Digital Human Modeling

Greetings from Beijing. Between jet lag and merciless schmoozing, I’ve been unable to get to posting as frequently as I’d hoped. Here’s an update:

  1. I have still not slept an entire night. My body clock is definitely discombobulated but I think it’s on London time. Hmmmm.
  2. The Conference opened on Tuesday with a Plenary Session that included an interesting speech by Dr. Takeo Kanade. He’s done some interesting stuff, including the robotic camera system used to take the matrix like shots of players in the Super Bowl. His area of focus right now is Human Modeling. His premise is that the human is the weakest link in a system and therefore we should spend a good deal of time modeling human behavior and construction digitally. He’s already done some work cataloging and modeling human feet, hands, and gestures for a number of commercial clients. He created a machine that electronically scans feet (think 3D CAT scan) and provides an accurate shoe size. This machine is creating a huge database of the shapes of human feet. Dr. Kanade hopes to create a database of how feet change over 30 years of growth and use. He’s helped auto manufacturers create a passive monitoring system that can accurately predict what control you are going to touch based on the motions you begin making and your kinetic structure. My favorite project is a web site that allows mothers in Japan to describe a room in their house and then tell them all of the ways their child can get hurt in it. It’s part of his QoLT program. Apparently it’s quite popular. No English translation yet.
  3. Wednesday provided some very interesting sessions including HCI for Aviation, Social Computing, Smart Living Spaces, “Neurotechnology and Augmented Cognition Applications: Present and Future” and more.
  4. We had the most amazing Peking (Beijing) Duck for Lunch. Our friend Chong speaks Cantonese and found a famous restaurant about 5 minutes ($1.50 cab ride) from the Olympic Crater (are they really going to be ready for next summer?).
  5. I’ve finally got a presentation that I am proud of. No more nitpicking in PowerPoint for this guy.
  6. It’s 6:30 AM so now I have to go through my very artificial morning ritual.

That’s my report for now. This has definitely been an interesting expedition.

Posted by Joseph Juhnke on July 25, 2007

Write a Comment on Digital Human Modeling

Comments on Digital Human Modeling are now closed.

More

Read more posts by Joseph Juhnke