This technical report demonstrates theoretically and empirically that a greedy algorithm called Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) can reliably recover a signal with m nonzero entries in dimension d given O(m ln d) random linear measurements of that signal. This is a massive improvement over previous results for OMP, which require O(m 2) measurements. The new results for OMP are comparable with recent results for another algorithm called Basis Pursuit (BP). The OMP algorithm is faster and easier to implement, which makes it an attractive alternative to BP for signal recovery problems.

We introduce a novel algorithm for transforming character anima-tion sequences that preserves essential physical properties of the motion. By using the spacetime constraints dynamics formulation our algorithm maintains realism of the original motion sequence without sacrificing full user control of the editing process. In contrast to most physically based animation techniques that synthesize motion from scratch, we take the approach of motion transformation as the underlying paradigm for generating computer animations. In doing so, we combine the expressive richness of an input animation sequence with the controllability of spacetime op-timization to create a wide range of realistic character animations. The spacetime dynamics formulation also allows editing of intu-itive, high-level motion concepts such as the time and placement of footprints, length and mass of various extremities, number of body joints and gravity. Our algorithm is well suited for the reuse of highly-detailed cap-tured motion animations. In addition, we describe a new methodol-ogy for mapping a motion between characters with drastically dif-ferent numbers of degrees of freedom. We use this method to re-duce the complexity of the spacetime optimization problems. Fur-thermore, our approach provides a paradigm for controlling com-plex dynamic and kinematic systems with simpler ones.

Optimization is an appealing way to compute the motion of an animated character because it allows the user to specify the desired motion in a sparse, intuitive way. The difficulty of solving this problem for complex characters such as humans is due in part to the high dimensionality of the search space. The dimensionality is an artifact of the problem representation because most dynamic human behaviors are intrinsically low dimensional with, for example, legs and arms operating in a coordinated way. We describe a method that exploits this observation to create an optimization problem that is easier to solve. Our method utilizes an existing motion capture database to find a low-dimensional space that captures the properties of the desired behavior. We show that when the optimization problem is solved within this low-dimensional subspace, a sparse sketch can be used as an initial guess and full physics constraints can be enabled. We demonstrate the power of our approach with examples of forward, vertical, and turning jumps; with running and walking; and with several acrobatic flips.

Details in mesh animations are difficult to generate but they have great impact on visual quality. In this work, we demonstrate a practical software system for capturing such details from multi-view video recordings. Given a stream of synchronized video images that record a human performance from multiple viewpoints and an articulated template of the performer, our system captures the motion of both the skeleton and the shape. The output mesh animation is enhanced with the details observed in the image silhouettes. For example, a performance in casual loose-fitting clothes will generate mesh animations with flowing garment motions. We accomplish this with a fast pose tracking method followed by nonrigid deformation of the template to fit the silhouettes. The entire process takes less than sixteen seconds per frame and requires no markers or texture cues. Captured meshes are in full correspondence making them readily usable for editing operations including texturing, deformation transfer, and deformation model learning.

This paper presents a novel physics-based representation of realistic character motion. The dynamical model incorporates several factors of locomotion derived from the biomechanical literature, including relative preferences for using some muscles more than others, elastic mechanisms at joints due to the mechanical properties of tendons, ligaments, and muscles, and variable stiffness at joints depending on the task. When used in a spacetime optimization framework, the parameters of this model define a wide range of styles of natural human movement.

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This paper describes Knitro 5.0, a C-package for nonlinear optimization that combines complementary approaches to nonlinear optimization to achieve robust performance over a wide range of application requirements. The package is designed for solving large-scale, smooth nonlinear programming problems, and it is also effective for the following special cases: unconstrained optimization, nonlinear systems of equations, least squares, and linear and quadratic programming. Various algorithmic options are available, including two interior methods and an active-set method. The package provides crossover techniques between algorithmic options as well as automatic selection of options and settings. 1

SNOPT is a general-purpose system for solving optimization problems involving many variables and constraints. It minimizes a linear or nonlinear function subject to bounds on the variables and sparse linear or nonlinear constraints. It is suitable for large-scale linear and quadratic programming and for linearly constrained optimization, as well as for general nonlinear programs. SNOPT finds solutions that are locally optimal , and ideally any nonlinear functions should be smooth and users should provide gradients. It is often more widely useful. For example, local optima are often global solutions, and discontinuities in the function gradients can often be tolerated if they are not too close to an optimum. Unknown gradients are estimated by finite differences. SNOPT uses a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm that obtains search directions from a sequence of quadratic programming subproblems. Each QP subproblem minimizes a quadratic model of a certain Lagrangian function subject to a linearization of the constraints. An augmented Lagrangian merit function is reduced along each search direction to ensure convergence from any starting point. SNOPT is most efficient if only some of the variables enter nonlinearly, or if the number of active constraints (including simple bounds) is nearly as large as the number of variables. SNOPT requires relatively few evaluations of the problem functions. Hence it is especially effective if the objective or constraint functions (and their gradients) are expensive to evaluate. The source code for SNOPT is suitable for any machine with a Fortran compiler. SNOPT may be called from a driver program (typically in Fortran, C or MATLAB). SNOPT can also be used as a stand-alone package, reading data in the MPS ...

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Augmented Lagrangian methods with general lower-level constraints are considered in the present research. These methods are useful when efficient algorithms exist for solving subproblems where the constraints are only of the lower-level type. Two methods of this class are introduced and analyzed. Inexact resolution of the lower-level constrained subproblems is considered. Global convergence is proved using the Constant Positive Linear Dependence constraint qualification. Conditions for boundedness of the penalty parameters are discussed. The reliability of the approach is tested by means of an exhaustive comparison against Lancelot. All the problems of the Cute collection are used in this comparison. Moreover, the resolution of location problems in which many constraints of the lower-level set are nonlinear is addressed, employing the Spectral Projected Gradient method for solving the subproblems. Problems of this type with more than 3 × 10 6 variables and 14 × 10 6 constraints are solved in this way, using moderate computer time.