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JVRB, 10(2013), no. 6. - Non-verbal communication (NVC) is considered to represent more than 90 percent of everyday communication. In virtual world, this important aspect of interaction between virtual humans (VH) is strongly neglected.... more
JVRB, 10(2013), no. 6. - Non-verbal communication (NVC) is considered to represent more than 90 percent of everyday communication. In virtual world, this important aspect of interaction between virtual humans (VH) is strongly neglected. This paper presents a user-test study to demonstrate the impact of automatically generated graphics-based NVC expression on the dialog quality: first, we wanted to compare impassive and emotion facial expression simulation for impact on the chatting. Second, we wanted to see whether people like chatting within a 3D graphical environment. Our model only proposes facial expressions and head movements induced from spontaneous chatting between VHs. Only subtle facial expressions are being used as nonverbal cues - i.e. related to the emotional model. Motion capture animations related to hand gestures, such as cleaning glasses, were randomly used to make the virtual human lively. After briefly introducing the technical architecture of the 3D-chatting syste...
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ABSTRACTIn this paper, we propose a method to achieve effective facial emotional expressivity for embodied conversational agents by considering two types of asymmetry when exploiting the valence–arousal–dominance representation of... more
ABSTRACTIn this paper, we propose a method to achieve effective facial emotional expressivity for embodied conversational agents by considering two types of asymmetry when exploiting the valence–arousal–dominance representation of emotions. Indeed, the asymmetry of facial expressions helps to convey complex emotional feelings such as conflicting and/or hidden emotions due to social conventions. To achieve such a higher degree of facial expression in a generic way, we propose a new model for mapping the valence–arousal–dominance emotion model onto a set of 12 scalar facial part actions built mostly by combining pairs of antagonist action units from the Facial Action Coding System. The proposed linear model can automatically drive a large number of autonomous virtual humans or support the interactive design of complex facial expressions over time. By design, our approach produces symmetric facial expressions, as expected for most of the emotional spectrum. However, more complex ambiva...
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Abstract. The ability to correctly identify the existence and polarity of emotion in informal, textual communication is a very important part of a realistic and immersive 3D environment where people communicate with one another through... more
Abstract. The ability to correctly identify the existence and polarity of emotion in informal, textual communication is a very important part of a realistic and immersive 3D environment where people communicate with one another through avatars or with an automated system. Such a feature would provide the system the ability to realistically represent the mood and intentions of the participants, thus greatly enhancing their experience. In this paper, we study and compare a number of approaches for detecting whether a textual utterance is of ...
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The communication between avatar and agent has already been treated from different but specialized perspectives. In contrast, this paper gives a balanced view of every key architectural aspect: from text analysis to computer graphics, the... more
The communication between avatar and agent has already been treated from different but specialized perspectives. In contrast, this paper gives a balanced view of every key architectural aspect: from text analysis to computer graphics, the chatting system and the emotional model. Non-verbal communication, such as facial expression, gaze, or head orientation is crucial to simulate realistic behavior, but is still an aspect neglected in the simulation of virtual societies. In response, this paper aims to present the necessary modularity to allow virtual humans (VH) conversation with consistent facial expression -either between two users through their avatars, between an avatar and an agent, or even between an avatar and a Wizard of Oz. We believe such an approach is particularly suitable for the design and implementation of applications involving VHs interaction in virtual worlds. To this end, three key features are needed to design and implement this system entitled 3D-emoChatting. Fi...
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In the context of the "Stay Fit Longer" European project, aiming at developing a tablet application with gamified activities that prevents cognitive and physical decline in seniors, we implemented different gamification... more
In the context of the "Stay Fit Longer" European project, aiming at developing a tablet application with gamified activities that prevents cognitive and physical decline in seniors, we implemented different gamification strategies for studying adherence in the elderly population. Using proven mechanism from the mobile entertainment industry, such as daily activities, leader boards, achievements, temporal limitation and reward system for customization of social avatars, we are measuring the usage and performance of 120 subjetcs in Belgium, Switzerland and Canada during the next 18 months. We expect that one of the greatest motivation factors come from intrinsic rewards of their social enviroment by being congratulated by their relative for their dedication and performances
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The GSGS'18 conference is at the interface between industrial needs and original answers by highlighting the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological, management and communication challenges. Bringing together the... more
The GSGS'18 conference is at the interface between industrial needs and original answers by highlighting the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological, management and communication challenges. Bringing together the strengths of our country, this event provides a solid bridge between academia and industry through the intervention of more than 40 national and international actors. In parallel with the 53 presentations and demos, the public will be invited to participate actively through places of exchange and round tables.
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Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Information Visualization, Cellular Automata, and 15 moreReal-time rendering, Performance Evaluation, Gpgpu, CUDA, Real Time, Technological Development, Medical Visualization, Emergent Behavior, Natural Phenomena, Three Dimensional, Bottom Up, Top Down, Test Bed, Cellular automaton, and interactive user interface
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The GSGS’20 conference aims to be a bridge between industrial needs and original academic answers in the domain of Gamification and Serious Gaming. It highlights the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological,... more
The GSGS’20 conference aims to be a bridge between industrial needs and original academic answers in the domain of Gamification and Serious Gaming. It highlights the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological, management and communication challenges. Bringing together the strengths of academy and industry, this event provides an exchange and networking platform through the intervention of national and international actors
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The GSGS'19 conference is at the interface between industrial needs and original answers by highlighting the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological, management and communication challenges. Bringing together the... more
The GSGS'19 conference is at the interface between industrial needs and original answers by highlighting the playful perspective to tackle technical, training, ecological, management and communication challenges. Bringing together the strengths of our country, this event provides a solid bridge between academia and industry through the intervention of more than 40 national and international actors. In parallel with the 53 presentations and demos, the public will be invited to participate actively through places of exchange and round tables.
Medical experts commonly use imaging including Computed Tomography (CT), Positron-Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for diagnosis or to plan a surgery. These scans give a highly detailed representation of the... more
Medical experts commonly use imaging including Computed Tomography (CT), Positron-Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for diagnosis or to plan a surgery. These scans give a highly detailed representation of the patient anatomy, but the usual Three-Dimensional (3D) separate visualisations on screens does not provide an convenient and performant understanding of the real anatomical complexity. This paper presents a computer architecture allowing medical staff to visualise and interact in real-time holographic fused CT, PET, MRI of patients. A dedicated workstation with a wireless connection enables real-time General-Purpose Processing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) ray casting computation through the mixed reality (MR) headset. The hologram can be manipulated with hand gestures and voice commands through the following interaction features: instantaneous visualisation and manipulation of 3D scans with a frame rate of 30 fps and a delay lower than 120 ms...
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through ergonomic changes in the work environment and advice given to workers on how to protect themselves. Virtual Reality and motion tracking can be powerful tools to enhance the training given to the workers, combining these new... more
through ergonomic changes in the work environment and advice given to workers on how to protect themselves. Virtual Reality and motion tracking can be powerful tools to enhance the training given to the workers, combining these new technologies into a Serious Game. Inspired by real work situations, the game intends to teach the user to reproduce movements and postures commonly encountered while working. The game in itself is a puzzle game, where the user has to align gears correctly in order to make the system rotate. To complete a level, the user must solve the puzzle while maintaining correct positions and postures. This should show the user the danger some incorrect behaviours represent and help him change them while staying entertained and motivated. VIRTUAL REALITY PUZZLE GAME FOR MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS PREVENTION
Architectural sites suffers from weathering effects such as liquid sedimentation, lampblack or pollution deposit, moss growing or longterm erosion. Displaying their impact on present buildings could help deciders to plan relevant actions... more
Architectural sites suffers from weathering effects such as liquid sedimentation, lampblack or pollution deposit, moss growing or longterm erosion. Displaying their impact on present buildings could help deciders to plan relevant actions for preserving the architectural heritage. In this paper we present a user-friendly solution for on-line acquiring a semi-physical model from one or few images of a building, immediately followed by real-time simulations. The goal is certainly not to give an accurate prediction of what will happen, but rather to show a plausible state of the site under various possible degradations arising from natural effects. The solution relies on the coupling of two 3-D modelling programs: one dedicated to interactive reconstructions and a second to discreet manipulation for natural phenomena simulations based on a combination of different surface cellular automata. Several experiments were held to estimate the effectiveness of this approach and to identify futu...
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As a non-medical professional, reacting to an emergency situation where life is at stake is not an easy task: knowing the minimum procedure to react to such a situation is a question that most people just cannot answer. This paper... more
As a non-medical professional, reacting to an emergency situation where life is at stake is not an easy task: knowing the minimum procedure to react to such a situation is a question that most people just cannot answer. This paper proposes a serious game using a simple picture-based navigation which provides a training tool for common people. This serious game wants above all that everyone can fully know the four priorities of action: (1) keep calm, (2) evaluate the situation, (3) identify the dangers, and (4), call for help.For practical purposes, the domain of early childhood has been selected to train educators for five typical major accidents they will probably encounter with children. Two of these accidents were fully developed, parameterized, and tested. This paper focuses are: first, on the medical and social needs, demonstrating how important first-witness reactions are in an emergency scene; second, on how different domain experts and professionals were brought together; th...
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Catching up the first introduction paper of last year conference, we take the opportunity to reinforce the diAerence between three frequently mixed up concepts: “simulation”, “gamification” and “serious games”. The reason for this... more
Catching up the first introduction paper of last year conference, we take the opportunity to reinforce the diAerence between three frequently mixed up concepts: “simulation”, “gamification” and “serious games”. The reason for this confusion could be that they often share the same domain of application or medium, and even, in some cases, overlap themselves. However they are distinct concepts, and it is therefore important to make distinctions between these diAerent practices. We can note that “eLearning”, being a term that is relatively well defined and understood, is not further detailed here, as it was in last year paper.
This paper presents a novel approach towards dynamic street light control, which combines advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and citizens’ involvement and engagement. Our proposal is based on the Citizens’... more
This paper presents a novel approach towards dynamic street light control, which combines advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and citizens’ involvement and engagement. Our proposal is based on the Citizens’ involvement which would strongly increases the efficiency and performance of technological solutions in smart city context. We believe that Serious Games have the potential to strengthen people motivation in this context.
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This paper describes in one hand a computer graphics method for simulating corrosion imperfections on a single surface and in the other hand, presents briefly a more general 3D model. The method demonstrates the ability of the proposed 3D... more
This paper describes in one hand a computer graphics method for simulating corrosion imperfections on a single surface and in the other hand, presents briefly a more general 3D model. The method demonstrates the ability of the proposed 3D data structures for modeling realistic looking textures. We first propose a technique valid for generating the corrosion propagation on a single polygonal non-linear surface and the corrosion painting using a aqueous flow. The perspective of a more general model is then discussed. Finally, a series of examples illustrates the promising potential of this model.
Keywords: Artificial retina ; algorithm and architecture ; image processing ; cellular automata ; interactive cellular network Note: in French Reference EPFL-CONF-164432 Record created on 2011-03-23, modified on 2016-08-09
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Keywords: Artificial retina ; Cellular automata ; Graphical processor ; Architectural algorithm adequation Note: in French Reference EPFL-CONF-164429 Record created on 2011-03-23, modified on 2016-08-09
Reconstructing objects in three dimensions (3D) has always been one of the primary tasks in the domain of computer graphics (CG). Succeeding in this task in real-time, including texture reconstruction, and with very low-cost hardware is... more
Reconstructing objects in three dimensions (3D) has always been one of the primary tasks in the domain of computer graphics (CG). Succeeding in this task in real-time, including texture reconstruction, and with very low-cost hardware is the challenge presented in this paper. Graphical processor unit (GPU) Shader algorithms are the base of our 3D density as well as surface color econstructions. We first compare the different geometrical approaches to cast the object silhouette extracted from video cameras into a large voxel space. To test and optimize material configurations and geometrical models, we then present a novel approach using virtual 3D objects. Finally, we demonstrate the abilities of our model with different comparative tests.