Simplification and Real-time Smooth Transitions of Articulated Meshes

Simplification techniques have mainly been applied on static models. However in movie and game industries, many models are designed to be animated. We extend the progressive mesh technique to handle skeletallyarticulated meshes in order to obtain a continuous levelof-detail (CLOD) representation that retains its ability to be animated. Our technique is not limited to any simplification metric, nor is it limited to generating models composed of a subset of the original vertices. It thus preserves the full simplification potential. To further improve performance, we can use this CLOD representation and extract a discrete set of skeletally-articulated models. Each model can be independently optimized, such as by using triangle strips. We can also use morphing between the different models in order to create smoother transitions. The result is a more accurate representation of animated articulated models, suitable for real-time applications.