3D layered articulated object from a single 2D drawing

Abstract: Modeling articulated objects made of rigid layered parts used to populate 3D scenes in video games or movie production is a complex and time-consuming task for digital artists. This work proposes a sketch-based approach to efficiently model 3D layered articulated objects, such as animals with rigid shells and armors, in annotating a single 2D photo manually, and eventually fabricate it from automatically computed 2D patterns. In considering symmetrical objects seen under a 3/4 view, and an- notating salient features such as extremities of the rigid articulated parts as a mix of circular and Bézier curve, this approach is able to retrieve depth information, hidden parts, and rotation-articulated structure. The resulting shape consists of a set of quadrangulated polygons that may be flattened in 2D. Details such as ears, tails, and legs were further models using dedicated annotations. The accuracy of the reconstruction has been validated on synthetic cylindrical examples, and its ro- bustness in reconstructing a 3D model of armor, armadillo, and shrimp. The latter was finally fabricated using paper.