Improving Communication Using 3D Animation [chapter]

Laurent Ruhlmann, Benoit Ozell, Michel Gagnon, Steve Bourgoin, Eric Charton
2010 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
This paper presents a high level view of a project which aims at improving the communication between people who do not share the same language by using a 3D animation upper layer to lift the inherent limitations of written text. We will produce animation using the Collada file format, a standard based on the XML format. This project (GITAN ) has started in January 2010, and we expect to have the first results by the end of 2010. A limited set of sentences will validate the global process and
more » ... p us refine the tools developed in the pipeline. Animated scenes have already been used as a good medium to help the communication between adults and children [2] , to illustrate domain specific activities like car accident simulations [3], or even for storytelling [4] . Another important project was aimed at the object reuse and the adaptation of 3D data for automatic scene creation [5] . The major difference between those projects and this one comes from the application domain and the linguistics approach we are taking. We want to cover a broader set of words, not limiting ourselves to a specific domain like car accidents. We want also limit the number of original animations to a minimum. In the first phase, we will not handle emotions or high level of languages like poetry. One of the hypotheses of this project is that we will be able to reconcile the text and the animated image which is distinct types of representations [6] . We believe that animations will facilitate the understanding of a text, in different languages. Another hypothesis is that the principle of compositionality [7] is also applicable to animations. Being able to compose various animations in order to produce a plausible sequence is key to the project; we have already validated some simple cases. A third hypothesis is that the computer graphics field is mature and rich enough to be used as a good communication medium. We are not planning to develop videogame-like animations, but the realism achieved by some current games gives us some confidence about the validity of this hypothesis, even if the goal of the project is communication and not realism; In fact too much realism could limit effective communications between non-native speakers, since each culture has its own visual standard for representing emotions or complex actions. A final major hypothesis is that through proper usage of semantic tools ( like ontologies ), applied to the computer graphics domain, we will be able to minimize the amount of objects and animation to be modeled , in order to produce meaningful animations.
doi:10.1007/978-3-642-15384-6_44 fatcat:yawkovlizbfz7b73qen52f4np4