Vector Graphics Animation with Time-Varying Topology

Boris Dalstein (1) , Rémi Ronfard (2) , Michiel van de Panne (1)

1 UBC - University of British Columbia
2 IMAGINE - Intuitive Modeling and Animation for Interactive Graphics & Narrative Environments

We introduce the Vector Animation Complex (VAC), a novel data structure for vector graphics animation, designed to support the modeling of time-continuous topological events. This allows features of a connected drawing to merge, split, appear, or disappear at desired times via keyframes that introduce the desired topological change. Because the resulting space-time complex directly captures the time-varying topological structure, features are readily edited in both space and time in a way that reflects the intent of the drawing. A formal description of the data structure is provided, along with topological and geometric invariants. We illustrate our modeling paradigm with experimental results on various examples.

Mots clés: vector graphics; 2D; animation; topology; space-time; cell complex; boundary-based representation

Domaines: Géométrie algorithmique [cs.CG]; Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]

Boris Dalstein, Rémi Ronfard, Michiel van de Panne. Vector Graphics Animation with Time-Varying Topology. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2015, Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 2015, 34 (4), Article No. 145, 12 p. ⟨10.1145/2766913⟩. ⟨hal-01155246⟩