Procedural authoring

• US 8,737,721 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2008
• Issued: 05/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Arcas, Blaise Aguera y, Brewer, Brett D., Drucker, Steven, Farouki, Karim, Flake, Gary W., Lawler, Stephen L., Lindsay, Donald James, Sheppard, Adam
• Primary Examiner(s): DULANEY, KATHLEEN YUAN
• Application Number:
  US12/116,323
• Publication Number:
  US 20090279784A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,211 Days
• Field of Search: 382/154, 382/181, 348/42, 356/12, 703/2, 345/419, 345/619
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/00 3D [Three Dimensional] image rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/205 Image-based rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/00 Three dimensional [3D] modelling, e.g. data description of 3D objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/10 Constructive solid geometry [CSG] using solid primitives, e.g. cylinders, cubes
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/20 Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, tesselation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/04 involving 3D image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20212 Image combination
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/36 Level of detail
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2016 Rotation, translation, scaling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/55 from multiple images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/97 Determining parameters from multiple pictures depth or shape recovery from multiple images G06T7/55; stereo camera calibration G06T7/85

Abstract

A system and a method that facilitates generating a model from a 3-dimensional (3D) object assembled from 2-dimensional (2D) content are described. A content aggregator can construct a 3D object from a collection of two or more 2D images each depicting a real entity in a physical real world, wherein the 3D object is constructed by combining the two or more 2D images based upon a respective image perspective. A 3D virtual environment can allow exploration of the 3D object. A model component can extrapolate a true 3D geometric model from the 3D object, wherein the true 3D geometric model is generated to include scaling in proportion to a size within the physical real world.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory, communicatively coupled to the one or more processors;

a content aggregator stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to construct a 3D object from a collection of two or more 2D images each depicting a real entity in a physical real world, the 3D object being constructed by combining the two or more 2D images based upon a respective image perspective;

a 3D virtual environment stored in the memory to enable a three dimensional exploration of the 3D object; and

a model component stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to;

extrapolate a 3D geometric model from the 3D object, wherein the 3D geometric model comprises at least one of a weight attribute that reflects a physical real world weight of the 3D object or a chemical property that reflects a physical real world chemical property of the 3D object;

utilize a value of information (VOI) analysis to identify one or more dimensional reduction settings; and

analyze the 3D geometric model based at least in part on the one or more dimensional reduction settings to identify an object that is represented in the 3D geometric model.

2. The system of claim 1, the 3D geometric model further comprises at least one of a surface attribute that reflects a physical real world surface of the 3D object or a size attribute that reflects a physical real world size of the 3D object.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the 3D geometric model is at least one of a graphical representation, a blueprint, a wire framework, a wire frame, a wire frame model, or a line constructed skeleton.

4. The system of claim 1, the model component employs dimensionality reduction to reduce a dimensionality associated with the object.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising an editor component that enables a modification to the object.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein:

the model component constructs a low-dimensional manifold for the object; and

the editor component provides a procedural authoring control to enable modification to the object in accordance with the low-dimensional manifold.

7. The system of claim 6, the low-dimensional manifold is a virtual representation of a real object in the physical real world.

8. The system of claim 1, the model component is configured to analyze the 3D geometric model based at least in part on dimensional analysis, the object being a collection of data from the 3D geometric model that represents a real object in the physical real world.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a tagger that automatically tags the object with metadata.

10. The system of claim 1, the model component employs dimensionality reduction on the true object to create a low-dimensional manifold of the object and the model component enables modification of the low-dimensional manifold.

11. The system of claim 1, the object is utilized in a virtual environment as a portion of a virtual reality based on the real entity depicted by the two or more 2D images, the virtual environment is at least one of a social network, an online community, an online virtual world, or a 3D online virtual world.

12. The system of claim 1, the object is utilized in connection with at least one of an application, a machine, or a component.

13. The system of claim 1, the object is utilized in connection with at least one of a drafting application, a graphic designer program, a program that utilizes blueprint information, a geographic application, a mapping program, a navigation program, or designer software.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the object is utilized in a simulator application that leverages a characteristic of the real entity within the physical real world to simulate a reaction from a stimulus.

15. The system of claim 1, the object is implemented as at least one of the following:

a framework for the 3D object, the object is exposed in an area that is unrepresented 2D content within the 3D object;

or

a framework for constructing a 3D object by overlaying and mapping two or more 2D images onto such framework.

16. The system of claim 1, the two or more 2D images including at least one of a photograph or a portion of a video.

17. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving two or more 2D images related to a real object within a real environment;

generating a 3D image by combining the two or more 2D images based at least in part upon a perspective of each 2D image;

extrapolating a 3D model having a true 3D geometry relative to the real object within the real environment from the 3D image, the 3D geometry including a size or weight that is scaled to a size or weight of the real object;

identifying one or more dimensional reduction settings based at least in part on a value of information (VOI);

analyzing the 3D model based at least in part on the one or more dimensional reduction settings to identify a portion of the 3D model that corresponds to an object that is represented in the 3D model;

automatically tagging the portion of the 3D model with metadata describing the portion of the 3D model; and

storing the portion of the 3D model and the metadata in a data store.

20. One or more computer-readable storage devices storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method of claim 17.

18. A computer-implemented system comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, configure the one or more processors to perform acts comprising;

generating a 3D image from a collection of two or more 2D images by combining the two or more 2D images based upon a respective image perspective;

generating a 3D geometric model from the 3D image, the 3D geometric model comprising characteristics reflecting the 3D image;

analyzing the 3D geometric model with dimensional analysis to identify an object, the object being a portion of the 3D geometric model that has a lower dimension than another portion of the 3D geometric model;

automatically tagging the identified true object with metadata;

storing the identified object with the metadata in a data store to be served as a 2D image in an additional collection of two or more 2D images, the additional collection of two or more 2D images being used to generate an additional 3D image; and

creating a virtual representation of a real object based upon a modification of the identified object.

19. The computer-implemented system of claim 18, the acts further comprising importing the object or the virtual representation into a virtual environment, the virtual environment being a social network, an online community, an online virtual world, or a 3D online virtual world.