Project Details
Projekt
The Development of an Autonomously Interacting Avatar within a Virtual Reality Environment for Researching the Anticipation Ability in Martial Arts
Subject Area
Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Term
from 2014 to 2017
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 252070407
One goal of sports scientific research in the field of anticipation is to create realistic environments. It has been shown that virtual environments that are very similar to real settings evoke realistic reactions in athletes. Previous studies have confirmed that Virtual Reality (VR) can be successfully applied for this purpose. Therein, Virtual Reality has many advantages over the presentation by two dimensional projection screens and computer displays. Amongst the first and foremost advantages of VR is the third dimension that generates a feeling of spatial perception within the users. Further benefits of VR are the high standard of ecological validity, standardization, controllability as well as the possibility to manipulate selected parameters (e.g. temporal and spatial occlusion). However, as far as we know, there is still a big disadvantage in regards to the created virtual opponents. Thus, with these virtual systems it is neither possible to respond to the movements or actions of a real athlete, nor are they interactive. In cooperation with the department of computer science of the Chemnitz University of Technology an interactive virtual opponent shall be developed to overcome these deficits. Based on a rule system, a novel avatar is generated which inherits the necessary short reaction times and which can respond to the real athlete. In addition, the avatar will have a most realistic appearance. From the computer graphics point of view there is still a deficit in the research of the availability of a workflow from the capturing of movement data up to an interactive animation of the virtual opponents skeleton and a realistic presentation of its mesh (the digital humans outward appearance). Moreover, it shall be evaluated in the present project whether a hybrid method of computation (computations done on the graphical processing unit (GPU) and the central processing unit (CPU) simultaneously) can be used to realize our goals.Beyond that, the interactive opponent has to be evaluated in regards to its versatility. More specifically, the evaluation will contain a comparison of reactions of a) an opponent in real life, b) the not interactive opponent and c) the here generated interactive opponent.Finally, the results acquired in the course of the present project will be evaluated concerning the question whether the concept of an autonomously interacting avatar can be successfully adapted to similar types of martial arts.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
