Create your own 3D model
3D shapes are an inherent part of our culture. Almost everyone knows animated movies such as “Shrek”, “Toy Story” or “Despicable Me”. But who has ever created such an animated 3D figure? Only a very limited number of people have ever tried their luck at 3D geometric modeling. In her ERC Starting Grant project “Intelligent Shape Modeling”, Prof. Olga Sorkine intends to simplify the processes of 3D modeling, thus making it accessible to the general public.
In our daily lives, we encounter 3D shape modeling more often than we are likely to be aware of. Not just computer-animated films and video games, but practically every manufactured object around us was first designed on a computer, be it a car, a table, a coffee maker, a toy or a building. Digital 3D content creation and modeling has thus become an indispensable part of our technology-driven society. In fact, many industries have long been expecting ubiquitous 3D to be the next revolution in multimedia.
Until today, however, 3D modeling is constrained to trained professionals. “It is nearly shocking that digital 3D shape modeling still remains inaccessible to the broad public”, says Prof. Sorkine, “given how fundamental the concept of shape is to humans and their communication, and how broadly digital shapes permeate our existence.” She is convinced that there is a way to simplify 3D content creation. This confidence led to her ERC Starting Grant project “Intelligent Shape Modeling”, in short “iModel”. Within their project, Sorkine and her team develop new tools for next-generation 3D modeling. These tools are meant to re-establish the weakened link between academia and practitioners. “Our objective is to make 3D geometry content as ubiquitous and widely accessible as digital images and videos are today”, Sorkine declares.
In order to develop better tools, the research team first had to identify the flaws in the existing ones. According to Sorkine, the existing tools force the user to have a very clear idea of the desired shape. Only then can the user implement this idea in digital form. Prototyping therefore often happens in physical form, which is very time-consuming and does not offer much flexibility – if later the user wants to change the basic design, he has to repeat the whole process from scratch. The tools are unintuitive and inefficient, and the whole process is challenging, tedious and time-consuming. As a result, professionals are hindered in their creativity, practitioners of surgical planning, architecture, geology, engineering design and more are not able to fully exploit the opportunities 3D modeling offers them in their respective fields and the wide public never even overcomes the technical inhibition threshold and thus misses out on a novel kind of creative outlet.
Sorkine is convinced that the reason for these challenges can be found in the underlying algorithmic principles. “iModel” therefore aims at developing new theoretical frameworks and efficient algorithms that are practical, fast, versatile and powerful. Better algorithms would allow professionals to concentrate on the creative part of the process. Furthermore, Sorkine’s group looks into intuitive interfaces for modeling and animation, which might encourage the broad public to create 3D models and figures.
The research group has already made considerable progress. One of their newly developed algorithms transforms an input surface automatically into a masonry 3D model. Not only architects, but also building owners could use this algorithm to design and analyze masonry structures. Another project called “Make It Stand: Balancing Shapes for 3D Fabrication” helps to balance out static objects. When current 3D models are fabricated through 3D printing, many models topple instead of standing as initially intended. Sorkine and her team developed a technique with which professionals as well as non-experts can produce objects that stand in one or more poses without requiring glue or heavy pedestals.
Sorkine is motivated by this preliminary success. “We have already made significant progress and I believe that by the end of the ERC Starting Grant period in 2017, we will be a big step closer to ubiquitous 3D modeling”, she says. Within the next ten years, society might be able to leverage the full potential of digital 3D content creation. Coupled with the falling prices of 3D printers, we might for example no longer need to rely on good spatial awareness when buying new furniture for an apartment. Instead, we create our own 3D model of the room and rely upon it when choosing the furniture that ideally fits the room’s proportions.