COS 526 - Advanced Computer Graphics

Fall 2004

Course home Outline and lecture notes Assignments


Programming Assignment 1: Progressive Meshes

Due Thursday, Oct. 7

Overview

For this assignment, you will implement a mesh simplification system based on the techniques described by Hoppe 96 and Garland 97. Your program must be able to perform a series of simplifications based on the edge collapse operation, then reconstruct a mesh at any desired level of detail via vertex splits.

0. Starter code

Download the starter code and get it to compile. You'll need to install the GLUT library, as well.

Now, download a few sample meshes (in ".off" format, documented here) and start the provided mesh viewer on one of them. The model file should be provided on the command line or, under some systems, you might be able to drag 'n drop the model file on the executable.

The mouse/key functions are as follows:

If you have existing mesh viewing code, feel free to use that instead.

1. Mesh Decimation (60%)

2. Progressive Meshes (20%)

3. Bells 'n whistles (10%)

Implement one of the following (additional options may be implemented for additional credit).

  1. Write out the edge collapses to a file, in a format of your choosing, then adapt your viewer to read just the base mesh and edge collapses, instead of the original mesh.
  2. Implement a visualization of the error quadrics as ellipsoids (hint: glutSolidSphere draws a sphere - how should you scale it to make it an ellipsoid of the right shape?)
  3. Implement geomorphs for smooth transitions between levels of detail.
  4. Augment your system to perform "pair collapses" in addition to simple edge collapses. Experiment with models with many separate components and show that your program joins them into one over the course of simplification.
  5. Experiment with different error metrics. For example, implement a system that tries to preserve high-frequency detail at the expense of greater low-frequency deformation in areas with less detail.
  6. Implement a view-dependent progressive mesh viewer based on Hoppe 97. (Extra credit for this one!)

4. Writeup and analysis (10%)

Please submit your source code together with a writeup (as plain text, HTML, or PDF) that contains a description of the design decisions you made, options you implemented, and results. At a minimum, you should include a screenshot of the bunny model (from here) decimated to 500 faces, together with information about how long it took to simplify.

Models

There is a large database of models in .off format that you can work with. For starters, though, there is a smaller collection of models here.

Hints

Submitting

Please make your writeup and code accessible via the web, and send the URL to smr@princeton.edu with "COS526" in the subject line. Please see the general notes on submitting your assignments, as well as the late policy and the collaboration policy.


Last update 28-Nov-2018 11:36:09
smr at princeton edu