Real-time Skeletonization for Sketch-based Modeling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a real-time, flexible skeletonization method for sketch-based modeling that automates skeleton creation, reducing manual effort and allowing user control over skeleton complexity.

Contribution

It presents a novel, efficient skeletonization approach integrated into sketch-based modeling, enabling real-time processing and coarse-to-fine user control.

Findings

Effective on diverse examples from novices and professionals

Achieves real-time skeleton extraction and refinement

Provides user-controlled skeleton complexity adjustment

Abstract

Skeleton creation is an important phase in the character animation pipeline. However, handcrafting skeleton takes extensive labor time and domain knowledge. Automatic skeletonization provides a solution. However, most of the current approaches are far from real-time and lack the flexibility to control the skeleton complexity. In this paper, we present an efficient skeletonization method, which can be seamlessly integrated into the sketch-based modeling process in real-time. The method contains three steps: local sub-skeleton extraction; sub-skeleton connection; and global skeleton refinement. Firstly, the local skeleton is extracted from the processed polygon stroke and forms a subpart along with the sub-mesh. Then, local sub-skeletons are connected according to the intersecting relationships and the modeling sequence of subparts. Lastly, a global refinement method is proposed to give users coarse-to-fine control on the connected skeleton. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on a variety of examples created by both novices and professionals.