3D Character Modeling in Virtual Reality

The paper presents a virtual reality modeling system based on interactive web technologies. The system's goal is to provide a user-friendly virtual environment for the development of 3D characters with an articulated structure. The interface allows the modeling of both the character's joint structure (the hierarchy) and its segment geometry (the skin). The novelty of the system consists of (1) the combination of web technologies used (VRML, Java and EAI) which provides the possibility of online modeling, (2) rules and constraints based operations and thus interface elements, (3) vertices and sets of vertices used as graphics primitives and (4) the possibility to handle and extend hierarchies based on the H-anim structure elements

Virtual human modelling and animation for real-time sign language visualisation

>Magister Scientiae - MScThis thesis investigates the modelling and animation of virtual humans for real-time sign language visualisation. Sign languages are fully developed natural languages used by Deaf communities all over the world. These languages are communicated in a visual-gestural modality by the use of manual and non-manual gestures and are completely di erent from spoken languages. Manual gestures include the use of hand shapes, hand movements, hand locations and orientations of the palm in space. Non-manual gestures include the use of facial expressions, eye-gazes, head and upper body movements. Both manual and nonmanual gestures must be performed for sign languages to be correctly understood and interpreted. To e ectively visualise sign languages, a virtual human system must have models of adequate quality and be able to perform both manual and non-manual gesture animations in real-time. Our goal was to develop a methodology and establish an open framework by using various standards and open technologies to model and animate virtual humans of adequate quality to e ectively visualise sign languages. This open framework is to be used in a Machine Translation system that translates from a verbal language such as English to any sign language. Standards and technologies we employed include H-Anim, MakeHuman, Blender, Python and SignWriting. We found it necessary to adapt and extend H-Anim to e ectively visualise sign languages. The adaptations and extensions we made to H-Anim include imposing joint rotational limits, developing exible hands and the addition of facial bones based on the MPEG-4 Facial De nition Parameters facial feature points for facial animation. By using these standards and technologies, we found that we could circumvent a few di cult problems, such as: modelling high quality virtual humans; adapting and extending H-Anim; creating a sign language animation action vocabulary; blending between animations in an action vocabulary; sharing animation action data between our virtual humans; and e ectively visualising South African Sign Language.South Afric

Progress Towards the CFD Vision 2030

Outline: NASA Motivation; CFD Vision 2030 Study Summary - The Vision - Roadmap - Validation Experiments - CFD 2030 Activities Since Report Release; T3 Technical Challenges Supporting CFD Vision 2030 - Revolutionary Computational Aerosciences (RCA) [Aerodynamics - Aerothermodynamics - Aerostructures - Aeroacoustics - Propulsion Integration] - Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization (MDAO) - Combustion Modeling - Innovative Measurements (Proposed); Implementation Plan, Going Forward; Summary

Digitalization and Development

This book examines the diffusion of digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia by focusing on the ecosystem critical for its expansion. The chapters examine the digital proliferation in major sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, e-commerce and services, as well as the intermediary organizations essential for the orderly performance of socioeconomic agents. The book incisively reviews policy instruments critical for the effective and orderly development of the embedding organizations, and the regulatory framework needed to quicken the appropriation of socioeconomic synergies from digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies. It highlights the importance of collaboration between government, academic and industry partners, as well as makes key recommendations on how to encourage adoption of IR4.0 technologies in the short- and long-term. This book bridges the concepts and applications of digitalization and Industry 4.0 and will be a must-read for policy makers seeking to quicken the adoption of its technologies

Digitalization and Development

This book examines the diffusion of digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia by focusing on the ecosystem critical for its expansion. The chapters examine the digital proliferation in major sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, e-commerce and services, as well as the intermediary organizations essential for the orderly performance of socioeconomic agents. The book incisively reviews policy instruments critical for the effective and orderly development of the embedding organizations, and the regulatory framework needed to quicken the appropriation of socioeconomic synergies from digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies. It highlights the importance of collaboration between government, academic and industry partners, as well as makes key recommendations on how to encourage adoption of IR4.0 technologies in the short- and long-term. This book bridges the concepts and applications of digitalization and Industry 4.0 and will be a must-read for policy makers seeking to quicken the adoption of its technologies

Special oils for halal and safe cosmetics

Three types of non conventional oils were extracted, analyzed and tested for toxicity. Date palm kernel oil (DPKO), mango kernel oil (MKO) and Ramputan seed oil (RSO). Oil content for tow cultivars of dates Deglect Noor and Moshkan was 9.67% and 7.30%, respectively. The three varieties of mango were found to contain about 10% oil in average. The red yellow types of Ramputan were found to have 11 and 14% oil, respectively. The phenolic compounds in DPKO, MKO and RSO were 0.98, 0.88 and 0.78 mg/ml Gallic acid equivalent, respectively. Oils were analyzed for their fatty acid composition and they are rich in oleic acid C18:1 and showed the presence of (dodecanoic acid) lauric acid C12:0, which reported to appear some antimicrobial activities. All extracted oils, DPKO, MKO and RSO showed no toxic effect using prime shrimp bioassay. Since these oils are stable, melt at skin temperature, have good lubricity and are great source of essential fatty acids; they could be used as highly moisturizing, cleansing and nourishing oils because of high oleic acid content. They are ideal for use in such halal cosmetics such as Science, Engineering and Technology 75 skin care and massage, hair-care, soap and shampoo products

Unstructured Grid Adaptation: Status, Potential Impacts, and Recommended Investments Towards CFD 2030

International audienceUnstructured grid adaptation is a powerful tool to control Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) discretization error. It has enabled key increases in the accuracy, automation, and capacity of some fluid simulation applications. Slotnick et al. provide a number of case studies in the CFD Vision 2030 Study: A Path to Revolutionary Computational Aerosciences to illustrate the current state of CFD capability and capacity. The study authors forecast the potential impact of emerging High Performance Computing (HPC) environments forecast in the year 2030 and identify that mesh generation and adaptivity will continue to be significant bottlenecks in the CFD workflow. These bottlenecks may persist because very little government investment has been targeted in these areas. To motivate investment, the impacts of improved grid adaptation technologies are identified. The CFD Vision 2030 Study roadmap and anticipated capabilities in complementary disciplines are quoted to provide context for the progress made in grid adaptation in the past fifteen years, current status, and a forecast for the next fifteen years with recommended investments. These investments are specific to mesh adaptation and impact other aspects of the CFD process. Finally, a strategy is identified to di↵use grid adaptation technology into production CFD work flows

Calculating the curvature shape characteristics of the human body from 3D scanner data.

In the recent years, there have been significant advances in the development and manufacturing of 3D scanners capable of capturing detailed (external) images of whole human bodies. Such hardware offers the opportunity to collect information that could be used to describe, interpret and analyse the shape of the human body for a variety of applications where shape information plays a vital role (e.g. apparel sizing and customisation; medical research in fields such as nutrition, obesity/anorexia and perceptive psychology; ergonomics for vehicle and furniture design). However, the representations delivered by such hardware typically consist of unstructured or partially structured point clouds, whereas it would be desirable to have models that allow shape-related information to be more immediately accessible. This thesis describes a method of extracting the differential geometry properties of the body surface from unorganized point cloud datasets. In effect, this is a way of constructing curvature maps that allows the detection on the surface of features that are deformable (such as ridges) rather than reformable under certain transformations. Such features could subsequently be used to interpret the topology of a human body and to enable classification according to its shape, rather than its size (as is currently the standard practice for many of the applications concemed). The background, motivation and significance of this research are presented in chapter one. Chapter two is a literature review describing the previous and current attempts to model 3D objects in general and human bodies in particular, as well as the mathematical and technical issues associated with the modelling. Chapter three presents an overview of: the methodology employed throughout the research; the assumptions regarding the data to be processed; and the strategy for evaluating the results for each stage of the methodology. Chapter four describes an algorithm (and some variations) for approximating the local surface geometry around a given point of the input data set by means of a least-squares minimization. The output of such an algorithm is a surface patch described in an analytic (implicit) form. This is necessary for the next step described below. The case is made for using implicit surfaces rather than more popular 3D surface representations such as parametric forms or height functions. Chapter five describes the processing needed for calculating curvature-related characteristics for each point of the input surface. This utilises the implicit surface patches generated by the algorithm described in the previous chapter, and enables the construction of a "curvature map" of the original surface, which incorporates rich information such as the principal curvatures, shape indices and curvature directions. Chapter six describes a family of algorithms for calculating features such as ridges and umbilic points on the surface from the curvature map, in a manner that bypasses the problem of separating a vector field (i.e. the principal curvature directions) across the entire surface of an object. An alternative approach, using the focal surface information, is also considered briefly in comparison. The concluding chapter summarises the results from all steps of the processing and evaluates them in relation to the requirements set in chapter one. Directions for further research are also proposed