Publications by Daniel Thalmann

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The tutorial will explain the techniques for integrating virtual humans into virtual and real environments. It will first present the concept of avatars and autonomous virtual actors and the main techniques to create and animate them (body and face). It will present the concepts of behavioral animation, crowd simulation, intercommunication between virtual humans, and interaction between real humans and autonomous virtual humans. The tutorial will also address the advanced topics of real-time cloth animation

While virtual crowds are becoming common in non-real-time applications, the real-time domain is still relatively unexplored. In this paper we discuss the challenges involved in creating such simulations, especially the need to efficiently manage variety. We introduce the concept of levels of variety, then present our work on crowd behaviour simulation aimed at interactive real-time applications such as computer games or virtual environments. We define a modular behavioural architecture of a multi-agent syst

In this paper , we present a VR-based first-person view paradigm applied to a tele-surveillance application. Using an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV), we have developed an intuitive tangible interface between the pilot and his airship (blimp). The idea is to ma ...

We aim to create a model of emotional reactive virtual humans. This model will help to define realistic behavior for virtual characters based on emotions and events in the virtual environment to which they react. A large set of pre-recorded animations will ...

This paper presents an evaluation of the benefits and user acceptance of a multimodal interface in which the user interacts with a game-like interactive virtual reality application "The Enigma of the Sphinx". The interface consists of a large projection screen as the main display, a "magic wand", a stereo sound system and the user's voice for "casting spells". We present our conclusions concerning "friendliness" and sense of presence, based on observations of more than 150 users in a public event

Motion blending is widely accepted as a standard technique in computer animation, allowing the generation of new motions by interpolation and/or transition between motion capture sequences. To ensure smooth and seamless results, an important property has t ...

The problem of simulating deformations between objects and the hand of a synthetic character during a grasping process is addressed. A numerical method based on finite element theory allows one to take into account the active forces of the fingers on the object and the reactive forces of the object on the fingers. The method improves control of synthetic human behavior in a task level animation system because it provides information about the environment of a synthetic human and so can be compared to the se

Several ideas and experiments are presented for the creation and realistic animation of three-dimensional scenes involving human beings conscious of their environment. The various approaches should allow the intelligent creation of human beings using prototypes to generate their animation, based on mechanics, artificial intelligence and robotics. The authors discuss the problems involved in three major steps of the simulation of human beings: the creation of the human shapes, the motion of the human skeleto

We first explain how we create virtual humans today and how we simulate their movements. Then we explore the impact of computer-generated humans on medical research and education. In the area of orthopedics, we discuss the simulation of motion with joint illness and prosthesis. We then explain the simulation of effects of plastic surgery and facial deformations on facial motion and speech. In surgery, a graphics database of organs, combined with the impact of virtual reality, may lead to surgical interventi

Integrating virtual human animation in networked virtual environments (NVEs) has the potential to create severe network load issues. In NVEs, users are represented by their virtual embodiments. The articulated structure of these embodiments introduces a new complexity in the communication, representation and streaming of animations. This might create a significant overhead, especially as the number of participants in the simulation increases. In this paper, we present problems and solutions to efficiently t

In this study, we evaluate the usability of an eyetracking system as a diagnosis and assessment tool for visual avoidance behaviors in the context of social anxiety disorders. We conducted this study over five social phobic patients and five non phobic peo ...

Rendering and animating in real-time a multitude of articulated characters presents a real challenge, and few hardware systems are up to the task. Up to now, little research has been conducted to tackle the issue of real-time rendering of numerous virtual humans. This paper presents a hardware-independent technique that improves the display rate of animated characters by acting on the sole geometric and rendering information. We first review the acceleration techniques traditionally in use in computer graph

Computer-based simulations of human hip joints generally include investigating contacts happening among soft or hard tissues during hip movement. In many cases, hip movement is approximated as rotation about an estimated hip center. In this paper, we inves ...

In this paper, we present a new method for solving the Motion Retargeting Problem, by using an intermediate skeleton. This allows us to convert movements between hierarchically and geometrically different characters. An Inverse Kinematics engine is then used to enforce Cartesian constraints while staying as close as possible to the captured motion.

We show a practical use of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) to represent a portion of the web in 3D. Some issues of abstract data space visualization are addressed and a few propositions that improve navigation and legibility are made. BED (Bookmarks Exploring Dabbler) 3D bookmark generator is based on VRML version 1.0; therefore, only static scenes can be created. The interaction in such scenes is limited to navigation and link selection, there is no way to manipulate objects and modify the scene

Most of the efforts concerning graphical representations of humans (Virtual Humans) have been focused on synthesizing geometry for static or animated shapes. The next step is to consider a human body not only as a 3D shape, but as an active semantic entity ...

In the past decade, networked virtual environments (NVEs) have been an increasingly active area of research, with the first commercial systems emerging recently. Graphical and behavioral representation of users within such systems is a particularly important issue that has lagged in development behind other issues such as network architectures and space structuring. We expose the importance of using virtual humans within these systems and provide a brief overview of several virtual human technologies used i

Collision detection tests between objects dominate run time simulation of rigid body animation. Traditionally hierarchical bounding box tests are used to minimize collision detection time. But the bounding boxes do not take shapes of the objects into account which results in a large number of collision detection tests. We propose an adaptive spatial subdivision of the object space based on octree structure to rectify this problem. We also present a technique for efficiently updating this structure periodica

Populating virtual environments (VEs) with large crowds is a subject that has been tackled for several years. Solutions have been proposed to offer realistic trajectories as well as interactivity, but limitations remain on the environment dimensions with r ...

Daniel Thalmann

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Virtual humans for virtual reality and augmented reality

Towards interactive real-time crowd behavior simulation

The enigma of the sphinx

Immersive flight for surveillance applications

Multimodal authoring tool for populating a database of emotional reactive animations

Magic wand and the Enigma of the Sphinx

On-line adapted transition between locomotion and jump

Simulation of object and human skin deformations in a grasping task

The problematics of human prototyping and animation

Towards virtual humans in medicine: a prospective view

Efficient network transmission of virtual human bodies

Eye-tracking as Diagnosis and Assessment Tool for Social Phobia

Real-time display of virtual humans: levels of details and impostors

Sensitivity of hip tissues contact evaluation to the methods used for estimating the hip joint center of rotation

Using an Intermediate Skeleton and Inverse Kinematics for Motion Retargeting

Browsing 3D bookmarks in BED

An ontology of virtual humans: Incorporating semantics into human shapes

Simulating virtual humans in networked virtual environments

An adaptive spatial subdivision of the object space for fast collision detection of animated rigid bodies

Crowd Patches: Populating Large-Scale Virtual Environments for Real-Time Applications