BETTY: planning and generating animations for the visualization of movements and spatial relations

ABSTRACT

In this work the problem of synthesizing an animation is regarded as a planning problem, and the result is an animation planner that, starting from a visualization goal, plans a script for an animation including all low-level camera and object motions. The system takes all decisions about camera positions, zooms, moves and cuts considering the actual context as well as some fundamental filmmaking rules. The script is then realized by a given animation system which computes the single frames and does the playback.BETTY is part of the multimodal user interface WIP, that investigates the plan-based automatic generation of multimodal operation instructions for technical devices.Presently, BETTY is able to compute animations to demonstrate movements, to localize parts of a device and to explode assemblies.

REFERENCES

• AR90: Elisabeth Andre, Thomas Rist, "Wissensbasiertc Informationsprtisentation: Zwei Beitrtige zum GI- Fachgesprtich Graphik und KI" In: Research Report RR-90-07,1993 DFKI GmbH, Stuhlsatzcnhausweg 3, 66123 Saarbriicken.
• BW90: Norman I. Badler , Bonnie L. Webber , Jugal Kalita , Jeffrey Esakov, Animation from instructions, Making them move: mechanics, control, and animation of articulated figures, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1991
• Fn89: D. D. Seligmann , S. Feiner, Specifying composite illustrations with communicative goals, Proceedings of the 2nd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.1-9, November 13-15, 1989, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States [doi>10.1145/73660.73661]
• Ma75: Jorg Michael Matthaei: " Grundfragcn des Grafik- Design", Heinz Moos Verlag Miinchen, 1975, TSBti 3-7879-0081-O
• KF90: P. Karp , S. Feiner, Issues in the automated generation of animated presentations, Proceedings on Graphics interface '90, p.39-48, June 1990, Halifax, Nova Scotia

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Animations

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Animation

  J. Computer Applications
  J.6 COMPUTER-AIDED ENGINEERING
      Subjects: Computer-aided design (CAD)

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Documentation, Human Factors