Simulating Humans: Computer Graphics, Animation, and Control

Abstract

The decade of the 80's saw the dramatic expansion of high-performance computer graphics into domains previously able only to flirt with the technology. Among the most dramatic has been the incorporation of real-time interactive manipulation and display for human figures. Though actively pursued by several research groups, the problem of providing a virtual or synthetic human for an engineer or designer already accustomed to Computer-Aided Design techniques was most comprehensively attacked by the Computer Graphics Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. The breadth of that effort as well as the details of its methodology and software environment are presented in this volume. This book is intended for human factors engineers requiring current knowledge of how a computer graphics surrogate human can augment their analyses of designed environments. It will also help inform design engineers of the state-of-the-art in human figure modeling, and hence the human-centered design central to the emergent notion of Concurrent Engineering. Finally, it documents for the computer graphics community a major research effort in the interactive control and motion speci cation of articulated human figures.