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An automated technique for real-time production of lifelike animations of American Sign Language

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Abstract

Generating sentences from a library of signs implemented through a sparse set of key frames derived from the segmental structure of a phonetic model of ASL has the advantage of flexibility and efficiency, but lacks the lifelike detail of motion capture. These difficulties are compounded when faced with real-time generation and display. This paper describes a technique for automatically adding realism without the expense of manually animating the requisite detail. The new technique layers transparently over and modifies the primary motions dictated by the segmental model and does so with very little computational cost, enabling real-time production and display. The paper also discusses avatar optimizations that can lower the rendering overhead in real-time displays.

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Notes

  1. Recall that a median of 3.5 on an integer 5-point Likert scale indicates that 50 % were either a 4 or a 5.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Deaf experts and qualified interpreters for reviewing drafts of the animations. We are also grateful to the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and valuable feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    John McDonald, Rosalee Wolfe, Marie Stumbo, Melissa Bialek & Farah Thomas

  2. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

    Jerry Schnepp

  3. Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA

    Julie Hochgesang & Larwan Berke

  4. Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Diana Gorman Jamrozik

Authors
  1. John McDonald
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  2. Rosalee Wolfe
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  3. Jerry Schnepp
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  4. Julie Hochgesang
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  6. Marie Stumbo
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  7. Larwan Berke
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  8. Melissa Bialek
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  9. Farah Thomas
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Correspondence to John McDonald.

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McDonald, J., Wolfe, R., Schnepp, J. et al. An automated technique for real-time production of lifelike animations of American Sign Language. Univ Access Inf Soc 15, 551–566 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-015-0407-2

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