Interactive Texture Chooser Using Interactive Evolutionary Computation and Similarity Search

This paper presents an interactive texture chooser. This interactive texture chooser allows novice users to obtain their desired textures by checking each 3D model that mapped the texture. Current 3D computer graphics (3DCG) software products provide a convenient means of dealing with 3D content for novice users. Textures are frequently used in several 3DCG tools. Users may use certain tag and categorical search interfaces for texture choices when they decide on each texture for a 3D mapping task. However, making textures choices can be challenging for novices because they have no sufficient knowledge about 3DCG. There are various types of textures even if several textures are classified in the same category. For example, searching for the desired stone texture can be challenging from the stone texture category because hundreds of textures have the same tag and are classified under the same category. In addition, the tag and categorical search interfaces are no longer available when a user does not have a specific target in his/her mind. The proposed interactive texture chooser solves the above issues. This system consists of an interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) mode and a similarity search (SS) mode. The IEC mode displays some texture candidates using an evolutionary computation algorithm. The SS mode consists of a visual similarity search function based on several texture features. The effectiveness of this system has been confirmed through experimental results.