FOCUS K3D - Foster the Comprehension and Use of Knowledge intensive 3D media
Newsletter 2 (February 2009), download at
http://www.focusk3d.eu/downloads
What Are The Drone Anti-jamming Systems Technology?
FOCUS K3D Newsletter (Feb 09)
1. Newsletter 02
february 09
FOster the Comprehension and USe of Knowledge intensive 3D media
Topics Editorial
One of the visions of FOCUS K3D is to identify important fu-
1. Questionnaire ture research and technological directions for semantic 3D
assessment summary media, where Geometry (digital shape representations of phy-
sical or virtual objects; for example of molecules in bioinfor-
2. Results of the ad hoc matics) is enhanced by Knowledge Technologies (such as me- Ewald Quak,
SINTEF
tadata, ontologies, and reasoners; for example to describe the
meetings
behaviour and functions of molecules, or organize large databases of them)
in order to efficiently and effectively model, reuse and share 3D Content
3. State-of-the-art reports
(= Geometry + Knowledge).
on 3D content In the project’s initial phase we have taken a crucial step in that direction, na-
mely to actually find out more about the current use of knowledge technologies
4. Semantic scenarios of – or lack thereof – both in industry and in the research communities working
the future in the four areas, which we have decided to concentrate on in what we call
Application Working Groups (AWGs): Medicine and Bioinformatics, Gaming and
5. Digital Shape Simulation, CAD/CAE and Virtual Product Modeling, Archaeology and Cultural
Heritage.
Workbench
The FOCUS K3D questionnaires
6. Events We elaborated a set of different four-part questionnaires, with some ques-
tions common for the whole set, and others specific to the application
7. Project partners areas. Part I collected general information about the participants (type of
institution and application area, size, etc.). Part II addressed the “Current
situation and practices”. Part III and IV aimed at identifying “Gaps and
desiderata” and “Future lines of research”, respectively. While we have
concluded the first assessment phase, the questionnaires are available at
our web portal and can still be filled online, as we are always interested in
broadening our information base.
Assessment of the questionnaires
Selected individuals at relevant companies, research institutes or uni-
versities were contacted and asked to fill the forms; some of those who
responded were then later contacted to set up additional personal meet-
ings to obtain even more in-depth information. The benchmark of at least
60 answered questionnaires – the number we considered as necessary
to have a basis for a meaningful evaluation – was reached in December
2008. An initial assessment was prepared at the end of January 2009.
Some results just state the obvious: small game developing companies
are not interested in research; semantic issues are of much higher inter-
est for those handling large models (of Giga- or Tera-byte size) or large
repositories of thousands of models. Others were maybe not so expected:
most people, even from an industrial background, seem to be quite will-
ing to share metadata and other semantic content.
The next steps: state-of-the-art reports and thematic workshops
The questionnaire assessments form the basis of public state-of-the-art
reports on Shapes and Semantics in the four AWG areas, which will be
available shortly after this Newsletter has been published. Everyone is
welcome to download these reports from our web portal, just a quick reg-
Example for fast design and reshaping istration is necessary – we might want to contact you for your opinion or
with GML (Generative Modeling Languange) further input. The reports will then lead to position papers for discussions
- Semantics to generate rules for furniture
of the existing problems and the way forward in semantic 3D media, to be
held at AWG-specific workshops later this summer. This is your chance to
contribute, so get in touch! Your comments and your presence at these
events are most welcome.
Ewald Quak
www.focusk3d.eu
2. Newsletter 02
Before we can discuss in detail fu- technologies, even if half of the users
1. Questionnaire ture directions concerning 3D Content claim not to be familiar with them. Con-
assessment (= Geometry + Knowledge) in industry, cerning the adopted knowledge techno-
summary research and educational institutions, logies, there is a wide preference for da-
we first need to know more about the tabases and metadata in each AWG, and
current status: what people know about apart from CAD/CAE, all of them also use
3D Content, if they already use it them- quite often taxonomies and ontologies.
selves, with which tools are they famili- Respondents from Archaeology and Cul-
ar regarding Geometry and Knowledge tural Heritage and from Medicine claim
Technologies, what are the perceived to be dissatisfied with the way they
gaps or bottlenecks, and finally where manage and store 3D content, while
they see future developments. While CAD/CAE and Virtual Product Modeling,
our first assessment is now finished, the and Gaming and Simulation AWG mem-
actual questionnaires are still accessible bers are quite satisfied but would expect
online via the project web portal. The up- an improvement.
to-date lists of AWG member institutions Obviously, there seem to be differen-
and companies (external to the FOCUS ces concerning the assessment of the
K3D consortium) can also be found in current limitations in the four AWGs. 73%
58 76 the AWG section of the web portal. of CAD/CAE AWG users think that limita-
With 134 people having been contac- tions are due to methodologies instead of
ted so far, our conclusions are based on equipment, which is a surprisingly high
76 filled questionnaires. Note that we percentage and is a message pinpointing
lled questionnaires
had set ourselves a limit of at least 60 to undertake the development of appli-
responses to be able to draw meaning- cable methods for the whole process of
did not ll questionnaires
ful conclusions. All the submitted ques- 3D content creation. It has to be noted
76 of 134 contacted persons answered tionnaires provided usable information, that the mentioned limitations of the
the questionnaire.
with the respondents covering a wide used software tools are: lack of interac-
range of professions: user, developer, tivity, non-intuitiveness of the interface,
scientist, creator of 3D content, etc., level of detail (accuracy, resolution), and
in the domains of Education/Research uncertainty in data (noise, outliers).
(58%) and Industry (42%). Several Note that most of the people are inte-
58% 42% respondents declared interest in multiple rested in or already use open source
AWGs but without answering the questi- products.
onnaires of each AWG they chose. For the acquisition and creation of 3D
Commonly, geometric and structural as- content, we proposed various methods
industry pects seem to be considered as the most to the users, who had to evaluate them.
education important by every AWG (except for Modeling from scratch is mainly con-
Medicine and Bioinformatics AWG mem- sidered as slow and cumbersome; the
58% of the filled questionnaires came
from the domain of education/ bers, who mostly prefer just the geome- re-use of existing models is fast and
research while 42% were answered by tric one), on the other hand the impor- efficient but it is hard to find models; a
industry.
tance of the semantic aspect increases 3D scanner is perceived as both cum-
with the amount of models to be handled bersome and fast; and a camera is usu-
and the complexity of such models. Al- ally considered as inadequate or hard to
most everybody is aware of knowledge work with.
2. Results of the To gather even more detailed informa- phics and Vision with Knowledge Tech-
tion (beyond the filled questionnaires) nologies in order to make these selected
ad hoc for our assessments and upcoming respondents better acquainted with the
meetings state-of-the-art reports about the use potential of such approaches. While all
of 3D Content, so far 21 “ad hoc” mee- contacted people make use of 3D con-
tings have been organized with selected tent, the semantic aspect is still rather
respondents both from industry and edu- poorly considered. Yet they all expressed
cation/research institutions (e.g., Audi a great interest in adopting new know-
AG, Lufthansa Technik AG, the Founda- ledge technologies and were invited to
tion of the Hellenic World). During these contribute further to the activities of
face-to-face meetings, members of the FOCUS K3D. Everyone interested in ha-
FOCUS K3D consortium also made pre- ving such an “ad hoc” meeting with us
sentations and carried out demonstra- should directly contact the leader of the
tions about the research advances in the AWG that is most relevant for your in-
methodologies coupling Computer Gra- dustrial or research activities.
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3. Newsletter 02
3. State-of-the- Each state-of-the-art report is intended the questionnaires where we collected
to draw a picture of the current use of current practices in the fields within the
art reports on geometry and knowledge in the different scope of 3D geometry and knowledge.
3D content application domains and provide a cata- The reports reflect the diversity of the
log of existing knowledge technologies, status of applicable knowledge intensi-
domain ontologies and related initiatives ve methodologies in the respective do-
and projects. We considered in all re- mains.
ports the outcome of the assessment of
In AWG Medicine and In medicine, geometric modeling as model molecular surfaces, volumes or
Bioinformatics such is required, among others, for dia- interfaces, and scenarios in bioinforma-
gnostics, therapy planning, surgery, ra- tics typically involve multi-scale geome-
diotherapy and legal medicine, though tric modeling (rigid docking, side-chains
a growing number of problems actually adjustment, molecular dynamics). In
require a combination of geometry and terms of knowledge, pieces of informa-
knowledge. tion such as chemical types and interac-
One example scenario arises when si- tion types, homology between proteins,
Contact person:
mulating human articulations for repla- known partners, rigid domains within
Frederic Cazals
cement with a prosthesis. The different protein, key residues and correlated
Frederic.Cazals@sophia.inria.fr steps are bone resection, prosthesis motions are used. These pieces of infor-
alignment and checking of motion am- mation are integrated so as to ultimate-
plitudes. In terms of knowledge, the ly account for the affinity and specificity
parameters of interest are contact pres- of interactions.
sure within the cartilages, forces and
muscle biomechanics. The connections A central resource for the bioinforma-
to physiology are related to material tics communities is the Protein Data
properties, as well as bone motion and Bank (PDB), which contains most of the
geometry. The data process can be con- structures of bio-molecules experimen-
siderably simplified when these parame- tally resolved. While the PDB is the end
ters are stored into an ontology. of the journey for an experimentalist
Typical 3D input in this area includes dealing with structure determination, it
segmented image data from CT, MRI, is the starting point for molecular mo-
MicroCT or other medical imaging de- deling projects, but also for biochemists
vices. Other examples are CAD files seeking structural insights.
from device producers or 3D reconst-
ructed meshes. Image stacks from laser Because all users resort to the PDB, they
scanning confocal microscopes are used are aware of knowledge technologies,
to reconstruct 3D tissue morphology but most of them exclusively restrict
and cell structures. their use to the PDB, though some dif-
Most of the respondents to our ques- ficulties in conjunction with the PDB are
tionnaire are currently handling only reported. One is that the available menu
a few tens or a few hundreds of mo- of query criteria is considered somewhat
dels. Their answers show that people arbitrary and it would seem desirable to
are mostly interested in the geometry allow access to any given stored field for
of their models, while knowledge tech- formulating queries. Another difficulty is
nology is not widely used. Although the impression that so far, the key para-
users seem to be aware of knowledge meters governing the evolution of ma-
technology in general, they are not cro-molecular systems are still poorly
using them and just resort to in-house understood. Therefore, databases pro-
software to manage their 3D content. viding advanced queries in conjunction
with a particular geometric - biophysi-
Structural bioinformatics is concer- cal model often lack generality. Though
ned with the investigation of the re- advanced query mechanisms have been
lationship between the structure made available recently, they apparently
and the function of bio molecules. have not pervaded the wide community
Fostering this understanding has of Molecular Modeling yet. Also Labora-
major applications in fundamen- tory Information Management Systems
tal biology, but also in drug design. play an ever-increasing role to manage
Geometry plays an important role to complex experimental systems.
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4. Newsletter 02
In AWG CAD/CAE and The state-of-the-art report about CAD/ given answers about conforming to any
Virtual Product CAE and virtual product development standards mentioned a specific standard
Modeling tries to summarize actual ICT deve- for the different purposes, for example:
lopments in this area and tries to give ISO 10303, ISO 15926, IDEF-O, OWL/
answers to open questions coming up XML, STEP, IGES, and standards for FEM
from the filled questionnaires. Obviously codes. Therefore the state-of-the-art
CAD/CAM technologies do not address report is coming up with an overview
the requirements of the integrated de- about methodologies in knowledge-
sign engineering process completely. based engineering. Knowledge-based
All too often, the CAD model is merely engineering extends the product design
a geometric interpretation of the de- process beyond geometric modeling to
Contact person: sign intent. Design iteration is achieved capture the knowledge of a company’s
André Stork by iterative procedures that are cum- most important asset - the experience
Andre.Stork@igd.fhg.de bersome and inevitably stretch design of its engineers. Unlike CAD systems
timescales. In today’s dynamic market- that manipulate mainly geometric infor-
place, customer needs and specifications mation, KBE systems capture the engi-
change often and as a result knowledge neering intent behind the product - the
management solutions within the engi- how and why aspects of the design.
neering domain becomes an issue. Our survey of CAD/CAE and virtual pro-
All the respondents of the questionnaire duct modeling has another focus on
are aware of knowledge technologies in engineering ontologies which reflects
general and their benefits but almost half the open issue from the questionnaires
of them do not feel very familiar with that users of 3D modeling systems need
them. This maybe explains why most of more support for the “intelligent” hand-
them prefer to use databases and meta- ling and usage of 3D digital content in
data instead of taxonomies, ontologies order to deploy 3D modeling in their or-
and neural and statistical learning. For ganizations and enhance its extended
the managing and organization of data and downstream capabilities, for signi-
people have different systems in usage, ficant, quantifiable benefits in time and
ranging from a simple database up to savings.
PDM or PLM systems. Only half of the
In AWG Gaming and The community involved in the gaming technologies promise to help with this
and simulation application area is very by offering better ways to manage, re-
Simulation
diverse and multifaceted. However, one trieve, and therefore reuse existing 3D
mutual concern is often the need to pro- models. Our review of related current
vide the fastest but yet most realistic research themes in the area of gaming
computer graphics. However, game and and simulation and the survey among
simulation designers do not only have people working in this field suggests
to create realistic models of objects and that both academia as well as industries
characters in 3D virtual worlds but al- are aware of the limitations and put high
so mutual relations between them and hopes in the improvements knowledge
their virtual environment. Knowledge technologies could provide in the future.
technologies promise solutions for the This growing awareness is also reflected
related problems. Our survey shows in the review of knowledge technologies
Contact person: that although they have not really ar- that we present as part of this state-of-
Wolfgang Huerst rived yet in the practical development, the-art report. In addition, we list relat-
Wolfgang.Huerst@cs.uu.nl there is a growing awareness of this is- ed national initiatives and EU projects.
sue among people working in this ar- Their growing number shows that the
ea. Another characteristic of games and rapidly increasing economic importance
simulations is that the related markets of games has alerted funding agencies
offer high gains and therefore are highly to this subject, focussing mostly on seri-
competitive. It is not only important to ous games. Based on our observations,
provide the best, most realistic models, we believe that the application scenari-
but also to produce them fast, resulting os described will witness a boost in the
in a need for an effective and efficient use of knowledge technologies in the
production process. Again, knowledge near future.
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5. Newsletter 02
In AWG Archaeology The main interest of the community fo- this kind of digital content. Most reposi-
and Cultural Heritage cuses on the organization and presenta- tories have a content-based organizati-
tion of archaeological and cultural heri- on, however, the use of 3D knowledge
tage content to “virtual visitors” and the technologies can provide effective se-
development of educational and training mantic-based organization and efficient
application scenarios for connecting real searching capabilities.
and virtual artefacts. Semantic Web technologies and stan-
Although great progress has been achie- dards (like the CIDOC-CRM) are widely
Contact person: ved and 3D content is expected to be- known and used in this domain. Using
Marios Pitikakis come predominant in Cultural Heritage, 3D knowledge technologies sometimes
Marios.Pitikakis@cereteth.gr the involvement of “traditional” cultural frightens Culturual Heritage professionals
institutions in 3D digitization is still li- because of the significant additional cost
mited. The technology for capturing, for the equipment used for 3D data ac-
storing and managing 3D digital content quisition and the high cost of skilled staff.
still requires a great deal of research The recently launched Europeana – the
effort compared to text- or image- European Digital Library, museum and
oriented technology and it is not yet archive – contains a broad range of con-
easily available for all cultural institu- tent from across Europe (like photos,
tions. paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts,
Managing collections of 3D objects is at books, newspapers, film material etc.),
an early stage and there is significant though there is a lack of 3D objects and
debate whether the approaches adopted 3D related management and interopera-
for digital libraries are suitable also for bility efforts.
4. Semantic In this section we intend to present easier. Not only can she search,
semantic scenarios of the future of the retrieve, reuse, and extend existing
scenarios of different AWGs. Other interesting scena- models easily, but also designing from
the future rios will be published in the next news- scratch is now much more effective.
letters. For example, today, she looks into her
A glimpse of things to 'Evolving Personalized Information Con-
come in semantic 3D Semantha is a 3D modeler and designer struct' (marketed by GoogleZone), and
media in gaming and at the gaming company 'Iterative Life'. sees that she has modeled the feet last
simulation She is currently designing and modeling week. According to the schedule, she
a collection of characters for the next now must design the accompanying
version of their game ‘Parallel Univer- gadgets for chiropody. She invokes the
se Loophole Paradise’ (PULP). The cha- encyclopaedic dictionary to learn about
racters in the game, the PULPese, have that, and the semantic network helps
feet like wheels, arms like fins, and ears her to link these concepts to the main-
like wings. She remembers that for the tenance tools for wheels. In the collec-
game’s first release five years ago in tion of instruments she wants to select
2009, she spent days and nights creating those that somewhat fit to the feet and
the initial design of those characters, only can be used as a start for modeling new
to get them rejected by their bosses be- ones. On the basis of a shape thesaurus
cause they did not look realistic enough. and a formal specification of concepts
Although dealing with imaginary crea- about instruments (an ontology), the
tures from a fantasy world, the bosses geometric feature extractor and classi-
concluded that the characters have to fication tool has already categorized all
follow common rules of physics because models into semantic classes. Using this
people expect them to behave and react intelligent 3D content representation,
according to how humans perceive their the shape matcher retrieves those inst-
environment. She also remembers how rument models that are suitable for the
painful it was to get the necessary infor- redesign process.
mation and feedback from people with a Again, she remembers the old days and
background in physics, engineers, etc. is quite happy that with this integrated
before she could finally finish the mo- approach to search, annotate, and re-
dels including all characteristics, design use semantic 3D media, the production
restrictions, and rules for the behaviour and management workflows have be-
of the characters. come much more effective than back in
Now, the situation has become much 2009.
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6. Newsletter 02
5. Digital Shape The shape repository from the the shape repository by uploading new
AIM@SHAPE digital shape workbench models coming from the four applica-
Workbench (http://shapes.aim-at-shape.net/) has tion domains covered by the Focus K3D
been established as a premier sour- project. The procedure is facilitated by
Call for contributions
ce of quality shapes for researchers in guiding the user step by step through
geometric modeling, computer graphics the uploading process. If you would like
and geometry processing. It has recei- to add a shape to our repository or are
ved more than 1.5 million visitors and interested in getting a personal demo
77,000 downloads since August 2004, of the DSW, please contact the leader
and now contains more than 1081 of the AWG most pertinent to your own
shapes with well-defined metadata. The activites.
types of models range from unstructu-
red point sets obtained by laser scan-
ning to parametric surfaces through
surface meshes, raster data and contour
sets, to list a few. Beside metadata and
easy browsing and searching, distinc-
tive properties of the repository inclu-
de variety, quality and completeness of
the shapes: Some of them are availab-
le in various formats such as paramet-
ric surface, point set, surface mesh for
research experiments and validation.
We invite researchers and partners from
the AWGs and beyond to contribute to
6. Events The networking session was co-orga- new partnerships for future proposals.
nized by FOCUS K3D and the SMaRT In fact ICT 2008 was the most important
ICT 2008 Networking society to stimulate debate and new forum in the field in 2008 at the Euro-
partnerships in the area of semantic pean level and offered an extraordinary
Session on “Semantics
media technologies and semantic-based opportunity for convergence of a multi-
in digital content: from
modeling and processing, with a special disciplinary audience.
multimedia to emerging focus on 3D content. The session inclu- The outcomes for FOCUS K3D were
3D media” Lyon, 26th ded a general project presentation by very promising and the project already
November, 2008 Michela Spagnuolo (IMATI) and specific got specific feedback from participants
presentations of the Application Working who in the meantime had filled our AWG
Groups. questionnaires on the use of 3D and se-
The networking session was attended by mantics in applications. Some of these
approximately 70 people, actively parti- participants will be involved in the future
cipating in the discussion and interested activities of FOCUS K3D.
in either a direct collaboration with the More details on the event and the given
ongoing projects and activities presen- presentations can be found on the web
ted during the session or in proposing portal.
Many participants were interested in the ICT Session of FOCUS K3D
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7. Newsletter 02
Upcoming Events
Date Event FOCUS K3D Activities
March Workshop on Industry Challenges in Geometric As a FOCUS K3D event, the
12-13 Modeling, CAD and Simulation workshop will feature some
2009 Darmstadt, Germany presentations related to the
http://83.212.32.19/WorkshopInvita- CAD, Bioinformatics and
tion-2009-1.pdf Cultural Heritage AWGs.
March Workshop on “Anatomical Models”, Sophia Presentation of the project
15-19 Antipolis, France
2009
March Workshop on Flexibility in Biological Recogni- Presentation of the project
18-20 tion, Sophia Antipolis, France
2009 h t t p : / / w w w- s o p. i n r i a . f r / m a n i f e s t a t i o n s /
fmr2009/index_en.shtml
March CAA 2009 Distribution of project material
22-26 37th annual International Conference on and recruitment of new AWG
2009 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods members
in Archaeology
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
http://www.caa2009.org/
March Workshop on 3D Object Retrieval 3DOR’09, A FOCUS K3D poster pres-
29 EUROGRAPHICS 2009 entation will be given at the
2009 Munich, Germany EG workshop on 3D Object
http://3dor.ge.imati.cnr.it/About.html Retrieval
June CASA Workshop on 3D Advanced Media The FOCUS K3D Thematic
16 In Gaming And Simulation (3AMIGAS) Workshop is about the creation
The Trippenhuis right in the center of
Amsterdam, where the CASA Work- 2009 Amsterdam, The Netherlands and use of advanced 3D media
shop takes place. http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/3amigas/ in gaming and simulation
Past Events
October VSMM 2008 FOCUS K3D workshop about
20-26 Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia Promoting Semantic 3D Media,
2008 Dedicated to Digital Heritage project paper presentation
Limassol, Cyprus
http://www.vsmm2008.org/
December 3D Physiological Human organized by MIRALab A FOCUS K3D presentation
1-4 University of Geneva, Switzerland was held
2008 Zermatt, Switzerland
http://3dphysiologicalhuman.miralab.unige.ch/
December Workshop on Semantic 3D Media (S-3D), Workshop on the FOCUS K3D
3 in conjunction with SAMT 2008 themes organized and spon-
2008 Koblenz, Germany sored by the project
http://www.focusk3d.eu/s-3d/
February 3D-ARCH Workshop 2009
25-28 The 3rd 3D-ARCH workshop on “3D Virtual
2009 Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex
Architectures” in Trento, Italy
http://www.3d-arch.org
March Workshop on Challenges in Serious Games This seminar was dedicated to
2-3 Eurotel, Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland the game technology behind
2009 http://vrlab.epfl.ch/events/villars2009.html serious games including
graphics, animation, A.I.
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8. Newsletter 02
7. Project Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information
partners Technologies (CNR-IMATI-GE),
Italy
Coordinator: http://www.imati.cnr.it/
Dr. Bianca Falcidieno
Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Center for Research and Technology - Thessaly (CERETETH)
Greece
Tecnologie Informatiche
http://www.cereteth.gr/
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (VRlab-EPFL)
Via De Marini 6,
Switzerland
16149 Genova, Italy http://vrlab.epfl.ch/
e-mail: Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (IGD)
bianca.falcidieno@ge.imati.cnr.it Germany
http://www.igd.fhg.de/igd-a2
http://www.ge.imati.cnr.it/
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en
Automatique (INRIA)
France
http://www.inria.fr/
Université de Genève - MIRALab (MIRALab)
Switzerland
http://www.miralab.unige.ch/
STIFTELSEN SINTEF
Norway
http://www.sintef.no/
Utrecht University (UU)
The Netherlands
http://www.uu.nl/
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