Arm movement speed assessment via a Kinect camera: A preliminary study in healthy subjects

Background: Many clinical studies have shown that the arm movement of patients with neurological injury is often slow. In this paper, the speed of arm movements in healthy subjects is evaluated in order to validate the efficacy of using a Kinect camera for automated analysis. The consideration of arm movement appears trivial at first glance, but in reality it is a very complex neural and biomechanical process that can potentially be used for detecting neurological disorders. Methods: We recorded handmovements using a Kinect camera from 27 healthy subjects (21 males) with a mean age of 29 years undergoing three different arbitrary arm movement speeds: fast, medium, and slow. Results: Our developed algorithm is able to classify the three arbitrary speed classes with an overall error of 5.43% for interclass speed classification and 0.49% for intraclass classification. Conclusions: This is the first step toward laying the foundation for future studies that investigate abnormality in arm movement via use of a Kinect camera.Mohamed Elgendi, Flavien Picon, Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann and Derek Abbot

Stable Real-Time Interaction Between Virtual Humans and Real Scenes

We present an augmented reality system that relies on purely passive techniques to solve the real-time registration problem. It can run on a portable PC and does not require engineering of the environment, for example by adding markers. To achieve this result, we have integrated robust computer vision techniques into a powerful VR framework. The resulting AR system allows us to produce complex rendering and animation of virtual human characters, and to blend them into the real world. The system tracks the 3D camera position by means of a natural features tracker, which, given a rough CAD model, can deal with complex 3D objects. The tracking method can handle both large camera displacements and aspect changes. We will show that our system works in the cluttered environment of a real industrial facility and can, therefore, be used to enhance manufacturing and industrial processe

Mixing virtual and real scenes in the site of ancient Pompeii

This paper presents an innovative 3D reconstruction of ancient fresco paintings through the real-time revival of their fauna and flora, featuring groups of virtual animated characters with artificial-life dramaturgical behaviours in an immersive, fully mobile augmented reality (AR) environment. The main goal is to push the limits of current AR and virtual storytelling technologies and to explore the processes of mixed narrative design of fictional spaces (e.g. fresco paintings) where visitors can experience a high degree of realistic immersion. Based on a captured/real-time video sequence of the real scene in a video-see-through HMD set-up, these scenes are enhanced by the seamless accurate real-time registration and 3D rendering of realistic complete simulations of virtual flora and fauna (virtual humans and plants) in a real-time storytelling scenario-based environment. Thus the visitor of the ancient site is presented with an immersive and innovative multi-sensory interactive trip to the pas

Interactive games for preservation and promotion of sporting movements

In this paper we describe two interactive applications for capturing the motion signatures associated with key skills of traditional sports and games. We first present the case for sport as an important example of intangible cultural heritage. We then explain that sport requires special consideration in terms of digitization for preservation as the key aspects to be digitized are the characteristic movement signatures of such sports. We explain that, given the nature of traditional sporting agencies, this requires low-cost motion capture technology. Furthermore we argue that in order to ensure ongoing preservation, this should be provided via fun interactive gaming scenarios that promote uptake of the sports, particularly among children. We then present two such games that we have developed and illustrate their performance

Virtual Reflexes

Virtual Reality is used successfully to treat people for regular phobias. A new challenge is to develop Virtual Reality Exposure Training for social skills. Virtual actors in such systems have to show appropriate social behavior including emotions, gaze, and keeping distance. The behavior must be realistic and real-time. Current approaches consist of four steps: 1) trainee social signal detection, 2) cognitive-affective interpretation, 3) determination of the appropriate bodily responses, and 4) actuation. The "cognitive" detour of such approaches does not match the directness of human bodily reflexes and causes unrealistic responses and delay. Instead, we propose virtual reflexes as concurrent sensory-motor processes to control virtual actors. Here we present a virtual reflexes architecture, explain how emotion and cognitive modulation are embedded, detail its workings, and give an example description of an aggression training application