EAGER: Efficient control and transmission of digital puppetry

数字木偶戏是指对虚拟人物的交互控制。这种方法在任何虚拟体验中都很有用，其中合成角色？it的交互性必须超越人工智能目前的能力。这方面的例子包括教师培训；将远程讲解员投射到博物馆、科学中心和网络虚拟环境中；为士兵们第一次到外国执行任务做准备。该项目的目标是提高木偶操纵范式所能提供的体验的质量和广度，特别是当木偶操纵者在远程位置（例如他或她的家）工作并且在网络连接有限的位置进行体验时。其目的是减少延迟和带宽需求；体验创造、获取和交付的成本和复杂性；那么木偶演员的认知负荷呢？同时仍然提供对复杂行为的支持。这个探索性研究项目的重点是可以识别并组合成更复杂动作的微姿势。PI寻求通过融合多个廉价的传感器数据来源和适合我们虚拟角色的物理约束来快速识别这些姿势。PI通过使用这些微姿态来降低成本，木偶动作捕捉的足迹和网络需求，同时提高木偶操纵范式的有效性和可访问性，从而解决精度和网络需求之间的紧张关系。对可访问性的关注导致了技术的发展，这些技术可以在家庭桌面系统上以交互速率运行，促进了全球导师和学员之间的联系。

Digital puppetry refers to the interactive control of virtual characters. This approach can be useful in any virtual experience where a synthetic character?s interactivity must surpass the current capabilities of AI. Examples of this include teacher training; projecting remote docents into museums, science centers and networked virtual environments; and preparing soldiers for their first tours of duty in foreign lands. The objective of this project is to improve the quality and breadth of experiences that can be provided by the puppeteering paradigm, especially when the puppeteer is working from a remote location such as his or her home and the experience is taking place in a location with limited network connectivity. The intent is to reduce latency and bandwidth requirements; cost and complexity of experience creation, capture and delivery; and cognitive load on puppeteers ? while still providing support for complex behaviors. This exploratory research project focuses on micro-poses that can be recognized and assembled into more complex actions. The PI seeks to rapidly identify these poses via the fusion of multiple inexpensive sources of sensor data and the physical constraints appropriate for our virtual characters. The PI approaches the tension between precision and network demand by using these micro-poses to reduce cost, footprint of the puppetry motion capture, and networking demands, while simultaneously increasing the effectiveness and accessibility of the puppeteering paradigm. The focus on accessibility leads to the development of techniques that can be run at interactive rates on in-home tabletop systems, facilitating connections between mentors and mentees across the globe.