Physical Instructional Support System Using Virtual Avatars

摘要

Certain sports such as martial arts and dance have sets of good typical motion types. These motion types were abstracted from the physical movements of excellent practitioners. They are devised for instruction purpose, and are optimal movements of the target sports. It is extremely important for learners to learn these typical motion types. Traditionally the transfer of such typical motion types is done by in-person instructions. Therefore it is considered that it is not suitable for distance learning environment. We have developed a support system to convey this motion types by way of communication networks. In this paper, we propose a realtime physical instructional support system. The instructor and the learners communicate with each other by the virtual humanoid 3D-CG avatars through the Internet. By using this system, it is possible for the instructor to demonstrate his motions, and for learners to obtain the instructor's movements at distant places. The obtained information is beyond simple camera images. Because the system provides the three-dimensional perspectives and it superimposes the instructor's movements on the learner's avatars as well as provides a means of real-time direct communication.