Interactive buildup of animation sequences with captured motion data

We present a new approach to interactive resequencing of captured motion data that allows the user to progressively extend his or her animations such that each extension can best fit user requirements with respect to space, time, and pose. In the preprocessing phase, captured frames are clustered into pose groups and interconnected into a transition graph. For each step in building an animation sequence at runtime, the user is allowed to browse through motion paths in the graph that are connectable to the existing sequence by specifying the desired locations and poses at path ends and to select one of those paths to extend the animation. Instead of using graph search algorithms, our path browser unrolls the graph locally into spatial search trees and employs an efficient nearest‐neighbor search method to quickly find the optimal paths that satisfy user inputs. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by creating animation examples in scenarios involving spatial, temporal, and postural requirements simultaneously. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.