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Pose Space Deformation: A Unified Approach to Shape Interpolation and Skeleton-Driven Deformation

J. P. Lewis, Matt Cordner, Nickson Fong

SIGGRAPHIndustrial48 descendantsSkinning

Corrective shapes interpolated in pose space on top of skeletal skinning, the backbone idea behind modern corrective workflows.

Abstract

Pose space deformation is a unified, purely kinematic approach to surface deformation that generalizes and improves upon both shape interpolation and skeleton subspace deformation (SSD). The key observation is that several types of deformation can be represented uniformly as mappings from a pose space, defined by an underlying skeleton or a more abstract set of parameters, to displacements in the object local coordinate frames. The deformation is treated as a scattered data interpolation problem solved with Gaussian radial basis functions, allowing artists to directly sculpt desired shapes at arbitrary points in pose space with smooth interpolation between them. The approach addresses drawbacks of shape interpolation and the characteristic collapsing joint defects of SSD, while retaining real-time synthesis performance suitable for facial and body deformation in entertainment, gaming, and telepresence applications.

How to read this

Category
Method: a corrective deformation technique (pose space deformation)
Contributions
  • A unified kinematic framework treating both shape interpolation and skeleton subspace deformation as mappings from a pose space to local-frame displacements
  • Scattered-data interpolation via Gaussian radial basis functions so artists can sculpt target shapes directly at arbitrary poses
  • Removes the joint-collapse defects of SSD while keeping real-time synthesis suitable for facial and body deformation
Context
Builds on Sederberg and Parry's free-form deformation and Magnenat-Thalmann et al.'s joint-dependent local deformations, generalizing shape interpolation and skeleton subspace deformation into one pose-space formulation.Builds on: Free-Form Deformation of Solid Geometric Models · Joint-Dependent Local Deformations for Hand Animation and Object Grasping
Correctness
Purely kinematic and artist-driven, validated on facial and body deformation for entertainment and telepresence; reader caveat is that quality depends on the sculpted examples and RBF interpolation, and being non-physical it does not model dynamics or contact.
Clarity
Accessible; a first pass conveys the pose-space idea clearly, do a second pass for the radial-basis-function formulation.
How to read it
Focus on the pose-space-to-displacement mapping and why it cures SSD joint collapse; a second pass on the RBF scattered-data solve is worth it if you implement correctives.

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