A Dynamic Platform for Developing 3D Facial Avatars in a Networked Virtual Environment

Avatar facial expression and animation in 3D collaborative virtual environment (CVE) systems are reconstructed through a complex manipulation of muscles, bones, and wrinkles in 3D space. The need for a fast and easy reconstruction approach has emerged in the recent years due to its application in various domains: 3D disaster management, virtual shopping, and military training. In this work we proposed a new script language based on atomic parametric action to easily produce real-time facial animation. To minimize use of the game engine, we introduced script-based component where the user introduces simple short script fragments to feed the engine with a new animation on the fly. During runtime, when an embedded animation is required, an xml file is created and injected into the game engine without stopping or restarting the engine. The resulting animation method preserves the real-time performance because the modification occurs not through the modification of the 3D code that describes the CVE and its objects but rather through modification of the action scenario that rules when an animation happens or might happen in that specific situation

Enhancing Expressiveness of Speech through Animated Avatars for Instant Messaging and Mobile Phones

This thesis aims to create a chat program that allows users to communicate via an animated avatar that provides believable lip-synchronization and expressive emotion. Currently many avatars do not attempt to do lip-synchronization. Those that do are not well synchronized and have little or no emotional expression. Most avatars with lip synch use realistic looking 3D models or stylized rendering of complex models. This work utilizes images rendered in a cartoon style and lip-synchronization rules based on traditional animation. The cartoon style, as opposed to a more realistic look, makes the mouth motion more believable and the characters more appealing. The cartoon look and image-based animation (as opposed to a graphic model animated through manipulation of a skeleton or wireframe) also allows for fewer key frames resulting in faster speed with more room for expressiveness. When text is entered into the program, the Festival Text-to-Speech engine creates a speech file and extracts phoneme and phoneme duration data. Believable and fluid lip-synchronization is then achieved by means of a number of phoneme-to-image rules. Alternatively, phoneme and phoneme duration data can be obtained for speech dictated into a microphone using Microsoft SAPI and the CSLU Toolkit. Once lip synchronization has been completed, rules for non-verbal animation are added. Emotions are appended to the animation of speech in two ways: automatically, by recognition of key words and punctuation, or deliberately, by user-defined tags. Additionally, rules are defined for idle-time animation. Preliminary results indicate that the animated avatar program offers an improvement over currently available software. It aids in the understandability of speech, combines easily recognizable and expressive emotions with speech, and successfully enhances overall enjoyment of the chat experience. Applications for the program include use in cell phones for the deaf or hearing impaired, instant messaging, video conferencing, instructional software, and speech and animation synthesis

Definição de funções primitivas em behavior markup language

O principal fundamento desta dissertação centra-se num estudo sobre a incorporação de agentes virtuais, com deficiências motoras, num determinado ambiente, utilizando a linguagem Behavior Markup Language. Numa primeira fase, efetuámos a seleção de algumas linguagens que se adequavam melhor ao objetivo pretendido e, em simultâneo, estudámos os ambientes em que se podiam utilizar. Em seguida, tornou-se necessário averiguar quais seriam as deficiências que se adequavam melhor a essa incorporação. Logo, adotámos algumas estratégias utilizando funções já existentes no software Smartbody. Para finalizar, foi elaborada uma análise de todos os prós e contras das estratégias abordadas, onde o foco foi sempre colocado em deficiências motoras reais.The main goal of this dissertation was based on a study about the incorporation of virtual agents with motor disabilities in a given environment using the Behavior Markup Language. Initially, we selected some languages that were better suited for the intended purpose and, simultaneously, we studied the environments in which they could be used. Then it became necessary to find out which were the disabilities that best suited this incorporation. Therefore, we have adopted some strategies using functions that already exist in the Smartbody software. Finally, it was elaborated an analysis of all the pros and cons of the strategies discussed, where the focus was always placed on realistic motor disabilities

A Cloud Based Disaster Management System

The combination of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and 3D virtual environments opens a new paradigm for their use in natural disaster management applications. It is important to have a realistic virtual environment based on datasets received from WSNs to prepare a backup rescue scenario with an acceptable response time. This paper describes a complete cloud-based system that collects data from wireless sensor nodes deployed in real environments and then builds a 3D environment in near real-time to reflect the incident detected by sensors (fire, gas leaking, etc.). The system’s purpose is to be used as a training environment for a rescue team to develop various rescue plans before they are applied in real emergency situations. The proposed cloud architecture combines 3D data streaming and sensor data collection to build an efficient network infrastructure that meets the strict network latency requirements for 3D mobile disaster applications. As compared to other existing systems, the proposed system is truly complete. First, it collects data from sensor nodes and then transfers it using an enhanced Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RLP). A 3D modular visualizer with a dynamic game engine was also developed in the cloud for near-real time 3D rendering. This is an advantage for highly-complex rendering algorithms and less powerful devices. An Extensible Markup Language (XML) atomic action concept was used to inject 3D scene modifications into the game engine without stopping or restarting the engine. Finally, a multi-objective multiple traveling salesman problem (AHP-MTSP) algorithm is proposed to generate an efficient rescue plan by assigning robots and multiple unmanned aerial vehicles to disaster target locations, while minimizing a set of predefined objectives that depend on the situation. The results demonstrate that immediate feedback obtained from the reconstructed 3D environment can help to investigate what–if scenarios, allowing for the preparation of effective rescue plans with an appropriate management effort.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avatar Frameworks

Die Fachstudie "Avatar Frameworks" beschäftigt sich mit der Untersuchung existierender und zukünftiger Interaktionskonzepte beim Einsatz von Avataren sowie deren technischer Realisierbarkeit. Zu Beginn geht es um die Erstellung von Avataren und um bestehende Entwicklungskonzepte. Anschließend werden kulturelle Unterschiede sowie Akzeptanzprobleme besprochen. Um mit Avataren kommunizieren zu können, sind Interaktionstechnologien und -methoden erforderlich. Diese werden zusammen mit Spracherkennungstechniken und der Visualisierung von Gefühlen durch Avatare erläutert. Der Hauptteil der Studie konzentriert sich auf die Evaluation bestehender Frameworks. Zuletzt rundet ein Ausblick die Arbeit ab

Simulation of nonverbal social interaction and small groups dynamics in virtual environments

How can the behaviour of humans who interact with other humans be simulated in virtual environments? This thesis investigates the issue by proposing a number of dedicated models, computer languages, software architectures, and specifications of computational components. It relies on a large knowledge base from the social sciences, which offers concepts, descriptions, and classifications that guided the research process. The simulation of nonverbal social interaction and group dynamics in virtual environments can be divided in two main research problems: (1) an action selection problem, where autonomous agents must be made capable of deciding when, with whom, and how they interact according to individual characteristics of themselves and others; and (2) a behavioural animation problem, where, on the basis of the selected interaction, 3D characters must realistically behave in their virtual environment and communicate nonverbally with others by automatically triggering appropriate actions such as facial expressions, gestures, and postural shifts. In order to introduce the problem of action selection in social environments, a high-level architecture for social agents, based on the sociological concepts of role, norm, and value, is first discussed. A model of action selection for members of small groups, based on proactive and reactive motivational components, is then presented. This model relies on a new tagbased language called Social Identity Markup Language (SIML), allowing the rich specification of agents' social identities and relationships. A complementary model controls the simulation of interpersonal relationship development within small groups. The interactions of these two models create a complex system exhibiting emergent properties for the generation of meaningful sequences of social interactions in the temporal dimension. To address the issues related to the visualization of nonverbal interactions, results are presented of an evaluation experiment aimed at identifying the application requirements through an analysis of how real people interact nonverbally in virtual environments. Based on these results, a number of components for MPEG-4 body animation, AML — a tag-based language for the seamless integration and synchronization of facial animation, body animation, and speech — and a high-level interaction visualization service for the VHD++ platform are described. This service simulates the proxemic and kinesic aspects of nonverbal social interactions, and comprises such functionalities as parametric postures, adapters and observation behaviours, the social avoidance of collisions, intelligent approach behaviours, and the calculation of suitable interaction distances and angles

Semantics for virtual humans

Population of Virtual Worlds with Virtual Humans is increasing rapidly by people who want to create a virtual life parallel to the real one (i.e. Second Life). The evolution of technology is smoothly providing the necessary elements to increase realism within these virtual worlds by creating believable Virtual Humans. However, creating the amount of resources needed to succeed this believability is a difficult task, mainly because of the complexity of the creation process of Virtual Humans. Even though there are many existing available resources, their reusability is difficult because there is not enough information provided to evaluate if a model contains the desired characteristics to be reused. Additionally, the knowledge involved in the creation of Virtual Humans is not well known, nor well disseminated. There are several different creation techniques, different software components, and several processes to carry out before having a Virtual Human capable of populating a virtual environment. The creation of Virtual Humans involves: a geometrical representation with an internal control structure, the motion synthesis with different animation techniques, higher level controllers and descriptors to simulate human-like behavior such individuality, cognition, interaction capabilities, etc. All these processes require the expertise from different fields of knowledge such as mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, design, etc. Furthermore, there is neither common framework nor common understanding of how elements involved in the creation, development, and interaction of Virtual Humans features are done. Therefore, there is a need for describing (1) existing resources, (2) Virtual Human's composition and features, (3) a creation pipeline and (4) the different levels/fields of knowledge comprehended. This thesis presents an explicit representation of the Virtual Humans and their features to provide a conceptual framework that will interest to all people involved in the creation and development of these characters. This dissertation focuses in a semantic description of Virtual Humans. The creation of a semantic description involves gathering related knowledge, agreement among experts in the definition of concepts, validation of the ontology design, etc. In this dissertation all these procedures are presented, and an Ontology for Virtual Humans is described in detail together with the validations that conducted to the resulted ontology. The goal of creating such ontology is to promote reusability of existing resources; to create a shared knowledge of the creation and composition of Virtual Humans; and to support new research of the fields involved in the development of believable Virtual Humans and virtual environments. Finally, this thesis presents several developments that aim to demonstrate the ontology usability and reusability. These developments serve particularly to support the research on specialized knowledge of Virtual Humans, the population of virtual environments, and improve the believability of these characters

Application-driven visual computing towards industry 4.0 2018

245 p.La Tesis recoge contribuciones en tres campos: 1. Agentes Virtuales Interactivos: autónomos, modulares, escalables, ubicuos y atractivos para el usuario. Estos IVA pueden interactuar con los usuarios de manera natural.2. Entornos de RV/RA Inmersivos: RV en la planificación de la producción, el diseño de producto, la simulación de procesos, pruebas y verificación. El Operario Virtual muestra cómo la RV y los Co-bots pueden trabajar en un entorno seguro. En el Operario Aumentado la RA muestra información relevante al trabajador de una manera no intrusiva. 3. Gestión Interactiva de Modelos 3D: gestión online y visualización de modelos CAD multimedia, mediante conversión automática de modelos CAD a la Web. La tecnología Web3D permite la visualización e interacción de estos modelos en dispositivos móviles de baja potencia.Además, estas contribuciones han permitido analizar los desafíos presentados por Industry 4.0. La tesis ha contribuido a proporcionar una prueba de concepto para algunos de esos desafíos: en factores humanos, simulación, visualización e integración de modelos

Virtual Movement from Natural Language Text

It is a challenging task for machines to follow a textual instruction. Properly understanding and using the meaning of the textual instruction in some application areas, such as robotics, animation, etc. is very difficult for machines. The interpretation of textual instructions for the automatic generation of the corresponding motions (e.g. exercises) and the validation of these movements are difficult tasks. To achieve our initial goal of having machines properly understand textual instructions and generate some motions accordingly, we recorded five different exercises in random order with the help of seven amateur performers using a Microsoft Kinect device. During the recording, we found that the same exercise was interpreted differently by each human performer even though they were given identical textual instructions. We performed a quality assessment study based on the derived data using a crowdsourcing approach. Later, we tested the inter-rater agreement for different types of visualization, and found the RGB-based visualization showed the best agreement among the annotatorsa animation with a virtual character standing in second position. In the next phase we worked with physical exercise instructions. Physical exercise is an everyday activity domain in which textual exercise descriptions are usually focused on body movements. Body movements are considered to be a common element across a broad range of activities that are of interest for robotic automation. Our main goal is to develop a text-to-animation system which we can use in different application areas and which we can also use to develop multiple-purpose robots whose operations are based on textual instructions. This system could be also used in different text to scene and text to animation systems. To generate a text-based animation system for physical exercises the process requires the robot to have natural language understanding (NLU) including understanding non-declarative sentences. It also requires the extraction of semantic information from complex syntactic structures with a large number of potential interpretations. Despite a comparatively high density of semantic references to body movements, exercise instructions still contain large amounts of underspecified information. Detecting, and bridging and/or filling such underspecified elements is extremely challenging when relying on methods from NLU alone. However, humans can often add such implicit information with ease due to its embodied nature. We present a process that contains the combination of a semantic parser and a Bayesian network. In the semantic parser, the system extracts all the information present in the instruction to generate the animation. The Bayesian network adds some brain to the system to extract the information that is implicit in the instruction. This information is very important for correctly generating the animation and is very easy for a human to extract but very difficult for machines. Using crowdsourcing, with the help of human brains, we updated the Bayesian network. The combination of the semantic parser and the Bayesian network explicates the information that is contained in textual movement instructions so that an animation execution of the motion sequences performed by a virtual humanoid character can be rendered. To generate the animation from the information we basically used two different types of Markup languages. Behaviour Markup Language is used for 2D animation. Humanoid Animation uses Virtual Reality Markup Language for 3D animation