ERC Starting Grant iModel: Intelligent Shape Modeling

EU, ERC logos
funding agency
European Research Council
funding period
2012-2017
PI
Olga Sorkine-Hornung

short summary

Digital 3D content creation and modeling has become an indispensable part of our technology-driven society. Any modern design and manufacturing process involves manipulation of digital 3D shapes. In fact, many industries have been long expecting ubiquitous 3D as the next revolution in multimedia. Yet, contrary to "traditional" media such as digital music and video, 3D content creation and editing is not accessible to the general public, and 3D geometric data is not nearly as wide-spread as it has been anticipated. Despite extensive geometric modeling research in the past two decades, 3D modeling is still a restricted domain and demands tedious, time consuming and expensive work effort even from trained professionals, namely engineers, designers, and digital artists. Geometric modeling is reported to constitute one of the lowest-productivity components of the product life cycle.

The major reason for 3D shape modeling remaining inaccessible and tedious is that our current geometry representation and modeling algorithms focus on low-level mathematical properties of the shapes, entirely missing structural, contextual or semantic information. It is an unavoidable consequence that current modeling systems are unintuitive, inefficient and difficult for humans to work with. We believe that instead of continuing on the current incremental research path, a concentrated effort is required to fundamentally rethink the shape modeling process and re-align research agendas, putting high-level shape structure and function at the core. We put forward a research plan that will lead to intelligent digital 3D modeling tools that integrate semantic knowledge about the objects being modeled and provide the user an intuitive and logical response, fostering creativity and eliminating unnecessary low-level manual modeling tasks. Achieving these goals will represent a fundamental change to our current notion of 3D modeling, and will finally enable us to leverage the true potential of digital 3D content for society.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 306877.

people

collaborations and visits

See our events page for more short-term visits and colloquia.

  • Oliver van Kaick (postdoctoral researcher, Tel Aviv University), April 2013
  • Daniel Cohen-Or (professor, Tel Aviv University), July-August 2013
  • Oliver van Kaick (postdoctoral researcher, Tel Aviv University), July-September 2013
  • Yanir Kleiman (PhD student, Tel Aviv University), July-September 2013
  • Tim Hoffmann (professor, TU Munich), February 2014, September 2015, September 2016, November 2017
  • Detlef Mueller (chief 3D modeler, Adidas), February 2014
  • Amir Vaxman (postdoctoral researcher, TU Vienna), April 2014
  • Roi Poranne (postdoctoral researcher, Weizmann Institute), October 2014
  • Amir Vaxman (postdoctoral researcher, TU Vienna), October 2014
  • Mario Botsch (professor, Bielefeld University), March-May 2017

recognition and awards

publications

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