Tangible and modular input device for character articulation

Alec Jacobson, Daniele Panozzo, Oliver Glauser, Cédric Pradalier, Otmar Hilliges, Olga Sorkine-Hornung
2014 ACM SIGGRAPH 2014 Studio on - SIGGRAPH '14  
Figure 1 : Assembled from modular, interchangeable, and hot-pluggable parts (left), our novel device forms a skeletal tree matching the Elephant. As the user manipulates each joint of the device, measured bone rotations animate a skeletal rig, and the Elephant comes to life. Abstract Articulation of 3D characters requires control over many degrees of freedom: a difficult task with standard 2D interfaces. We present a tangible input device composed of interchangeable, hot-pluggable parts.
more » ... d sensors measure the device's pose at rates suitable for real-time editing and animation. Splitter parts allow branching to accommodate any skeletal tree. During assembly, the device recognizes topological changes as individual parts or pre-assembled subtrees are plugged and unplugged. A novel semi-automatic registration approach helps the user quickly map the device's degrees of freedom to a virtual skeleton inside the character. User studies report favorable comparisons to mouse and keyboard interfaces for the tasks of target acquisition and pose replication. Our device provides input for character rigging and automatic weight computation, direct skeletal deformation, interaction with physical simulations, and handle-based variational geometric modeling.
doi:10.1145/2619195.2656330 dblp:conf/siggraph/JacobsonPGPHS14 fatcat:uzu5kui4mrbrjlgxibjysf2vty