Utilization of Avatar-based Technology in The Area of Sign language... A Review

Information and communication technology (ICT) has progressed rapidly in recent years, and it is becoming necessary for everybody including deafpeople. This paper gives an overview of using a technology called Avatar-based technology in the area of sign language, which is the normal language of the deafworldwide, although it is different from country to another. This paper covers the basic concepts related to the signing avatar and the efforts for applying it indifferent sign language worldwide, especially Arabic Sign Language (ArSL)

Visual communication in urban planning and urban design

This report documents the current status of visual communication in urban design and planning. Visual communication is examined through discussion of standalone and network media, specifically concentrating on visualisation on the World Wide Web(WWW).Firstly, we examine the use of Solid and Geometric Modelling for visualising urban planning and urban design. This report documents and compares examples of the use of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and proprietary WWW based Virtual Reality modelling software. Examples include the modelling of Bath and Glasgow using both VRML 1.0 and 2.0. A review is carried out on the use of Virtual Worldsand their role in visualising urban form within multi-user environments. The use of Virtual Worlds is developed into a case study of the possibilities and limitations of Virtual Internet Design Arenas (ViDAs), an initiative undertaken at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. The use of Virtual Worlds and their development towards ViDAs is seen as one of the most important developments in visual communication for urban planning and urban design since the development plan.Secondly, photorealistic media in the process of communicating plans is examined.The process of creating photorealistic media is documented, examples of the Virtual Streetscape and Wired Whitehall Virtual Urban Interface System are provided. The conclusion is drawn that although the use of photo-realistic media on the WWW provides a way to visually communicate planning information, its use is limited. The merging of photorealistic media and solid geometric modelling is reviewed in the creation of Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is seen to provide an important step forward in the ability to quickly and easily visualise urban planning and urban design information.Thirdly, the role of visual communication of planning data through GIS is examined interms of desktop, three dimensional and Internet based GIS systems. The evolution to Internet GIS is seen as a critical component in the development of virtual cities which will allow urban planners and urban designers to visualise and model the complexity of the built environment in networked virtual reality.Finally a viewpoint is put forward of the Virtual City, linking Internet GIS with photorealistic multi-user Virtual Worlds. At present there are constraints on how far virtual cities can be developed, but a view is provided on how these networked virtual worlds are developing to aid visual communication in urban planning and urban design

Generating Co-occurring Facial Nonmanual Signals in Synthesized American Sign Language

Translating between English and American Sign Language (ASL) requires an avatar to display synthesized ASL. Essential to the language are nonmanual signals that appear on the face. In the past, these have posed a difficult challenge for signing avatars. Previous systems were hampered by an inability to portray simultaneously-occurring nonmanual signals on the face. This paper presents a method designed for supporting co-occurring nonmanual signals in ASL. Animations produced by the new system were tested with 40 members of the Deaf community in the United States. Participants identified all of the nonmanual signals even when they co-occurred. Co-occurring question nonmanuals and affect information were distinguishable, which is particularly striking because the two processes move an avatar’s brows in a competing manner. This breakthrough brings the state of the art one step closer to the goal of an automatic English-to-ASL translator. Conference proceedings from the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications and International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications, Barcelona, Spain, 21-24 February, 2013. Edited by Sabine Coquillart, Carlos Andújar, Robert S. Laramee, Andreas Kerren, José Braz. Barcelona, Spain. SciTePress 2013. 407-416

Sign language recognition using wearable electronics: Implementing K-nearest neighbors with dynamic time warping and convolutional neural network algorithms

We propose a sign language recognition system based on wearable electronics and two different classification algorithms. The wearable electronics were made of a sensory glove and inertial measurement units to gather fingers, wrist, and arm/forearm movements. The classifiers were k-Nearest Neighbors with Dynamic Time Warping (that is a non-parametric method) and Convolutional Neural Networks (that is a parametric method). Ten sign-words were considered from the Italian Sign Language: cose, grazie, maestra, together with words with international meaning such as google, internet, jogging, pizza, television, twitter, and ciao. The signs were repeated one-hundred times each by seven people, five male and two females, aged 29–54 y ± 10.34 (SD). The adopted classifiers performed with an accuracy of 96.6% ± 3.4 (SD) for the k-Nearest Neighbors plus the Dynamic Time Warping and of 98.0% ± 2.0 (SD) for the Convolutional Neural Networks. Our system was made of wearable electronics among the most complete ones, and the classifiers top performed in comparison with other relevant works reported in the literature

Sign Language Translation Approach to Sinhalese Language

Sign language is used for communication between deafpersons while Sinhalese language is used by normal hearingpersons whose first language is Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. Thisresearch focuses on an approach for a real-time translation fromSri Lankan sign language to Sinhalese language which willbridge the communication gap between deaf and ordinarycommunities. This study further focuses on a novel methodologyof enabling distance communication between deaf and ordinarypersons. Once the sign based gestures captured by depth sensingcamera, series of feature extraction techniques will be used toidentify essential attributes in gesture frame. Identified featureframe will be compared with pre-trained gesture dictionarybased on classification techniques, in order to identify gesturebased word. Detected word will be displayed for ordinary user orcould be used for communication between two individuals in twodifferent geographic locations. Proposed prototype has providedan overall recognition rate of 94.2% for a dictionary of fifteensigns in Sri Lankan sign language