Human motion retrieval based on freehand sketch

In this paper, we present an integrated framework of human motion retrieval based on freehand sketch. With some simple rules, the user can acquire a desired motion by sketching several key postures. To retrieve efficiently and accurately by sketch, the 3D postures are projected onto several 2D planes. The limb direction feature is proposed to represent the input sketch and the projected-postures. Furthermore, a novel index structure based on k-d tree is constructed to index the motions in the database, which speeds up the retrieval process. With our posture-by-posture retrieval algorithm, a continuous motion can be got directly or generated by using a pre-computed graph structure. What's more, our system provides an intuitive user interface. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

HandVR: a hand-gesture-based interface to a video retrieval system

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Using one's hands in human-computer interaction increases both the effectiveness of computer usage and the speed of interaction. One way of accomplishing this goal is to utilize computer vision techniques to develop hand-gesture-based interfaces. A video database system is one application where a hand-gesture-based interface is useful, because it provides a way to specify certain queries more easily. We present a hand-gesture-based interface for a video database system to specify motion and spatiotemporal object queries. We use a regular, low-cost camera to monitor the movements and configurations of the user's hands and translate them to video queries. We conducted a user study to compare our gesture-based interface with a mouse-based interface on various types of video queries. The users evaluated the two interfaces in terms of different usability parameters, including the ease of learning, ease of use, ease of remembering (memory), naturalness, comfortable use, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The user study showed that querying video databases is a promising application area for hand-gesture-based interfaces, especially for queries involving motion and spatiotemporal relations. © 2014 Springer-Verlag London

Semantic framework for interactive animation generation and its application in virtual shadow play performance.

Designing and creating complex and interactive animation is still a challenge in the field of virtual reality, which has to handle various aspects of functional requirements (e.g. graphics, physics, AI, multimodal inputs and outputs, and massive data assets management). In this paper, a semantic framework is proposed to model the construction of interactive animation and promote animation assets reuse in a systematic and standardized way. As its ontological implementation, two domain specific ontologies for the hand-gesture-based interaction and animation data repository have been developed in the context of Chinese traditional shadow play art. Finally, prototype of interactive Chinese shadow play performance system using deep motion sensor device is presented as the usage example

Prototype of intelligent data management system for computer animation (iMCA)

In recent years, one of the most noticeable“” issues of current animation production is the challenge from the exponential growth of animation data known as an increasingly data-intensive process. There are obvious gaps between the animation production needs and research development, which call for novel design and new technology to tackle the emerging challenge of handling huge amounts of data. “iMCA” is designed to develop intelligent data management solution with the capability to handle massive and hyper type animation asset and analyze/summarize information for reuse of data to facilitate human creativity providing innovative interaction to allow the manipulation of massive animation data

Posing 3D Models from Drawing

Inferring the 3D pose of a character from a drawing is a complex and under-constrained problem. Solving it may help automate various parts of an animation production pipeline such as pre-visualisation. In this paper, a novel way of inferring the 3D pose from a monocular 2D sketch is proposed. The proposed method does not make any external assumptions about the model, allowing it to be used on different types of characters. The inference of the 3D pose is formulated as an optimisation problem and a parallel variation of the Particle Swarm Optimisation algorithm called PARAC-LOAPSO is utilised for searching the minimum. Testing in isolation as well as part of a larger scene, the presented method is evaluated by posing a lamp, a horse and a human character. The results show that this method is robust, highly scalable and is able to be extended to various types of models

Content rendering and interaction technologies for digital heritage systems

Existing digital heritage systems accommodate a huge amount of digital repository information; however their content rendering and interaction components generally lack the more interesting functionality that allows better interaction with heritage contents. Many digital heritage libraries are simply collections of 2D images with associated metadata and textual content, i.e. little more than museum catalogues presented online. However, over the last few years, largely as a result of EU framework projects, some 3D representation of digital heritage objects are beginning to appear in a digital library context. In the cultural heritage domain, where researchers and museum visitors like to observe cultural objects as closely as possible and to feel their existence and use in the past, giving the user only 2D images along with textual descriptions significantly limits interaction and hence understanding of their heritage. The availability of powerful content rendering technologies, such as 3D authoring tools to create 3D objects and heritage scenes, grid tools for rendering complex 3D scenes, gaming engines to display 3D interactively, and recent advances in motion capture technologies for embodied immersion, allow the development of unique solutions for enhancing user experience and interaction with digital heritage resources and objects giving a higher level of understanding and greater benefit to the community. This thesis describes DISPLAYS (Digital Library Services for Playing with Shared Heritage Resources), which is a novel conceptual framework where five unique services are proposed for digital content: creation, archival, exposition, presentation and interaction services. These services or tools are designed to allow the heritage community to create, interpret, use and explore digital heritage resources organised as an online exhibition (or virtual museum). This thesis presents innovative solutions for two of these services or tools: content creation where a cost effective render grid is proposed; and an interaction service, where a heritage scenario is presented online using a real-time motion capture and digital puppeteer solution for the user to explore through embodied immersive interaction their digital heritage

Efficient Motion Retrieval in Large Motion Databases

There has been a recent paradigm shift in the computer animation industry with an increasing use of pre-recorded motion for animating virtual characters. A fundamental requirement to using motion capture data is an efficient method for indexing and retrieving motions. In this paper, we propose a flexible, efficient method for searching arbitrarily complex motions in large motion databases. Motions are encoded using keys which represent a wide array of structural, geometric and, dynamic features of human motion. Keys provide a representative search space for indexing motions and users can specify sequences of key values as well as multiple combination of key sequences to search for complex motions. We use a trie-based data structure to provide an efficient mapping from key sequences to motions. The search times (even on a single CPU) are very fast, opening the possibility of using large motion data sets in real-time applications

The Shadow Mirror

The shadow mirror project is an interactive art installation which mimics user motions and displays them in the form of a a puppet\u27s shadow. In order to accomplish the shadow effect, a motion capture solution is needed alongside a puppet with a controllable motion system and lighting effects. This piece is open to a wide range of audiences both age-wide and culture-wide, allowing us to achieve our goal of bringing forth a universal bond and introducing a new way of interaction through the blending of technology and art