IP: Virtual Human Conference

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Virtual Humans 2
Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles
June 17-19 1997
Organised by VR NEWS and EDS, and sponsored by Silicon Graphics


Exhibit area will be open from 10.30am to 7.00pm on 17th and 18th June






Tuesday June 17
Moderator - morning session, Prof. Norm Badler, University of Pennsylvania
Moderator - afternoon session, Prof. David Farber, University of=
 Pennsylvania


08.00-09.20
Registration


09.20-09.30
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Dr Sandra K. Helsel, VR NEWS


09.30-10.30
Anyone for Tennis?
Prof. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann: Miralab - University of Geneva
Professor Daniel Thalmann: Computer Graphics Laboratory - Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology


The University of Geneva Miralab and the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology Computer Graphics Laboratory will demonstrate their Virtual Life
Network (VLNET), a networked collaborative virtual environment system
supporting both avatar and autonomous virtual humans. The demonstration
will take the form of a virtual tennis match between a player in
Switzerland and another on the stage at Virtual Humans '97, linked via a
bi-directional 8 Mbps ATM connection. The players' bodies and limbs will be
tracked, and they will wear headmounted displays and data gloves. The VLNET
environment will run on Silicon Graphics Onyx computers, and system
integration at the US end will be undertaken by EDS.


10.30-11.00
Refreshment break


11.00-11.45
Performance Capture - La Enchilada Grande
Andre Bustanoby: Digital Domain


Andre Bustanoby is one of the world's leading performance capture
specialists, known for the high standards of professionalism and artistry
he brings to his work. He will demonstrate and discuss one of his projects
in which the subject was Michael Jackson, and will also present an
alternative view of Virtual Tennis, in the form of a recent performance
capture sequence he undertook with Andre Agassi.


11.45-12.30
Creating Believable Virtual Actors
Ellen Poon: Industrial Light & Magic


Movies such as Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and Dragonheart have employed
digital stunt doubles with great success, and this concept can be taken
further to create virtual human actors on screen. Ellen Poon is one of
ILM's leading digital artists, currently working on Men in Black, and was
Computer Graphics Supervisor on The Mask, Disclosure, and Jumanji. She will
show some of her human and creature modelling work, and discuss recent
advances in the modeling and rendering of fur and clothes.


12.30-2.00 pm
Lunch and view exhibits


2.00-5.00 pm
Is it Snowing Yet?
Panel moderated by Prof. David Farber, University of Pennsylvania, and
including Prof. Norm Badler, University of Pennsylvania; Prof. Michael Zyda
and Kent Watsen, Naval Postgraduate School; Mitra, Paragraph International;
Sharon Stansfield, Sandia Labs; and Dick Edmiston, Earthlink Network Inc.


This landmark panel takes Neal Stephenson's best selling novel 'Snow Crash'
as representing a set of benchmarks against which today's virtual community
technologies and capabilities can usefully be assessed. The idea originated
with Prof. David Farber, who will moderate the panel. The speakers will
give a series of 20-30 minute presentations on various aspects of the
operation and use of virtual communities in the context of the 'Snow Crash'
model. Ample time will be allowed during and after the presentations for
questions and debate, and there will be a half hour refreshment break at
3.30 pm.


5.00-7.00 pm
View exhibits






Wednesday June 18 - Applications Day
Moderator: Linda Jacobson, Virtual Reality Evangelist at Silicon Graphics


SESSION 1 - Industrial/Ergonomic Applications


In this session, four of the leading developers of ergonomic humanoids will
present and demonstrate their latest systems and capabilities.


9.00-9.30 am
Ergo - Deneb Robotics


9.30-10.00 am
Safeworks - Genicom Consultants


10.00-10.30 am
Refreshment Break


10.30-11.00
Transom Jack - Transom Technologies Inc.


11.00-11.30
RAMSIS - Tecmath GmbH


11.30-1.30 pm
Lunch and view exhibits


SESSION 2 - Other Applications


1.30-2.00- pm: Online Communities
Avatars on the Virtual World Wide Web
Superscape/Black Sun
The Virtual World Wide Web (vwww.com), originated by Superscape Inc., is
the largest collection of 3D virtual worlds on the Internet. Superscape has
recently partnered with avatar specialist Black Sun Interactive to convert
vwww.com into a large on-line community space, and in this presentation the
companies will demonstrate the new avatar capabilities which have been
added.


2.00-2.30pm: Computer Games
'Creatures'
Anil Malhotra, Development Director, Millenium Ltd
The runaway success of 'Creatures', a computer game developed by Millenium
Ltd, has accelerated the worldwide trend towards games based on artificial
life software. Anil Malhotra will demonstrate the latest version of
Creatures, and explain something of how its artificial intelligence engine
and genetic algorithms operate.


2.30-3.00 pm: Telecommunications
Talking Heads
Phil Sheppard, British Telecom
British Telecom is undertaking a wide range of VR developments at its
central research lab. One that has attracted a lot of interest is the
Talking Heads project, designed to enable virtual conference attendees to
participate in the form of virtual heads, closely resembling their owners,
and capable of animated and lip-synched audio and visual interaction.


3.00-3.30pm
Refreshment break


3.30-4.00 pm: Emergency Planning
Crowd Simulation
Dr Eric Bouvier, Animation Science
Animation Science was responsible for the particle engine used in the
Softimage Creative Environment, and has now developed its particle
simulation software to the point where the appearance, movement and
behaviour of large and small groups of people can be realistically
simulated. Eric Bouvier will demonstrate and discuss its use in crowd
planning and control applications, and in virtual human modeling generally.




4.00-4.30 pm: Military Simulation
DI Guy
Dr Marc Raibert; CEO, Boston Dynamics
Attendees at the first Virtual Humans event will remember Marc Raibert's
sparkling and witty presentation. He returns this year to show off the
remarkably versatile and natural movement repertoire of his company's DI
Guy system, designed for dismounted infantry military simulation
applications.


4.30-5.00pm: Virtual Heritage
The Chinese Terracotta Army
Prof. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, Director, Miralab, University of Geneva
Prof. Magnenat Thalmann will present her latest work on what is perhaps the
most challenging virtual humans project ever attempted. In collaboration
with a group of Chinese universities, she is bringing back to virtual life
a group of the Xian terracotta warriors, who have waited at the tomb of
China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, for over 2000 years.


5.00-5.30pm: Film/TV
Mixing with Virtual People
Tim Child, Managing Director, Televirtual Ltd
Televirtual has pioneered the introduction of virtual hosts into TV game
and chat shows since the early 1990s. In this presentation Tim Child will
unveil an early version of their most advanced and ambitious development,
which will enable viewers to see the virtual host moving amongst and
interacting closely with the studio audience.


5.30-7.00 pm
View exhibits




Thursday June 19 - Panels & Workshop


No fixed duration has been set for the panels. They will include set
presentations, but audience participation in the discussion stages of the
panels is strongly encouraged, and overall timing is flexible. As a guide,
it is expected that each will last for between two and three hours, with a
mid-session refreshment break.


9.00-12.00 am: Virtual Humans Standards
Panel moderated by Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo, and Chairman of
V-HAG (Virtual Humans Architecture Group). Panelists will include Prof.
Norm Badler, who is Chairman of the Software Subcommitte of the Society of
Automotive Engineers G13 Committee on Humanoid Standards and Technology,
Sandy Ressler of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and
Eric Petajan of Bell Labs, who is involved in the MPEG-4 Virtual Humans
standardization activities.


Virtual humans of all types are likely to have much in common, in terms of
basic technological subsystems - appearance, motion, behaviour,
intelligence, for example. Standardization of avatar control and
interaction conventions, interconnection and interchangeability of
subsystems, movement between different virtual environments, use of common
anthropometric data, etc. will be essential for wider market acceptance,
and invaluable for shared research.


2.00 pm: Virtual Humans as Autonomous Agents
Panel moderated by Prof. Lewis Johnson, Educational Technology Group,
USC/Information Sciences Institute. Panelists are Dr Barbara Hayes-Roth,
Senior Research Scientist, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Stanford
University; Prof. Ken Perlin, Director, Media Research Lab, New York
University; Prof. Norm Badler, Director, Center for Human Modling &
Simulation, University of Pennsylvania; and Prof. Daniel Thalmann,
Director, Computer Graphics Laboratory, =C9cole Polytechnique F=E9d=E9rale=
 de
Lausanne.


The panel will discuss the issues that are involved in creating autonomous
agents in virtual human form.  Possible questions to address are:
  - What does it mean to have a virtual human act as an autonomous agent?
  - What is involved in investing a virtual human with autonomous agent
capabilities?
  - What is the relationship between an autonomous virtual human's
artificial intelligence (its "mind") and its visualization (its "body")?
How do the two interact, and what constraints do they place on each other?
  - What applications do we envision for autonomous virtual humans?




2.00 pm: Direct Communication with Virtual Humans
Panel moderated by Prof. Frank Biocca, Director, & Kristi Nowak, Media
Interface & Network Design Lab, Michigan State University. Panelists are
Dr. Byron Reeves,  Dept. of Communication, Stanford University; Dr. Joseph
Capella, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Dr.
Michael M. Cohen , Program in Experimental Psychology, University of
California - Santa Cruz, and Prof. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, Director,
Miralab, University of Geneva


A complete pipeline of modules for automatic face cloning and synchronized
animation using audio and video input will be presented. Automatic methods
of facial texture mapping and feature fitting and a real-time face
deformation method taking input from video tracking and speech segmentation
will be discussed. Real-time demos will be shown.


9.00-10.30 am: Motion Capture Workshop
This workshop will be presented by Ron Fischer, Performance Animation
Engineer at Silicon Graphics. In collaboration with leading developers of
motion capture systems, he will demonstrate and explain what is involved in
capturing human body and facial movement, and compare and contrast the
capabilities of the different technologies used. Subject to demand for
places, the workshop may be repeated during the day.








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