Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body: R&D Projects - 3D Modeling and Animation: Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body - page 355

The avatar produced using this procedure does not really comply with the exact
body measures of the respective person. The quality, however, is sufficient to
walk on the virtual catwalk and get a realistic impression of how the garment
would actually look on one's body. The mesh of such an avatar consists of about
3.800 nodes. This figure can be considered a compromise between the desired
accuracy and the minimal amount of data. The procedure is optimized for real-
time web animation.
Moving the virtual skeleton of the user is referred in FashionMe as “the virtual
catwalk.” Virtual catwalk animates the avatar according to defined, sex-specific
motion sequences. The motion sequences contain detailed, time-dependent
descriptions of motions for every joint. These motion sequences are either
generated artificially by means of a 3D editor, or digitized by motion capturing
real movement of the users. Motion capturing (e.g., the technology of Vicon)
(Vicon, 2001) records and digitizes even complex movements of a human model
with all their irregularities in order to provide the highest possible realistic
impression.
INTERFACE
The objective of the INTERFACE: MultimodAl analysis/synthesis systEm for
human INTERaction to virtual and augmented environments project (IST
INTERFACE) is to define new models and implement advanced tools for audio-
video analysis, synthesis and representation, in order to provide essential
technologies for the implementation of large-scale virtual and augmented
environments.
The work is oriented to make man-machine interaction as natural as possible,
based on everyday human communication by speech, facial expressions, and
body gestures. Man-to-machine action is based on a coherent analysis of audio-
video channels to perform either low-level tasks, or high-level interpretation and
data fusion, speech emotion understanding or facial expression classification.
Machine-to-man action, on the other hand, will be based on human-like audio-
video feedback simulating a “person in the machine.” A common software
platform will be developed by the project for the creation of Internet-based
applications. A case study application of a virtual salesman will be developed,
demonstrated, and evaluated.
INTERFACE Technical Approach
Research within INTERFACE focused on the design and development of the
following components: a) emotional speech analysis, b) emotional video analysis,