14,712 research outputs found
Sketching-out virtual humans: A smart interface for human modelling and animation
In this paper, we present a fast and intuitive interface for sketching out
3D virtual humans and animation. The user draws stick figure key frames first and
chooses one for “fleshing-out” with freehand body contours. The system
automatically constructs a plausible 3D skin surface from the rendered figure, and
maps it onto the posed stick figures to produce the 3D character animation. A
“creative model-based method” is developed, which performs a human perception
process to generate 3D human bodies of various body sizes, shapes and fat
distributions. In this approach, an anatomical 3D generic model has been created with
three distinct layers: skeleton, fat tissue, and skin. It can be transformed sequentially
through rigid morphing, fatness morphing, and surface fitting to match the original
2D sketch. An auto-beautification function is also offered to regularise the 3D
asymmetrical bodies from users’ imperfect figure sketches. Our current system
delivers character animation in various forms, including articulated figure animation,
3D mesh model animation, 2D contour figure animation, and even 2D NPR animation
with personalised drawing styles. The system has been formally tested by various
users on Tablet PC. After minimal training, even a beginner can create vivid virtual
humans and animate them within minutes
Automatic sensor-based detection and classification of climbing activities
This article presents a method to automatically detect and classify climbing
activities using inertial measurement units (IMUs) attached to the wrists, feet
and pelvis of the climber. The IMUs record limb acceleration and angular
velocity. Detection requires a learning phase with manual annotation to
construct the statistical models used in the cusum algorithm. Full-body
activity is then classified based on the detection of each IMU
Controlling evaporation loss from water storages
[Executive Summary]: Evaporation losses from on-farm storage can potentially be large, particularly in irrigation areas in northern New South Wales and Queensland where up to 40% of storage volume can be lost each year to evaporation. Reducing evaporation from a water storage would allow additional crop production, water trading or water for the environment. While theoretical research into evaporation from storages has previously been undertaken there has been little evaluation of current evaporation mitigation technologies (EMTs) on commercial sized water storages. This project was initiated by the Queensland Government Department of Natural Resources and Mines (NRM) with the express aim of addressing this gap in our knowledge. The report addressed i) assessment of the effectiveness of different EMT’s in reducing evaporation from commercial storages across a range of climate regions, ii) assessment of the practical and technical limitations of different evaporation control products, and iii) comparison of the economics of different EMT’s on water storages used for irrigation
- …