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We propose a novel 360° scene representation for converting real scenes into stereoscopic 3D virtual reality content with head-motion parallax. Our image-based scene representation enables efficient synthesis of novel views with six degrees-of-freedom (6-DoF) by fusing motion fields at two scales: (1) disparity motion fields carry implicit depth information and are robustly estimated from multiple laterally displaced auxiliary viewpoints, and (2) pairwise motion fields enable real-time flow-based blending, which improves the visual fidelity of results by minimizing ghosting and view transition artifacts. Based on our scene representation, we present an end-to-end system that captures real scenes with a robotic camera arm, processes the recorded data, and finally renders the scene in a head-mounted display in real time (more than 40 Hz). Our approach is the first to support head-motion parallax when viewing real 360° scenes. We demonstrate compelling results that illustrate the enhanced visual experience — and hence sense of immersion-achieved with our approach compared to widely-used stereoscopic panoramas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present a novel artistic-verisimilitude driven system for watercolor rendering of images and photos. Our system achieves realistic simulation of a set of important characteristics of watercolor paintings that have not been well implemented before. Specifically, we designed several image filters to achieve: 1) watercolor-specified color transferring; 2) saliency-based level-of-detail drawing; 3) hand tremor effect due to human neural noise; and 4) an artistically controlled wet-in-wet effect in the border regions of different wet pigments. A user study indicates that our method can produce watercolor results of artistic verisimilitude better than previous filter-based or physical-based methods. Furthermore, our algorithm is efficient and can easily be parallelized, making it suitable for interactive image watercolorization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new way to define mesh importance for decimation uses transfer functions and visualizes large simulation data in cases where normal visualization methods are insufficient due to memory limit. Next, a parallel isosurface simplification framework uses pyramid peeling to extract the decimated meshes progressively without generating the original surface. A new way to define mesh importance for decimation uses transfer functions and visualizes large simulation data in cases where normal visualization methods are insufficient due to memory limits. Next, a parallel isosurface simplification framework uses an importance pyramid to extract and render the decimated meshes progressively without generating the original surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]