Physically-based surface texture synthesis using a coupled finite element system

Abstract

This paper describes a stable and robust finite element solver for physically-based texture synthesis over arbitrary manifold surfaces. Our approach solves the reaction-diffusion equation coupled with an anisotropic diffusion equation over surfaces, using a Galerkin based finite element method (FEM). This method avoids distortions and discontinuities often caused by traditional texture mapping techniques, especially for arbitrary manifold surfaces. Several varieties of textures are obtained by selecting different values of control parameters in the governing differential equations, and furthermore enhanced quality textures are generated by fairing out noise in input surface meshes. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.