Accurate on-line avatar control with collision anticipation

ABSTRACT

Interactive control of a virtual character through full body movement has a wide range of applications. However, there is a need for systems that accurately reproduce the motion of a performer while accounting for surrounding obstacles. We propose an approach based on a Prioritized Inverse Kinematics constraint solver. Several markers are placed on the user's body. A set of kinematic constraints make the virtual character track these markers. At the same time, we monitor the instantaneous displacements of a set of geometric primitives, called observers, attached to different parts of the virtual character. When an observer enters the influence area of an obstacle, its motion is damped by means of automatically created preventive constraints. The IK solver satisfies both maker and preventive constraints simultaneously, yielding postures of the virtual character that remain close to those of the user, while avoiding collisions with the virtual environment. Our performance measurements show the maturity of the IK technology for real-time full-body interactions.

REFERENCES

• 1: Baciu, G., Wong, S. K. 2000. The Impulse Graph: A New Dynamic Structure for Global Collisions. Computer Graphics Forum 19(3), 229--238.
• 2: Badler, N. I., Hollick, M. J., Granieri, J. P. 1993. Real-Time Control of a Virtual Human Using Minimal Sensors. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2, 82--86.
• 3: Paolo Baerlocher , Ronan Boulic, An inverse kinematics architecture enforcing an arbitrary number of strict priority levels, The Visual Computer: International Journal of Computer Graphics, v.20 n.6, p.402-417, August 2004 [doi>10.1007/s00371-004-0244-4]
• 4: van den Berg, J., Ferguson, D., Kuffner, J. 2006. Anytime path planning and replanning in dynamic environments. In Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '06), 2366--2371.
• 5: Christoph W. Borst , Arun P. Indugula, Realistic Virtual Grasping, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Conference 2005 on Virtual Reality, p.91-98, 320, March 12-16, 2005 [doi>10.1109/VR.2005.65]
• 6: Doug A. Bowman , Larry F. Hodges, An evaluation of techniques for grabbing and manipulating remote objects in immersive virtual environments, Proceedings of the 1997 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, p.35-ff., April 27-30, 1997, Providence, Rhode Island, United States [doi>10.1145/253284.253301]
• 7: Brock, O., Khatib., O. 2002. Elastic Strips: A Framework for Motion Generation in Human Environments. International Journal of Robotics Research, 21(12), 1031--1052.
• 8: Eric Burns , Sharif Razzaque , Abigail T. Panter , Mary C. Whitton , Matthew R. McCallus , Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The hand is more easily fooled than the eye: users are more sensitive to visual interpenetration than to visual-proprioceptive discrepancy, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, v.15 n.1, p.1-15, February 2006 [doi>10.1162/pres.2006.15.1.1]
• 9: Eric Burns , Frederick P. Brooks, Perceptual sensitivity to visual/kinesthetic discrepancy in hand speed, and why we might care, Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology, November 01-03, 2006, Limassol, Cyprus [doi>10.1145/1180495.1180499]
• 10: Fiorini, P., Shiller, Z. 1993. Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments Using the Relative Velocity Paradigm. In Proc. of the 1993 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 1. 560--565.
• 11: Garber, M., Lin, M. C. 2002. Constraint-based Motion Planning Using Voronoi Diagrams. In Proc. of Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics.
• 12: Naga K. Govindaraju , Ming C. Lin , Dinesh Manocha, Efficient collision culling among deformable objects using graphics processors, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, v.15 n.1, p.62-76, February 2006 [doi>10.1162/pres.2006.15.1.62]
• 13: Young J. Kim , Stephane Redon , Ming C. Lin , Dinesh Manocha , Jim Templeman, Interactive Continuous Collision Detection Using Swept Volume for Avatars, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, v.16 n.2, p.206-223, April 2007 [doi>10.1162/pres.16.2.206]
• 14: Jehee Lee , Jinxiang Chai , Paul S. A. Reitsma , Jessica K. Hodgins , Nancy S. Pollard, Interactive control of avatars animated with human motion data, Proceedings of the 29th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, July 23-26, 2002, San Antonio, Texas
• 15: Robert W. Lindeman , John L. Sibert , James N. Templeman, The Effect of 3D Widget Representation and Simulated Surface Constraints on Interaction in Virtual Environments, Proceedings of the Virtual Reality 2001 Conference (VR'01), p.141, March 13-17, 2001
• 16: Benjamin Chak Lum Lok , Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., Interacting with dynamic real objects in virtual environments, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002
• 17: Maciejewski, A. A., Klein, C. A. 1985. Obstacle Avoidance for Kinematically Redundant Manipulators in Dynamically Varying Environments. International Journal of Robotics Research, 4(3), 109--117.
• 18: Ronald Metoyer , Victor Zordan , Benjamin Hermens , Chun-Chi Wu , Marc Soriano, Psychologically Inspired Anticipation and Dynamic Response for Impacts to the Head and Upper Body, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, v.14 n.1, p.173-185, January 2008 [doi>10.1109/TVCG.2007.70427]
• 19: Peinado, M., Boulic, R., Le Callennec, B., Meziat, D. 2005. Progressive Cartesian Inequality Constraints for the Inverse Kinematics Control of Articulated Chains. In Proc. of Eurographics 2005, Short Presentations Session, 93--96.
• 20: Peinado, M., Boulic, R., Raunhardt, D., Meziat, D. 2006. Environmental-aware Postural Control of Virtual Humans for Real-time Applications. In Proc. of the 2006 SAE Digital Human Modeling Conference.
• 21: Raunhardt, D., Boulic, R. 2007. Exploiting Coupled Joints. In Proc. of 2^nd International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (GRAPP '07).
• 22: Rosenbaum, D. A., Meulenbroek, R. J., Vaughan, J. 2001. Planning reaching and grasping movements: theoretical premises and practical implications. Motor Control, 5(2), 99--115.
• 23: Ari Shapiro , Marcelo Kallmann , Petros Faloutsos, Interactive motion correction and object manipulation, Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics and games, April 30-May 02, 2007, Seattle, Washington [doi>10.1145/1230100.1230124]
• 24: David J. Sturman, Computer Puppetry, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.18 n.1, p.38-45, January 1998 [doi>10.1109/38.637269]
• 25: Deepak Tolani , Ambarish Goswami , Norman I. Badler, Real-time inverse kinematics techniques for anthropomorphic limbs, Graphical Models and Image Processing, v.62 n.5, p.353-388, Sept. 2000
• 26: Thomas Ullmann , Joerg Sauer, Intuitive Virtual Grasping for Non Haptic Environments, Proceedings of the 8th Pacific Conference on Computer Graphics and Applications, p.373, October 03-05, 2000
• 27: Zhao, X., Badler, N. 1994. Interactive Body Awareness. Computer-Aided Design, 26(12), 861--866.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.6 Methodology and Techniques
          Subjects: Interaction techniques

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

Keywords:
character animation, collision avoidance, inverse kinematics, motion capture, virtual reality