Optimized Centers of Rotation

A reimplementation of Le & Hodgins’ Real-time Skeletal Skinning with Optimized Centers of Rotation (SIGGRAPH 2016).

Try it live

The demo below runs all three skinning methods in your browser — I ported them from my libigl notebook to JavaScript/WebGL. It’s the classic stress test: a limb with smooth weights bent hard at one joint, where the methods pull apart. Drag Bend and switch methods:

• LBS (Linear Blend Skinning) averages bone transforms, so bending creases the joint and loses volume — the classic candy-wrapper collapse.
• DQS (Dual Quaternion Skinning) blends rigid transforms, but bulges outward at the joint.
• CoR rotates each vertex about a precomputed optimal center, holding the cross-section cleanly through the whole range.

Push Bend toward 150° and toggle the methods to see each failure mode — the exact artifacts the paper set out to fix.