Publication
Earth mover’s distances on discrete surfaces
We introduce a novel method for computing the earth mover’s distance (EMD) between probability distributions on a discrete surface. Rather than using a large linear program with a quadratic number of variables, we apply the theory of optimal transportation and pass to a dual differential formulation with linear scaling. After discretization using finite elements (FEM) and development of an accompanying optimization method, we apply our new EMD to problems in graphics and geometry processing. In particular, we uncover a class of smooth distances on a surface transitioning from a purely spectral distance to the geodesic distance between points; these distances also can be extended to the volume inside and outside the surface. A number of additional applications of our machinery to geometry problems in graphics are presented.
Download publicationRelated Resources
See what’s new.
2024
Highlights from our Interns: What They Loved about their InternshipsWe asked our summer internships to share what they most enjoyed about…
2009
A Multi-cellular Developmental Representation for Evolution of Adaptive Spiking Neural Microcircuits in an FPGAIt has been shown that evolutionary and developmental processes can be…
2022
JoinABLe: Learning Bottom-up Assembly of Parametric CAD JointsPhysical products are often complex assemblies combining a multitude…
2018
PhenoLines: Phenotype Comparison Visualizations for Disease Subtyping via Topic ModelsPhenoLines is a visual analysis tool for the interpretation of disease…
Get in touch
Something pique your interest? Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about Autodesk Research, our projects, people, and potential collaboration opportunities.
Contact us