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                   B O S T O N   U N I V E R S I T Y
                                       
                      Computer Science Department
                                       
                          C O L L O Q U I U M

	        Physically Based Motion Transformation


                            Zoran Popovic

		     Computer Science Department
	    	      Carnegie Mellon University

 			 Wednesday, April 21
                                       
                                11:00am
                       (Coffee served at 10:45am)

                                       
                         Seminar Room / MCS 135
                                       

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    Automatic generation of realistic human motion has been a
    long-standing problem in computer graphics.  This talk presents a
    novel algorithm for transforming character animation sequences
    that preserves essential physical properties of the motion.  The
    algorithm maintains realism of the original motion sequence
    without sacrificing the full user control of the editing process
    by using the spacetime constraints dynamics formulation.
      
    In contrast to most physically-based animation techniques that
    synthesize motion from scratch, we take the approach of motion
    transformation as the underlying paradigm for generating
    computer animations.  In doing so, we combine the expressive
    richness of the input animation sequence with the
    controllability of spacetime optimization to create a wide range
    of realistic character animations.  Spacetime dynamics
    formulation also allows editing of intuitive high-level motion
    concepts such as the time and placement of footprints, length
    and mass of various extremities, number of joints and gravity.
    For example, a human running sequence can be transformed into a
    dynamically correct run with a limp just by restricting the
    range of motion of the knee joint.
      
    This algorithm is well suited for reuse of highly detailed
    captured motion animations.  It also provides a methodology for
    mapping a motion to/from characters with drastically different
    number of degrees of freedom.  Furthermore, our approach
    provides a paradigm for controlling complex dynamic and
    kinematic systems with simpler ones with possible applications
    to robotics.

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    Zoran Popovic is currently a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at
    Carnegie Mellon University.  His research interests include
    computer animation, computer graphics, nonlinearly constrained
    optimization, motion planning and biomechanics. Prior to attending
    Carnegie Mellon, he graduated with honors from Brown University,
    also in computer science. He has also held positions at Sun
    Microsystems and Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center.
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    Host: Stan Sclaroff (sclaroff@cs.bu.edu)

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For colloquium info, including directions, see http://cs-www.bu.edu/colloquium
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