Some Uses of “Active Viewing” in Computer Aided Anthropometric Assessment

Computer Aided Anthropometric Assessment (CAAA) allows the user to visualize a human model on a computer screen, integrated within a relevant workspace design. Flexibility in adapting the design to changes in functional postures of a chosen percentile or length category of the human models (as representations of different target populations), is one of CAAA's main features. Easy manipulation of the human model (e.g. via reach-algorithms for the hands and feet), directing its line-of-sight and displaying the corresponding field-of-view, are becoming standard facilities of CAAA. The next pages describe some uses of a new vision algorithm that we developed for our own CAAA-program: the user can now get into the field-of-view mode (“seeing what the human model sees”) and once there, actively direct the model's line-of-sight to a new center of interest (and thus to a new field-of-view), via simple mouse directions. In the same way the model's arms and legs can be repositioned, all this “as seen by the human model”. Focus is on two main themes: fast assessment of visual consequences when pre-designing human workspaces, e.g. when regarding field-of-view restrictions, and secondly displaying and discussing differences in the human model's posture and field-of-view when “looking with repositioning the head and neck”, compared to “looking with moving the eyes”.