Sign language on the WWW

The work presented is part of the EU-subsidised ViSiCAST project. The project aims to achieve semi-automatic translation from text to sign language. With the use of a computer, sentences in a written language are analysed and transposed to a sequence of signs. These signs are displayed using computer animation of a Virtual Human, i.e. an “avatar”. One of the application areas for this technology is the world-wide-web. As a prototype application a web page has been developed which shows an avatar signing the weather forecast in sign language. Evaluation of this prototype application has given useful information about the quality of the signing avatar.