A simple and yet highly efficient, high-quality texture mapping method for surfaces of arbitrary topology is presented. The new method projects the given surface from the 3D object space into the 2D texture space to identify the 2D texture structure that will be used to texture the surface. The object space to texture space projection is optimized to ensure minimum distortion of the texture mapping process. The optimization is achieved through a commonly used norm preserving minimization process on edges of the surface. The main difference here is, by using an initial value approach, the optimization problem can be set up as a quadratic programming problem and, consequently, solved by a linear least squares method. Three methods to choose a good initial value are presented. Test cases show that the new method works well on surfaces of arbitrary topology, with the exception of surfaces with exceptionally abnormal curvature distribution. Other advantages of the new method include uniformity and seamlessness of the texture mapping process. The new method is suitable for applications that do not require precise texture mapping results but demand highly efficient mapping process such as computer animation or video games. Read more...

In a time-to-market environment, designers may not be able to incorporate all the design features in a computer game. For each feature, there are several levels of implementation, which is corresponded to different levels of benefit as well as cost. Therefore, a trade-off decision for determining appropriate levels of implementation is very important, yet has been rarely studied in literature. This paper presents an approach to solve the trade-off decision problem. This approach applies the neural network technique and develops a genetic algorithm to optimize the design of computer games. By this approach, a near-optimal design alternative can be identified in a timely fashion. Read more...