Method for defining drawing planes for the design of a 3D object

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10769824-B2
Application number	US-201816225180-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 19, 2018
Priority date	Dec 28, 2017
Publication date	Sep 8, 2020
Grant date	Sep 8, 2020

Abstract

Computer method and system draws a 3D object, by sketching at least one first stroke (ST1) in a first plane (PL1) rendered in a first viewing frustum corresponding to a first pose of a virtual camera. The first plane (PL1) is orthogonal to a second (PL2) and a third plane (PL3). In response to a command of a user switching from the first pose to a second pose of the virtual camera, the method and system switches from the first viewing frustum to a second viewing frustum corresponding to the second pose of the virtual camera. The second viewing frustum is bounded by a near plane on the side of the virtual camera. Next a plane is selected as current drawing plane. The selected plane is among the first (PL1), the second (PL2) and the third plane (PL3), whose normal is the closest to the normal of the near plane. At least one second stroke (ST2) is then sketched in the current drawing plane.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for drawing a 3D object, said 3D object being rendered in a 3D scene on a computer screen through a virtual camera, the method comprising the steps of:
sketching at least one first stroke (ST 1 ) in a first plane (PL 1 ) rendered in a first viewing frustum corresponding to a first pose of the virtual camera, said first plane (PL 1 ) being orthogonal to a second (PL 2 ) and a third plane (PL 3 );
in response to a command of a user switching from the first pose to a second pose of the virtual camera, switching from the first viewing frustum to a second viewing frustum corresponding to the second pose of the virtual camera, said second viewing frustum being bounded by a near plane on the side of the virtual camera;
selecting, as current drawing plane, a plane among the first (PL 1 ), the second (PL 2 ) and the third plane (PL 3 ), whose normal has a maximum scalar product absolute value with the normal of the near plane;
determining the extremity of a last sketched first stroke (ST 1 ) in the first plane (PL 1 ) which is closest to the near plane, the current drawing plane passing through said extremity, said extremity being defined as the origin (OR) of the current drawing plane; and
sketching at least one second stroke (ST 2 ) in the current drawing plane.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising a step of computing an absolute value of a scalar product of the normal of the near plane and the normal of each of the first (PL 1 ), second (PL 2 ) and third planes (PL 3 ).

3. The method according to claim 1 , comprising a step of modifying the origin (OR) through which the current drawing plane passes, in response to an activation input designating a 3D point of one of the strokes (ST 1 , ST 2 ) of the 3D scene.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the activation input comprises the pressing and holding of an activation button while moving a pointing element (PE) in the 3D scene along one of the sketched strokes (ST 1 , ST 2 ) until the release of said activation button, thereby setting the origin (OR) of the current drawing plane on the designated 3D point.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the activation button is a keyboard button.

6. The method according to claim 1 , comprising the step of providing a visual feedback of the current drawing plane.

7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the visual feedback is a highlighting of the strokes of the current drawing plane.

8. The method according to claim 1 , comprising an initial step of defining as first plane a plane which is the closest from the near plane.

9. The method according to claim 1 , comprising an initial step of defining as first plane a previously defined plane.

10. A computer program product, comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable data-storage medium (MEM 1 -MEM 4 ), storing computer-executable instructions to cause a computer system to draw a 3D object rendered in a 3D scene on a computer screen through a virtual camera; and
the computer-executable instructions including instructions that configure the computer system to:
sketch at least one first stroke (ST 1 ) in a first plane (PL 1 ) rendered in a first viewing frustum corresponding to a first pose of the virtual camera, said first plane (PL 1 ) being orthogonal to a second (PL 2 ) and a third plane (PL 3 );
in response to a command of a user switching from the first pose to a second pose of the virtual camera, switch from the first viewing frustum to a second viewing frustum corresponding to the second pose of the virtual camera, said second viewing frustum being bounded by a near plane on the side of the virtual camera;
select, as current drawing plane, a plane among the first (PL 1 ), the second (PL 2 ) and the third plane (PL 3 ), whose normal has a maximum scalar product absolute value with the normal of the near plane;
determine the extremity of a last sketched first stroke (ST 1 ) in the first plane (PL 1 ) which is closest to the near plane, the current drawing plane passing through said extremity, said extremity being defined as the origin (OR) of the current drawing plane; and
sketch at least one second stroke (ST 2 ) in the current drawing plane.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable data-storage medium (MEM 1 -MEM 4 ) comprising:
a memory area containing computer-executable instructions (EXP) to cause a computer system to draw a 3D object rendered in a 3D scene on a computer screen through a virtual camera; and
the computer-executable instructions including instructions to draw the 3D object by:
sketching at least one first stroke (ST 1 ) in a first plane (PL 1 ) rendered in a first viewing frustum corresponding to a first pose of the virtual camera, said first plane (PL 1 ) being orthogonal to a second (PL 2 ) and a third plane (PL 3 );
in response to a command of a user switching from the first pose to a second pose of the virtual camera, switching from the first viewing frustum to a second viewing frustum corresponding to the second pose of the virtual camera, said second viewing frustum being bounded by a near plane on the side of the virtual camera;
selecting, as current drawing plane, a plane among the first (PL 1 ), the second (PL 2 ) and the third plane (PL 3 ), whose normal has a maximum scalar product absolute value with the normal of the near plane;
determining the extremity of a last sketched first stroke (ST 1 ) in the first plane (PL 1 ) which is closest to the near plane, the current drawing plane passing through said extremity, said extremity being defined as the origin (OR) of the current drawing plane; and
sketching at least one second stroke (ST 2 ) in the current drawing plane.

12. A computer system comprising:
a processor (CP) coupled to a memory (MEM 1 -MEM 4 ) and a graphical user interface (KB, PD, DC, DY),
the memory storing computer-executable instructions (EXP) to cause the computer system to draw a 3D object rendered in a 3D scene on a computer screen through a virtual camera, said drawing the 3D object being by:
sketching at least one first stroke (ST 1 ) in a first plane (PL 1 ) rendered in a first viewing frustum corresponding to a first pose of the virtual camera, said first plane (PL 1 ) being orthogonal to a second (PL 2 ) and a third plane (PL 3 );
in response to a command of a user switching from the first pose to a second pose of the virtual camera, switching from the first viewing frustum to a second viewing frustum corresponding to the second pose of the virtual camera, said second viewing frustum being bounded by a near plane on the side of the virtual camera;
selecting, as current drawing plane, a plane among the first (PL 1 ), the second (PL 2 ) and the third plane (PL 3 ), whose normal has a maximum scalar product absolute value with the normal of the near plane;
determining the extremity of a last sketched first stroke (ST 1 ) in the first plane (PL 1 ) which is closest to the near plane, the current drawing plane passing through said extremity, said extremity being defined as the origin (OR) of the current drawing plane; and
sketching at least one second stroke (ST 2 ) in the current drawing plane.

Assignees

• Dassault Systemes

Inventors

• Letzelter Frederic
• Renard Amelie

Classifications

• G06T11/10 Primary

  Texturing; Colouring; Generation of textures or colours (retouching, inpainting or scratch removal G06T5/77) · CPC title

• G06T11/23 Primary

  using straight lines or curves · CPC title

• G06T17/00 Primary

  Three-dimensional [3D] modelling for computer graphics · CPC title

• G06F30/10

  Geometric CAD · CPC title

• G06T19/20

  Editing of three-dimensional [3D] images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts · CPC title