Brian Knep, Craig Hayes, Rick Sayre, Tom Williams
Abstract:
We present a system for animating an articulate figure using a
physical skeleton, or armature, connected to a workstation. The
skeleton is covered with sensors that monitor the orientations of
the joints and send this information to the computer via
custom-built hardware. The system is precise, fast, compact, and
easy to use. It lets traditional stop-motion animators produce
animation on a computer without requiring them to learn complex
software. The working environment is very similar to the
traditional environment but without the nuisances of lights, a
camera, and delicate foam-latex skin. The resulting animation lacks
the artifacts of stop-motion animation, the pops and jerkiness, and
yet retains the intentional subtleties and hard stops that computer
animation often lacks.
Paper (PDF)
Appeared in the Proceedings of SIGCHI 1995