Fast and reliable example-based mesh IK for stylized deformations

Example-based shape deformation allows a mesh to be easily manipulated or animated with simple inputs. As the user pulls parts of the shape, the rest of the mesh automatically changes in an intuitive way by drawing from a set of exemplars. This provides a way for virtual shapes or characters to be easily authored and manipulated, or for a set of drawings to be animated with simple inputs. We describe a new approach for example-based inverse kinematic mesh manipulation which generates high quality deformations for a wide range of inputs, and in particular works well even when provided stylized or "cartoony" examples. This approach is fast enough to run in real time, reliably uses the artist's input shapes in an intuitive way even for highly nonphysical deformations, and provides added expressiveness by allowing the input shapes to be utilized in a way which spatially varies smoothly across the resulting deformed mesh. This allows for rich and detailed deformations to be created from a small set of input shapes, and gives an easy way for a set of sketches to be brought alive with simple click-and-drag inputs.