“Efficient generation of motion transitions using spacetime constraints” by Rose, Guenter, Bodenheimer and Cohen

This paper describes the application of space time constraints to creating transitions between segments of human body motion. The motion transition generation uses a combination of spacetime constraints and inverse kinematic constraints to generate seamless and dynamically plausible transitions between motion segments. We use a fast recursive dynamics formulation which makes it possible to use spacetime constraints on systems with many degrees of freedom, such as human figures. The system uses an interpreter of a motion expression language to allow the user to manipulate motion data, break it into pieces, and reassemble it into new, more complex, motions. We have successfully used the system to create basis motions, cyclic data, and seamless motion transitions on a human body model with 44 degrees of freedom.

1. BALAFOUTIS, C. A., AND PATEL, R. V. Dynamic Analysis of Robot Manipulators: A Cartesian Tensor Approach. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
2. BRUDERLIN, A., AND WILLIAMS, L. Motion signal processing. In Computer Graphics (Aug. 1995), pp. 97-104. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95.
3. BURDETT, R. G., SKRINAR, G. S., ANDSIMON, S.R. Comparison of mechanical work and metabolic energy consumption during normal gait. Journal of Orhopaedic Research 1, 1 (1983), 63-72.
4. COHEN, M. F. Interactive spacetime control for animation. In Computer Graphics (July 1992), pp. 293-302. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 92.
5. GILL, P. E., MURRAY, W., AND WRIGHT, M. H. Practical Optimization. Academic Press, 1981.
6. HOLLERBACH, J. M. A recursive lagrangian formulation of manipulator dynamics and a comparative study of dynamics formulation complexity. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics SMC-IO, 11 (Nov. 1980).
7. LIU, Z., AND COHEN, M. F. An efficient symbolic interface to constraint based animation systems. In Proceedings of the 5th EuroGraphics Workshop on Animation and Simulation (Sept. 1994).
8. LIU, Z., GORTLER, S. J., AND COHEN, M. F. Hierarchical spacetime control. In Computer Graphics (July 1994), pp. 35- 42. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 94.
9. UNUMA, M., ANJYO, K., AND TEKEUCHI, R. Fourier principles for emotion-based human figure animation. In Computer Graphics (Aug. 1995), pp. 91-96. Proceedings of SIG- GRAPH 95.
10. WITKIN, A., AND KASS, M. Spacetime constraints. In Computer Graphics (Aug. 1988), pp. 159-168. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 88.
11. WITKIN, A., AND POPOVfC, Z. Motion warping. In Computer Graphics (Aug. 1995), pp. 105-108. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95.
12. ZHAO, J., AND BADLER, N. I. Inverse kinematics positioning using non-linear programming for highly articulated figures. ACM Transactions on Graphics 13, 4 (Oct. 1994), 313- 336.