Interactive manipulation planning for animated characters

Presents a brief overview of an algorithm for interactively animating object grasping and manipulation tasks for human figures. The technique is designed to efficiently generate feasible single-arm manipulation motions given high-level task commands. For moving an object, the motions necessary for a human arm to reach and grasp the object, re-position it and return the arm to rest are generated automatically within a few seconds on average. The method synthesizes motion "on-the-fly" by directly searching the configuration space of the arm. Goal configurations for the arm are computed using an inverse kinematics algorithm that attempts to select a natural posture. A collision-free trajectory connecting the arm's initial configuration to the goal configuration is computed using a randomized path planner. A high-level description of the methods is given, along with results from some computed examples using a human character model.