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Chapter 68 — Human Motion Reconstruction

Katsu Yamane and Wataru Takano

This chapter presents a set of techniques for reconstructing and understanding human motions measured using current motion capture technologies. We first review modeling and computation techniques for obtaining motion and force information from human motion data (Sect. 68.2). Here we show that kinematics and dynamics algorithms for articulated rigid bodies can be applied to human motion data processing, with help from models based on knowledge in anatomy and physiology. We then describe methods for analyzing human motions so that robots can segment and categorize different behaviors and use them as the basis for human motion understanding and communication (Sect. 68.3). These methods are based on statistical techniques widely used in linguistics. The two fields share the common goal of converting continuous and noisy signal to discrete symbols, and therefore it is natural to apply similar techniques. Finally, we introduce some application examples of human motion and models ranging from simulated human control to humanoid robot motion synthesis.

Example of optical motion-capture data converted to joint-angle data

Author  Katsu Yamane

Video ID : 762

This video shows an example of optical motion-capture data converted to the joint-angle data of a robot model.

Example of muscle tensions computed from motion-capture data

Author  Katsu Yamane

Video ID : 763

This video shows an example of muscle tensions computed from motion-capture data. The muscle color changes from yellow to red as the tension increases. The blue lines represent tendons.

The Crystal Ball: Predicting future motions

Author  Katsu Yamane

Video ID : 764

This video shows a demonstration of The Crystal Ball, a system that predicts future motions based on a graphical motion model. The rightmost figure represents the current motion, while the other figures represent the predicted motions.

Human motion mapped to a humanoid robot

Author  Katsu Yamane

Video ID : 765

This video shows an example of a humanoid robot controlled using human motion. The robot is equipped with a tracking controller and a balance controller.

Converting human motion to sentences

Author  Katsu Yamane

Video ID : 766

This video shows an example of converting human motion sequences to descriptive sentences.