Bend a mesh along spline - math

I am trying to bend a mesh along a spline curve and currently out of ideas … at first I thought I just add spline point vectors to mesh's vertices , but I am looking for more optimized version of it …
so guys …
How can I bend a mesh along a spline, so that mesh, with some forward axis vector follows the spline and bends according to it and also repeat along the spline …
???

I believe there are many ways to do what you want. Some years ago I worked out an approach using Conformal Geometric Algebra. Of course you can do it using conventional 3D math as its described in Instant Mesh Deformation and Deformation styles for spline-based skeletal animation papers.
A simple method is as follows:
Your spline function is a function S(t): R -> R^3, it takes a scalar between [0:1] and give you points in R^3.
Project each mesh vertex on the spline curve. The projection is orthogonal in the sense that it follows the direction of a normal vector to the curve. So your mesh vertex v_i is projected to a point v'_i in the spline where S(t_i) = v'_i. Form a vector p_i = v_i - v'_i (which is normal to the curve) so each mesh vertex can be expressed as:
v_i = S(t_i) + p_i
Compute an orthogonal coordinate system at "each point" of the spline. That coordinate system is known as Frenet-Serret frame. The first vector to determine is the tangent to the curve. It is uniquely defined as the derivative of S(t) so tangent T = S(t)/dt. The other two vectors, the normal N and binormal B, can be computed in different ways, check the above reference papers for that.
Express the vector p_i (from step 1) in terms of the Frenet-Serret frame at point S(t_i). Such that the vector p_i is a linear combination of T, N and B. Create a matrix A with columns T, N and B. You need to find x_i such that:
A x_i = p_i
That can be solved by inverting the matrix A (actually taking the transpose should suffice). So each mesh vertex can be computed as:
v_i = S(t_i) + A x_i
You can store the pair (t_i, x_i) instead of v_i (you don't need to store v_i anymore since you can compute it from t_i and x_i).
To deform the mesh deformation the spline control points must be translated, then you need to recompute the Frenet-Serret frame of each spline point (taking the derivative of the S(t) to compute T and updating the N and B as suggested in above reference papers). Once you have the updated T, N and B, you can define the matrix A and then compute the mesh vertex positions using formula from step 3.
Results can be seen in pictures of the above mentioned papers.

Related

Calculate Normals from Heightmap

I am trying to convert an heightmap into a matrix of normals using central differencing which will later correspond to the steepness of a giving point.
I found several links with correct results but without explaining the math behind.
T
L O R
B
From this link I realised I can just do:
Vec3 normal = Vec3(2*(R-L), 2*(B-T), -4).Normalize();
The thing is that I don't know where the 2* and -4 comes from.
In this explanation of central differencing I see that we should divide that value by 2, but I still don't know how to connect all of this.
What I really want to know is the linear algebra definition behind this.
I have an heightmap, I want to measure the central differences and I want to obtain the normal vector to use later to measure the steepness.
PS: the Z-axis is the height.
From vector calculus, the normal of a surface is given by the gradient operator:
A height map h(x, y) is a special form of the function f:
For a discretized height map, assuming that the grid size is 1, the first-order approximations to the two derivative terms above are given by:
Since the x step from L to R is 2, and same for y. The above is exactly the formula you had, divided through by 4. When this vector is normalized, the factor of 4 is canceled.
(No linear algebra was harmed in the writing of this answer)

Apply a transformation matrix over time

I have an initial frame and a bounding box around some information. I have a transformation matrix T, for which I want to use to transform this bounding box.
I could easily apply the transformation and draw it in the output frame, but I would like to apply the transformation over a sequence of x frames, can anyone suggest a way to do this?
Aly
Building on #egor-n comment, you could compute R = T^{1/x} and compute your bounding box on frame i+1 from the one at frame i by
B_{i+1} = R * B_{i}
with B_{0} your initial bounding box. Depending on the precise form of T, we could discuss how to compute R.
There are methods for affine transforms - to make decomposition of affine transform matrix to product of translation, rotation, scaling and shear matrices, and linear interpolation of parameters of every matrix (for example, rotation angle for R and so on). Example
But for homography matrix there is no single solution, as described here, so one can find some "good" approximation (look at complex math in that article). Probably, some limitations for possible transforms could simplify the problem.
Here's something a little different you could try. Let M be the matrix representing the final transformation. You could try interpolating between I (the identity matrix, with 1's on the diagonal and 0's elsewhere) using the formula
M(t) = exp(t * ln(M))
where t is time from 0 to 1, M(0) = I, M(1) = M, exp is the exponential function for matrices given by the usual infinite series, and ln is the similar natural logarithm function for matrices given by the usual infinite series.
The correctness of the formula depends on the type of transformation represented by M and the type of transformations allowed in intermediate steps. The formula should work for rigid motions. For other types of transformations, various bad things might happen, including divergence of the logarithm series. Other formulas can be used in other cases; let me know if you're using transformations other than rigid motions and I can give some other formulas.
The exponential and logarithm functions may be available in a matrix library. If not, they can be easily implemented as partial sums of infinite series.
The above method should give the same result as some quaternion methods in the case of rotations. The quaternion methods are probably faster when they're available.
UPDATE
I see you mention elsewhere that your transformation is a homography (perspectivity), so the method I suggested above for rigid motions won't work. Instead you could use a different, but related method outlined in ftp://ftp.cs.huji.ac.il/users/aristo/papers/SYGRAPH2005/sig05.pdf. It goes as follows: represent your transformation by a matrix in one higher dimension. Scale the matrix so that its determinant is equal to 1. Call the resulting matrix G. You want to interpolate from the identity matrix I to G, going through perspectivities.
In what follows, let M^T be the transpose of M. Let the function expp be defined by
expp(M) = exp(-M^T) * exp(M+M^T)
You need to find the inverse of that function at G; in other words you need to solve the equation
expp(M) = G
where G is your transformation matrix with determinant 1. Call the result M = logp(G). That equation can be solved by standard numerical techniques, or you can use Matlab or other math software. It's somewhat time-consuming and complicated to do, but you only have to do it once.
Then you calculate the series of transformations by
G(t) = expp(t * logp(G))
where t varies from 0 to 1 in steps of 1/k, where k is the number of frames you want.
You could parameterize the transform over some number of frames by adding a variable with a domain greater than zero but less than 1.
Let t be the frame number
Let T be the total number of frames
Let P be the original location and orientation of the object
Let theta be the total rotation angle
and translation be the vector [x,y]'
The transform in 2D becomes:
T(P|t) = R(t)*P +(t*[x,y]')/T
where R(t) = {{Cos((theta*t)/T),-Sin((theta*t)/T)},{Sin((theta*t)/T),Cos((theta*t)/T)}}
So that at frame t_n you apply the transform T(t) to the position of the object at time t_0 = 0 (which is equivalent to no transform)

What exactly does delta mean in the gradient descent algorithm?

As on the picture:
Could someone help me understand what exactly what delta means in the gradient descent algorithm?
This is a partial derivative with respect to theta_0.
The term is a derivative with respect to the theta 0.
Mark theta as coordinate on X-axis (let it be A)
Find corresponding coordinate on Y-axis (let it be B) so the point belongs to the function J
Draw tangent line to that function at the point (A, B)
The derivative is the slope of this tangent line.
The derivative is used to control two aspects of the cost function (J function) minimization:
direction - sign of the slope tells you in which direction you should move along the X-axis in order to converge J
rate - magnitude of the slope tells you how fast you should move

How to make sure if a polynomial curve is monotonic under interval [a,b]?

If I got a polynomial curve, and I want to find all monotonic curve segments and corresponding intervals by programming.
What's the best way to do this...
I want to avoid solving equation like f'(x) = 0;
Using some nice numerical ways to do this,like bi-section, is preferred.
f'(x) expression is available.
Thanks.
Add additional details. For example, I get a curve in 2d space, and its polynomial is
x: f(t)
y: g(t)
t is [0,1]
So, if I want to get its monotonic curve segment, I must know the position of t where its tangent vector is (1,0).
One direct way to resolve this is to setup an equation "f'(x) = 0".
But I want to use the most efficient way to do this.
For example, I try to use recursive ways to find this.
Divide the range [0,1] to four parts, and check whether the four tangents projection on vector (1,0) are in same direction, and two points are close enough. If not, continue to divide the range into 4 parts, until they are in same direction in (1,0) and (0,1), and close enough.
I think you will have to find the roots of f'(x) using a numerical method (feel free to implement any root-seeking algorithm you want, Wikipedia has a list). The roots will be those points where the gradient reaches zero; say x1, x2, x3.
You then have a set of intervals (-inf, x1) (x1, x2) etc, continuity of a polynomial ensures that the gradient will be always positive or always negative between a particular pair of points.
So evaluating the gradient sign at a point within each interval will tell you whether that interval is monotically increasing or not. If you don't care for a "strictly" increasing section, you could patch together adjacent intervals which have positive gradient (as a point of inflection will show up as one of the f'(x)=0 roots).
As an alternative to computing the roots of f', you can also use Sturm Sequences.
They allow counting the number of roots (here, the roots of f') in an interval.
The monotic curve segments are delimited by the roots of f'(x). You can find the roots by using an iterative algorithm like Newton's method.

Decompose complex matrix transformation into a series of simple transformations?

I wonder if it is possible (and if it is then how) to re-present an arbitrary M3 matrix transformation as a sequence of simpler transformations (such as translate, scale, skew, rotate)
In other words: how to calculate MTranslate, MScale, MRotate, MSkew matrices from the MComplex so that the following equation would be true:
MComplex = MTranslate * MScale * MRotate * MSkew (or in an other order)
Singular Value Decomposition (see also this blog and this PDF). It turns an arbitrary matrix into a composition of 3 matrices: orthogonal + diagonal + orthogonal. The orthogonal matrices are rotation matrices; the diagonal matrix represents skewing along the primary axes = scaling.
The translation throws a monkey wrench into the game, but what you should do is take out the translation part of the matrix so you have a 3x3 matrix, run SVD on that to give you the rotation+skewing, then add the translation part back in. That way you'll have a rotation + scale + rotation + translate composition of 4 matrices. It's probably possible to do this in 3 matrices (rotation + scaling along some set of axes + translation) but I'm not sure exactly how... maybe a QR decomposition (Q = orthogonal = rotation, but I'm not sure if the R is skew-only or has a rotational part.)
Yes, but the solution will not be unique. Also you should rather put translation at the end (the order of the rest doesn't matter)
For any given square matrix A there exists infinitely many matrices B and C so that A = B*C. Choose any invertible matrix B (which means that B^-1 exists or det(B) != 0) and now C = B^-1*A.
So for your solution first decompose MC into MT and MS*MR*MSk*I, choosing MT to be some invertible transposition matrix. Then decompose the rest into MS and MR*MSk*I so that MS is arbitrary scaling matrix. And so on...
Now if at the end of the fun I is an identity matrix (with 1 on diagonal, 0 elsewhere) you're good. If it is not, start over, but choose different matrices ;-)
In fact, using the method above symbolically you can create set of equations that will yield you a parametrized formulas for all of these matrices.
How useful these decompositions would be for you, well - that's another story.
If you type this into Mathematica or Maxima they'll compute this for you in no time.

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