With the advent of real-time physically based animation over the past decade, and more recently, the growth of general mathematical computing on graphics processors, there has been an increasing interest in the development of realism in computer graphics. However, the algorithms involved in mimicking the physical world are often very complex, abstract, and out of reach for an average computer science student or practitioner. This work introduces an interface to a physically based algorithm, a thin shell animation, which focuses on visualization, experimentation, and control. Through the use of dynamic coloring, abstract visual cues, robust user interaction, and full control over the algorithm parameters, our system facilitates the process of discovery and experimentation, which can enhance the learning experience and help overcome the difficulties in understanding the mathematically intense concepts that comprise the core of many physically based models. Furthermore, our interface design can be used as model for interacting with other types of physically based animations and provide the same benefits for learning.

• Youtube link to video (for fullscreen viewing)

• Download a pdf of the original Master's thesis here.
• Download a pdf of the conference paper version here.

• James Skorupski, Zoë Wood, Alex Pang: Interactive Thin Shells - A Model Interface for the Analysis of Physically-based Animation. CAINE 2007: 128-134

• Download the ITS application here.
  • Interactive Thin Shells requires Windows XP or above to run. It is also a CPU-intensive application, and therefore requires a modern CPU with the SSE2 instruction sets (Pentium 4 and above).
  • To run the application, double click the “ITS_v1.0.exe” program. Sample mesh files are included in the “Meshes” directory. Load them by clicking the “Load Mesh” button and browsing to the mesh folder and selecting a file. See the thesis document for more information about the interface.