Growing and Animating Polygonal Models of Animals

Abstract

While there exist many computer models of animal bodies, as polygonal meshes and parametric surfaces, these are difficult to modify to take growth into account, or to animate. Growth data available from the literature usually is expressed as very sparse measurements over the body at various ages of the animal. We present here basic techniques to transfer growth data to computer models (especially polygonal meshes), which allows animation of the growth as well as animation of the body in the traditional sense.The main technique consists of defining local coordinate systems around the growing parts of the body, each one being transformed according to the relevant growth data while maintaining their relationship with the adjoining parts and the continuity of the surface. The local coordinates also permit ordinary animation mainly as relative rotation such as in articulated objects.We present examples with polygonal models of horses and cows, growth data from same, and motion from Muybridgeâ s classic photographic data.