Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body: R&D Projects - 3D Modeling and Animation: Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body - page 371

concepts (Figure 14) such as posture, force and repetition by 3D animation and
video effects (Figure 15).
Conclusions
This chapter presents recent results of synthesis and analysis techniques for the
human body reported by R&D projects worldwide. The examined technological
area has produced impressive research results, which have emerged as success-
ful consumer applications, especially in the media, industrial and educational
markets.
During the last decade, a very large number of articles have been published in
the research area of human body modeling. However, computer vision-based
human body analysis/synthesis techniques are not mature enough to be used for
industrial applications and, thus, semi-automatic systems are usually adopted.
Many issues are still open, including unconstrained image segmentation, real-
time motion tracking, personalization of human models, modeling of multiple
person environments and computationally efficient real-time applications. Each
one of these topics represents a stand-alone problem and their solutions are of
interest not only to human body modeling research, but also to other research
fields.
Reduction of the processing time in order to support real-time applications is one
of the major issues in human body modeling and animation. Reduction depends
on the performance of the current computer systems (CPU and memory
capabilities), which are constantly improving, and the computational complexity
of the technical approaches used (matching/tracking algorithms, etc.), which,
however, are not expected to significantly lower processing time. Thus, it is
expected that in the near future algorithms, that nowadays are computationally
prohibitive, will be feasible, giving rise to new human modeling and animation
applications.
Realistic human body modeling and animation is considered essential in virtual
reality applications, as well as in remote collaboration in virtual environments.
Most R&D projects reviewed in this chapter are moving in this direction and their
results are considered to be very interesting and promising. Virtual Reality
applications today lack real-time human participation. Most applications have
been shown as walk-thru types for virtual exploration of spatial data (virtual
prototypes, architecture, cultural heritage, etc.) or as user interactive direct
manipulation of data (training systems, education systems, etc.). Especially in
digital storytelling, applications today are limited to predefined human participa-
tion, such as animated 3D cartoons and/or integration of pre-recorded video