Jeremiah: the face of computer vision

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a humanoid computer interface (Jeremiah) that is capable of extracting moving objects from a video stream and responding by directing the gaze of an animated head toward it. It further responds through change of expression reflecting the emotional state of the system as a response to stimuli. As such, the system exhibits similar behavior to a child. The system was originally designed as a robust visual tracking system capable of performing accurately and consistently within a real world visual surveillance arena. As such, it provides a system capable of operating reliably in any environment both indoor and outdoor. Originally designed as a public interface to promote computer vision and the public understanding of science (exhibited in British Science Museum), Jeremiah provides the first step to a new form of intuitive computer interface.

REFERENCES

• 1: Bowden R, Learning Statistical Models of Human Motion, IEEE Workshop on Human Modelling, Analysis and Synthesis, CVPR2000, Hilton Head Island, 16 July 2000.
• 2: Bowden, R., Mitchell, T., A., Sarhadi, M., Non-linear Statistical Models for the 3D Reconstruction of Human Pose and Motion from Monocular Image Sequences. Image and Vision Computing, 18(9), pp729-737, June 2000.
• 3: Cynthia Breazeal , Brian Scassellati, A Context-Dependent Attention System for a Social Robot, Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, p.1146-1153, July 31-August 06, 1999
• 4: Devin, V., E., Hogg, D., C., Reactive Memories: An Interactive Talking-Head. In: proc British Machine Vision Conference, Machester 2001.
• 5: W. E. L. Grimson , C. Stauffer , R. Romano , L. Lee, Using Adaptive Tracking to Classify and Monitor Activities in a Site, Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, p.22, June 23-25, 1998
• 6: Horprasert, T., Harwood, D., Davis, L. S. a statistical approach for real-time robust background subtraction and shadow detection, in IEEE ICCV'99 FRAME-RATE WORKSHOP. 1999.
• 7: KaewTraKulPong, P. Bowden, R., Adaptive Visual System for Tracking Low Resolution Colour Targets. in The British Machine Vision Conference. University of Manchester. 2001.
• 8: KaewTraKulPong, P., Bowden, R., An Improved Adaptive Background Mixture Model for Real-time Tracking with Shadow Detection. in 2nd European Workshop on Advanced Video-based Surveillance Systems.Kingston upon Thames. 2001.
• 9: Pattie Maes , Trevor Darrell , Bruce Blumberg , Alex Pentland, The ALIVE system: wireless, full-body interaction with autonomous agents, Multimedia Systems, v.5 n.2, p.105-112, March 1997 [doi>10.1007/s005300050046]
• 10: Moore, G., Talking Heads: Facial Animation in The Getaway. Gamasutra Feature, April 2001, http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010418/
• 11: Stauffer C, Grimson W. E. L. Adaptive background mixture models for real-time tracking. in Proceedings. 1999 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (Cat. No PR00149). IEEE Comput. Soc. Part Vol. 2, 1999.
• 12: Chris Stauffer , W. Eric L. Grimson, Learning Patterns of Activity Using Real-Time Tracking, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, v.22 n.8, p.747-757, August 2000 [doi>10.1109/34.868677]
• 13: Thórisson, K. R. Layered Modular Action Control for Communicative Humanoids. Computer Animation '97, Geneva, Switzerland, June 5-6, 134-143. 1997.
• 14: Waters, K., Rehg, J., Loughlin, M., Kang, S. B., Terzopoulos, D. Visual Sensing of Humans for Active Public Interfaces, In: Computer Vision for Human-Machine Interaction, Cipolla, R. and Pentland, A. (eds), Cambridge University Press (1998) 83-96
• 15: Keith Waters, A muscle model for animation three-dimensional facial expression, ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, v.21 n.4, p.17-24, July 1987
• 16: Christopher Richard Wren , Ali Azarbayejani , Trevor Darrell , Alex Paul Pentland, Pfinder: Real-Time Tracking of the Human Body, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, v.19 n.7, p.780-785, July 1997 [doi>10.1109/34.598236]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

Additional Classification:
  G. Mathematics of Computing
  G.3 PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.10 Vision and Scene Understanding
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.6 Methodology and Techniques
  I.4 IMAGE PROCESSING AND COMPUTER VISION
      I.4.6 Segmentation
      I.4.8 Scene Analysis

General Terms:
Algorithms, Human Factors, Security

Keywords:
artificial life, computer vision, human computer interaction, interactive virtual humans, public understanding of science