CySlice

CySlice Software

System Requirements

Please refer to this document for the minimum computer system requirements.

Subdivision Surfaces

Along with speed and interactivity improvements to the NURBS fitting, CySlice v3 features the new Subdivision Surfaces (SUBD) fitting tool.

SUBDS are becoming widely accepted in the CGI community as an alternative to NURBS. They have none of the tangency/cracking problems experienced by NURBS during animation, and SUBD modelers are freed from the "rectangular patch" topology restrictions of NURBS surfaces.

CySlice v3 allows users to fit SUBD surfaces to dense polymeshes, and as with the NURBS fitting tools, color and bump/normal/displacement maps can then be calculated. CySlice v3 outputs the same Catmull-Clark variety of SUBD surfaces that Maya and Renderman uses. A sample SUBD surface is now ready for download from the headus website.

Surfacing

CySlice retains all of the capabilities of version 2, so the user can easily generate IGES 128 NURBS surfaces from any Ply file. Cyberware also provides translators to convert STL (Stereo Lithography) and OBJ (Alias/Wavefront) files to the Ply file format, opening up CySlice to users who do not necessarily use a Cyberware Rapid 3D Digitizer. The software allows the user to create NURBS surfaces in a free-form manner. Also the user can manipulate any portion of the surface at any time; UV density can be altered, boundary curves can be modified by moving existing control and end points, or by adding or subtracting control points.

CySlice also allows the user to save a template surface. This feature allows the user to define a template for an object that contains all of the control points, boundary curves, and surface parameters. This template can then be applied to any similar object so that the user need to create a surface only one time, apply that surface to subsequent models, thus saving many hours of user interaction.


Polygonal Mesh	Networks are Drawn on Mesh	Patches are Fitted	Final Shaded Patches	Rendered With Displacement Maps

Slicing

CySlice is used to extract polylines and splines from polygonal meshes. These polylines or splines can then be imported into modeling software as an aid to the construction of spline surfaces.

You can either cut a whole lot of equally spaced parallel sections through the polygonal mesh, or draw individual slice lines along key features. These slices can then be edited for consistent start points and direction. And finally the slice lines can be interpolated with reduced vertex count polylines (IGES 106), or with NURBS splines (IGES 126).

Handle Slices

Features

The following lists the major features of CySlice v3:

Polymesh Edit

Remove Junk: Delete unwanted faces.
Fill Holes: Fill all holes automatically, or step through them one at a time for filling.
Selective Smoothing: Interactively smooth regions with the smooth brush.
Selective Decimation: Adaptively reduce all faces or just those in selected regions.

Networks

Shape Points: The building block. Place, then move them over the polymesh in real time.
Boundary Curves: Simply connect shape points to create boundary curves.
NURBS/SUBD Patches: Fill any bounded region with a patch. Fits to polymesh.
Always Tangent: Can be toggled off/on for individual boundaries.
Active Networks: Move a shape point, curves update, affected patches are refitted.
Multi-resolution: Quickly define simple networks, then output detailed surfaces.
Mirroring: Build a network on half an object, then mirror it to complete the surface.
Templates: Copy networks between similar shaped objects. Produce clean morph targets.
Stitching: Join smaller patches together. Make single patch heads.

Surfacing a Head

Texture Maps: Extract color and displacement maps. Lightweight surfaces, detailed renders.
Shader Definitions: Automatic generation of shaders for each patch. Hassle-free mapping.
Import NURBS Patches: Texture map tools work just as well with NURBS patches from other applications.
Import SUBD Surfaces: Texture map tools also work with subdivision surfaces imported from other applications.
NURBS/SUBDS/Polymeshes: Output NURBS patches, SUBD surfaces or quad polymeshes.
RIB Export & Render: Provides a link to your renderer for quick evaluation of mapped surfaces.
Multi-Platform: Intel Windows NT/2000/XP, and SGI IRIX 6.3+. Linux coming soon.
Optimized: Interactive, even with very detailed polymeshes.
Efficient: Low RAM impact. Run your modeling/animation applications at the same time.


Whole Body Scan	Patches are Fitted	Final Rendered NURB

Capabilities
Inputs:	Cyberware Ply Files STL (Stereo Lithography) Files OBJ Files User Commands Via Keyboard, Mouse, and Buttons
Outputs:	IGES 106 (Copious Data) IGES 126 NURBS Splines IGES 128 NURBS Surfaces Cyberware Ply (for Subdivision Surfaces and Polymeshes) OBJ (for Subdivision Surfaces and Polymeshes) TIFF Image Files TIFF 16 Image Files