Virtual camera selection using a semiring constraint satisfaction approach

Players and viewers of three-dimensional computer generated games and worlds view renderings from the viewpoint of a virtual camera. As such, determining a good view of the scene is important to present a good game or three-dimensional world. Previous research has developed technologies to nd good positions for the virtual camera, but little work has been done to automatically select between multiple virtual cameras, similar to a human director at a sporting event. This thesis describes a software tool to select among camera feeds from multiple virtual cameras in a virtual environment using semiring-based constraint satisfaction techniques (SCSP), a soft constraint approach. The system encodes a designer's preferences, and selects the best camera feed even in over-constrained or under-constrained environments. The system functions in real time for dynamic scenes using only current information (i.e. no prediction). To reduce the camera selection time the SCSP evaluation can be cached and converted to native code. This SCSP approach is implemented in two virtual environments: a virtual hockey game using a spectator viewpoint, and a virtual 3D maze game using a third person perspective. Comparisons against hard constraints are made using constraint satisfaction problems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Saskatchewan

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Janzen, Michael

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Neufeld, Eric
• Horsch, Michael C.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• McQuillan, Ian
• Stanley, Kevin G.
• Kusalik, Anthony J.
• Li, Longhai
• Goodwin, Scott

• virutal camera selection
• SCSP

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10388/ETD-2012-06-417

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:harvest.usask.ca:10388/ETD-2012-06-417