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TRANSCRIPT
ARTICLE IN PRESS
0097-8493/$ - se
doi:10.1016/j.ca
Computers & Graphics 30 (2006) 321–322
www.elsevier.com/locate/cag
Editorial
Introduction
The choice of devoting an issue of Computer & Graphicsto the research activities carried on by Italian universitiesand research labs, represents an acknowledgment tothe role that this community has played in the pastyears as well as to the great significance of currentresearch activities on international level. For thisreason I was honored to accept the role, offered by theeditor-in-chief Prof. Encarnac- ao, to guest-edit this specialissue.
I have decided to commit myself with enthusiasmand with great sense of responsibility to the collectionof some of the most representative research activitiesemerging from the Italian community. The initiativereceived great response which is proved by the considerablenumber of submissions received. A total of 25 paperswere reviewed by a panel of international experts in thefield of computer graphics, in order to ensure the papers’compliance to the strict quality criteria set by Computer &Graphics.
The selected papers show the dynamism and the varietyof research in the field within the Italian community.They focus on a wide spectrum of research issues and theyare all characterized by a high level of innovation, thusreflecting the effort of a well-established and successfulcommunity.
A first group of authors shows great interest in moretheoretical issues within modern computer graphics: Thepaper by M. Attene, S. Biasotti, M. Mortara, G. Patane,M. Spagnuolo and B. Falcidieno entitled ‘‘Computational
Methods for Understanding 3D Shapes’’ describes thechallenging subject of understanding the meaning of shapesand illustrates the key contribution of recent works carriedon at the IMATI lab. The interest in semantic-basedrepresentations of shapes and, more specifically, the questfor semantic-oriented tools to acquire, build, transmit andprocess shapes with their associated knowledge has ledIMATI, headed by B. Falcidieno, to coordinate an EUproject which is an important acknowledgment for thewhole Italian community.
Other authors, namely E. Danovaro, L. De Floriani,P. Magillo, E. Puppo and D. Sobrero investigate funda-mental techniques such as the Level of Detail (LOD). Intheir paper ‘‘Level-of-Detail for Data Analysis and Explora-
tion: A Historical Overview and Some New Perspectives’’
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they recall research achievements and new challenges in thefield of LOD models and data structures.Moving to the field of curve representation, the work by
G. Amati, A. Liverani and G. Caligiana entitled ‘‘From
Spline to Class-A Curves through Multi-Scale Analysis
Filtering’’ describes how to create, automatically andefficiently, subsets of Class-A curves through a wavelet-based and multi-scale filtering approach.A second group of authors focuses on scientific
visualisation: The submission by F. Taponecco, ‘‘Dense
Texture-based Visualization of Unsteady and Multi-variate
Vector Fields’’ proposes a novel approach to the visualisa-tion of unsteady vector fields by transforming into texturesspecific patterns which are subsequently rendered to showtheir variations over time.The work by E. Bilotta, P. Pantano and F. Stranges,
‘‘Computer Graphics Meets Chaos and Hyperchaos. Some
Key Problems’’ focuses on the visualisation of multi-dimensional data structures. This research investigates theprojection of very high dimension data patterns, borrowedfrom the theory of chaos, onto a 3D space. Furthermore, itleads to a number of fascinating representations showing,in the authors’ words, the ‘‘beauty’’ of chaos.In their paper ‘‘A Realtime Immersive Application with
Realistic Lighting: the Parthenon’’ M. Callieri, P. Debevec,J. Pair and R. Scopigno illustrate the application of GPUprogramming to real-time lighting calculation. The authorsdeal with the complexity of lighting calculation byseparating pre-calculated lighting invariants from thosevarying lighting factors which are then rendered throughGPU-based shaders.A fourth group of authors describes some of the current
research activities in the field of HCI, specifically in thearea of haptic devices. M. Bordegoni, G. Colombo andL. Formentini present in ‘‘Haptic Technologies for the
Conceptual and Validation Phases of Product Design’’ twosystems, both using commercial and specifically developedhaptic technologies for shape manipulation and forergonomics assessment.Last but not least another group of authors highlights the
growing interest in the broad field of CAD-CAM applica-tions. The paper by M. Fontana, C. Rizzi and U. Cugini‘‘A CAD-oriented Cloth Simulation System with Stable and
Efficient ODE Solution’’ presents a very effective technique
ARTICLE IN PRESSEditorial / Computers & Graphics 30 (2006) 321–322322
for cloth modelling based on a particle-based representationcapable to take into account the presence of garment’smanufacturing features such as seams or layering. Themathematical representation, which is based on constrainedNewtonian dynamic laws, makes use of specific backwarddifferentiation formulas (BDF) being suitable to cope withthe numerical nature of the problem posed by the adoptionof Newtonian ordinary differential equations (ODE).
This issue provides a necessarily limited, yet broaddescription of several research lines which have been activeduring the 40-year-history of computer graphics in Italy.The papers in this special issue demonstrate the innovationthat characterizes the research community together with itsvalue within the international scene.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to GiuseppeConti, Gino Brunetti, Francesco De Natale, Pavel Shvaiko,Andre Stork, Giuliana Ucelli for their fruitful support tothis initiative.
Giancarlo Amati, Alfredo Liverani, Gianni Caligiana,Alfredo Liverani, From Spline to Class-A Curves ThroughMulti-scale Analysis Filtering. University ofBologna–IEM, v.le Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italia.Tel.: +39 051 2093452; fax: +39 051 2093412.E-mail address: [email protected]
Monica Bordegoni, Giorgio Colombo, Luca Formentini,Haptic technologies for the conceptual and validationphases of product design. Dipartimento diMeccanica–Politecnico di Milano, Via La Masa 34–20156Milano, Italy. Tel.: +39 02 23998260;fax: +39 02 23998202. E-mail address:
Marco Calmieri, Paul Debevec, Jarrel Pair, RobertoScopigno, A Realtime Immersive Application withRealistic Lighting: the Parthenon. ISTI–CNR, Area dellaRicerca, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 56100 Pisa, Italy.Tel.: +39 050 3152921, mobile: +39 348 7456037;fax: +39 050 3152604.
Marco Attene, Silvia Biasotti, Michela Mortara, GiuseppePatane, Michela Spagnuolo, Bianca Falcidieno,Computational Methods for Understanding 3D Shapes.IMATI-GE/CNR, Via De Marini 6, Torre di Francia,16149 Genova, Italy. Tel.: +39 010 6475691;fax: +39 010 6475660. E-mail address:
Francesca Taponecco, Dense Texture-based Visualizationof Unsteady and Multi-variate Vector Fields. Departmentof Computer Science, Darmstadt University ofTechnology, Fraunhoferstrasse 5, Darmstadt, Germany,Tel.: +49 6151 155 664; fax: +49 6151 155 669.E-mail address: [email protected]
M. Fontana, C. Rizzi, U. Cugini, A CAD-oriented ClothSimulation System with Stable and Efficient ODESolution. Universita di Bergamo, Dipartimento diIngegneria Industriale, Via Marconi, 5–24044 Dalmine(BG), Italy. Tel.: +39 035 2052075; fax: +39 035 2052077.E-mail address: [email protected]
Eleonora Bilotta, Pietro Pantano, Fausto Stranges,Computer Graphics Meets Chaos and Hyperchaos. SomeKey Problems. Dipartimento di Linguistica, Universitadella Calabria, Via P. Bucci, Cubo 17/B, Arcavacata diRende (CS) 87036, Italia. Tel.: +39 0984 494370;fax +39 0984 494110. E-mail address: [email protected]
E. Danovaro, L. De Floriani, P. Magillo, E. Puppo,D. Sombrero, Level-of-Detail for Data Analysis andExploration: A Historical Overview and Some NewPerspectives. DISI (Dipartimento di Informatica e Scienzedell’Informazione) Universita’ di Genova Via Dodecaneso,35, 16146 Genova, Italy. Tel.:+39 0103536706;fax:+39 0103536699. E-mail address: [email protected]
Raffaele de Amicis received hisdoctoral degree from the Universityof Bologna in 2001. The topic of hisdissertation was on Free-Form Sur-face Modelling in Virtual Environ-ments. Since 2003, he is the Directorof GraphiTech, Center for AdvancedComputer Graphics Technologies, lo-cated in Trento, Italy. In 1996, he
received his Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from theUniversity of Calabria. From 1999 to 2001 he was guestresearcher at the Industrial Applications Department of theFraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt. From November 2001to 2002 he worked as a researcher at the InteractiveGraphics Systems Group, Department of ComputerScience of the University of Darmstadt. His currentresearch interests are in computer aided design, virtualreality technology applied to computer aided design,advanced 3D interaction techniques and computer sup-ported co-operative work in engineering applications,multimodal interactions in VR and semantic interpretationof 3D shapes. His future research foresees work on thevisualization of very large amount of multidimensionaldata that are made interactively available to users lookingfor decision support. Within this topic his focuses are onthe area of interactive visualization and intelligent com-plexity reduction for design activities.
Raffaele de AmicisCenter for Advanced Computer Graphics Technologies,
GraphiTech, Trento, Italy