Data-Driven Computer Graphics

The field of computer graphics abounds with modeling and simulation problems. Among these are the representation of surface shape, the description of surface reflectance, the probabilistic modeling of small-scale variations, and the application of physics for simulating the dynamics of rigid and elastic materials. During its formative years, computer graphics has focused largely on developing algorithms and systems for performing efficient simulations that transform these analytic representations into images and animations. At present, the simulation framework for computer graphics is very mature. In last ten years, we have also witnessed significant technological developments in the areas of high-quality sensors and measurement devices. However, the data provided from these devices are frequently incompatible with the representations assumed by most computer graphics systems.