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In-Depth Information
Head orientation and movements of the upper body and hands of the per-
son are captured by IR-range sensors (Swissranger, mesa imaging), acceleration
sensors and image processing. When we use a virtual agent, a body of the vir-
tual agent is moved by the captured data. When we use a robot, the robot is
controlled by data which is converted to meet the limitations of robot's degree
of freedom. The person can see the movements of the ECA in a window which
is displayed in the 360-degree vision system. The voices of the person are cap-
tured by a headset microphone, and the ECA plays the voice. The voice passes
through a voice processing component. The voice processing component can fil-
ter the voice depending on the purpose. When the voice is filtered, the person
can hear the filtered voice.
Head orientation and movements of the upper body and hands of the per-
son are captured by IR-range sensors (Swissranger, mesa imaging), acceleration
sensors and image processing. When we use a virtual agent, a body of the vir-
tual agent is moved by the captured data. When we use a robot, the robot is
controlled by data which is converted to meet the limitations of robot's degree
of freedom. The person can see the movements of the ECA in a window which
is displayed in the 360-degree vision system. The voices of the person are cap-
tured by a headset microphone, and the ECA plays the voice. The voice passes
through a voice processing component. The voice processing component can fil-
ter the voice depending on the purpose. When the voice is filtered, the person
can hear the filtered voice.
4 The Method of Human Motion Capture
We discussed the prototype of CEBE in general situations in another paper [10].
In this section, we describe the modifications to capture human motion with
cultural background in the prototype system. In this paper, we only explain
the method to measure head rotation and angles of arms because upper body
movements are important in the immersive environment. These implementations
are currently in progress.
The prototype system could capture basic human behavior, such as a face
direction and pointing, when each part of the body, such as head, hands, arms
and trunk, were occluded below 30%.
4.1 The Implementation to Measure Head Rotation
In the CEBE for general situations, we implemented the method to measure head
rotation by using an reflection intensity image (we call this as “amplitude”) of IR-
range sensors. This method was not suitable for measuring detailed degree of the
head rotation angle. We implemented the method to measure head rotation by
using a three-axis acceleration sensor and image processing because we expected
that we had to measure detailed head motion for investigations about cultural
differences. We could easily measure the vertical head rotation by using the
three-axis acceleration sensor. In addition, the sensor would not prevent human
