Possible PhD Projects in Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality

Potential Supervisors: Dr Steve Maddock, Dr Daniela Romano

Interest areas

We are interested in projects in many areas of computer graphics, ranging from modelling techniques in computer graphics to presence in virtual environments.

We are currently working on a range of projects on character animation, gesture recognition, using graphics cards for real-time data processing, and in the use of Virtual Environments for training, a project that makes use of the new immersive VR facilities in the University (the Reflex Studio).

Some of our projects involve or have involved a number of commercial companies in Sheffield, including LightWork Design, Kazoo 3D and Infogrames Sheffield House, and we see this as a valuable part of our research work.

Proposed projects

Steve welcomes proposals on character animation, the general areas of modelling and deformation, and use of GPUs. The following are some possible projects:

• Sketch-based modelling of the human face: This work will follow on from a recently-completed PhD project on 'Sketching faces' that Dr Maddock supervised. The previous project has established that sketching offers a novel approach to producing models of the face. The new project will focus on how to use sketching in the creation of models of specific faces from photographs and how to produce detailed parts of the face model, e.g. ears, eyes, teeth and hair.
• Rigging for facial animation: Performance-based facial animation involves transferring the movement of a human face to a synthetic character. Both gross and subtle facial movements need to be transferred and also adapted to the dimensions of the synthetic character's face. If the animation needs to be subsequently edited, then an animator either has to capture new movement or edit the captured motion. Editing is often done using facial rigs. This project will investigate techniques to provide an animator with control over both gross and subtle facial movement using facial rigs based on captured data. An additional aim is for the rig to be easily transferrable to different synthetic characters.

Daniela welcomes proposals in areas related to Virtual Reality and Presence.

Applying

The Department maintains a web site on how to apply for a PhD, which gives full details of the application process together with links to the necessary forms to fill in.