forests and tropical coral. Previous work in discrete element texture synthesis has been limited to synthesizing scenes composed of one discrete element texture. We propose an interactive sketch-based system for synthesizing scenes composed of many discrete element textures. Our main idea is an example-palette, where a user can use our sketch-based tools to create and combine discrete element textures before painting them into a scene. Our interactive sketch-based tools use a new and fast region-growing algorithm that iteratively synthesizes new elements derived from the example-palette. We demonstrate the application of our system for building virtual worlds (such as for video games) and sketch-based modeling. We achieve results that are not possible with state-of-the-art techniques.
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    LifeBrush: An Illustrative Simulation Canvas for the Biological Mesoscale
    (2020-01) Davison, Timothy; Jacob, Christian; Samavati, Faramarz Famil; Costa Sousa, Mario; Olson, Arthur; Willett, Wesley J.; Herzog, W.
    At the mesoscale, molecular machines assemble structure and orchestrate the processes of life. It is a chaotic and alien world whose scale makes communicating scientific findings a daunting challenge. Scientific illustrators confront the challenges with static illustration and video animations. With \lifeBrush{}, a virtual reality tool, we bring those static illustrations to life as interactive illustrative simulations. \lifeBrush{} is an illustrative simulation canvas, for sketching, simulating and visualizing the biological mesoscale. Like an artists paint palette, we design molecular arrangements, self-assembly rules, and generative procedures in an interactive palette. Then, we use our palette and generative algorithms to sketch illustrative simulations. We developed a novel realtime algorithm for painting and synthesizing element arrangements from a palette into virtual worlds. Our synthesis algorithm has applications for virtual world construction, and for interactively constructing illustrative mesoscale simulations. We synthesize networks of interconnected proteins filaments with sketch-based swarm grammars. To model macromolecular self-assembly, and to interactively construct macromolecular structures with our sketch-based system, we propose a realtime physics approximation based on spatial rules designed in the palette. We use our system to sketch and simulate cytoskeletal filaments in our illustrative simulation canvas. With our system, we structurally recreate, simulate and step inside some famous illustrations by the structural biologist David Goodsell.
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    The huddle: combining ai methods to improve handling a group of characters by a human game player
    (2012) Davison, Timothy; Denzinger, Jörg
    The huddle is a concept for extending computer games in which the player controls more than one character. It combines several AI methods to allow the player to create a cooperative strategy for his team of characters. It takes away the need for the player to frantically switch his control from character to character to carry out the strategy that he has in mind. The player enters the huddle from a saved game state where he provides the key ideas of a strategy in the form of situations that his characters can be in and actions for those situations (SAPs). Based upon these ideas, a learner fills in the missing details by adding additional SAPs to create a complete strategy that can be used in the real game. The learning component uses a simulation of the real game, with models of the non­player characters created from the observed behaviours of those characters, in order to evaluate candidate solutions. When a solution is found, the player is given the opportu­nity to take it to the real game and have the behaviour of his characters replaced by the combined strategy created by himself and the huddle. The huddle was evaluated with a fantasy-themed role playing game. It was shown that the huddle allowed the player to focus on developing a strategy without taking away the requirement for him to create the key ideas for that strategy.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The huddle: combining AI methods to improve handling a group of characters by a human game player
    (2012-08-31) Davison, Timothy; Denzinger, Jörg
    The huddle is a concept for extending computer games in which the player controls more than one character. It combines several AI methods to allow the player to create a cooperative strategy for his team of characters. It takes away the need for the player to frantically switch his control from character to character to carry out the strategy that he has in mind. The player enters the huddle from a saved game state where he provides the key ideas of a strategy in the form of situations that his characters can be in and actions for those situations (SAPs). Based upon these ideas, a learner fills in the missing details by adding additional SAPs to create a complete strategy that can be used in the real game. The learning component uses a simulation of the real game, with models of the non-player characters created from the observed behaviours of those characters, in order to evaluate candidate solutions. When a solution is found, the player is given the opportunity to take it to the real game and have the behaviour of his characters replaced by the combined strategy created by himself and the huddle. The huddle was evaluated with a fantasy-themed role playing game. It was shown that the huddle allowed the player to focus on developing a strategy without taking away the requirement for him to create the key ideas for that strategy.