As-Rigid-As-Possible Distance Field Metamorphosis

Abstract

Widely used for morphing between objects with arbitrary topology, distance field interpolation (DFI) handles topological transition naturally without the need for correspondence or remeshing, unlike surface-based interpolation approaches. However, lack of correspondence in DFI also leads to ineffective control over the morphing process. In particular, unless the user specifies a dense set of landmarks, it is not even possible to measure the distortion of intermediate shapes during interpolation, let alone control it. To remedy such issues, we introduce an approach for establishing correspondence between the interior of two arbitrary objects, formulated as an optimal mass transport problem with a sparse set of landmarks. This correspondence enables us to compute non-rigid warping functions that better align the source and target objects as well as to incorporate local rigidity constraints to perform as-rigid-as-possible DFI. We demonstrate how our approach helps achieve flexible morphing results with a small number of landmarks.