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3D Timeline: Reverse engineering of a part‐based provenance from consecutive 3D models
Author(s) -
Doboš Jozef,
Mitra Niloy J.,
Steed Anthony
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
computer graphics forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.578
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1467-8659
pISSN - 0167-7055
DOI - 10.1111/cgf.12311
Subject(s) - timeline , computer science , reverse engineering , visualization , software , abstraction , human–computer interaction , file format , undo , variety (cybernetics) , data exploration , 3d model , software visualization , computer graphics (images) , programming language , software system , data mining , artificial intelligence , component based software engineering , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , history
Abstract We present a novel tool for reverse engineering of modeling histories from consecutive 3D files based on a timeline abstraction. Although a timeline interface is commonly used in 3D modeling packages for animations, it has not been used on geometry manipulation before. Unlike previous visualization methods that require instrumentation of editing software, our approach does not rely on pre‐recorded editing instructions. Instead, each stand‐alone 3D file is treated as a keyframe of a construction flow from which the editing provenance is reverse engineered. We evaluate this tool on six complex 3D sequences created in a variety of modeling tools by different professional artists and conclude that it provides useful means of visualizing and understanding the editing history. A comparative user study suggests the tool is well suited for this purpose.