9805694 Hodgins, Jessica K. Georgia Institute of Technology CISE PostDoc: Animation of Human Motion with Experimentally Determined Parameters Despite significant recent progress, creating believable animations of human motion remains a difficult task. One potential solution to this problem is to use control systems coupled with dynamic simulations of the human body to generate motion. The proposed research seeks to increase the realism of simulations by adding stylistic components to such motions as running and gesturing. These components will be extracted from experimental motion capture data of human actors and used to drive physically realistic simulations of humans. The postdoctoral associate will also explore whether the introduction of noise into a simulation enhances the appearance of the resulting motion. Noise characteristics will be experimentally quantified by asking test subjects to view animated sequences. A theoretical analysis of the simulations should determine a priori bounds on the amount of variation that can be added to a simulation without causing instability. The postdoctoral associate brings a strong background in control as well as expertise in motion capture experiments to the project. The knowledge gained from analyzing human motions and the introduction of noise into the motion will increase our understanding of how people move and may lead to applications in physical rehabilitation and sports medicine.
