CHS: Small: Looking Across the Uncanny Valley: Procedural and Data-Driven Methods for Gaze Modeling

CHS：小：纵观恐怖谷：注视建模的程序和数据驱动方法

• 批准号: 1423189
• 负责人: Sophie Joerg
• 金额: $ 49.43万
• 依托单位: Clemson University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1423189&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CHS; Small; Looking; Across; Uncanny

Eye movements play a key role in human communication, yet they remain a significant stumbling block for humanoid animation. Computer generated avatars currently lack realistic gaze, which subconsciously distracts viewers and thereby detracts from the usefulness of the many applications that employ these graphical actors (e.g., educational / tutoring / training systems that incorporate animated agents), a perceptual issue that has been dubbed the "uncanny valley." This project represents a collaboration between two investigators with complementary skills who will tackle the problem by developing a holistic model of gaze dynamics for avatars, which combines detailed real-world measurements (with the aid of binocular eye-tracking) and signal analysis of both eye motions and the periocular skin region around the eyes, to generate improved synthetic eye movement animations. Project activities will include creation of a database of gaze motions, perceptual experiments to improve our understanding of the saliency of different components of human gaze (eyeball rotation, vergence, jitter, periocular skin motion) and their signal properties in physical space, and the implementation of exemplary tasks (such as reading and conversations) along with a software tool which will enable animators to more easily design convincing gaze in frequently encountered situations. The PI intends to open-source the software to be developed in this research. The gaze model under development by the PI differs from previous approaches in the following ways. First, while others have modeled cyclopean avatar gaze few have accessed the steadily growing eye tracking literature for inclusion of binocular eye movement. The PI argues that binocular eye tracking in three-dimensional physical space allows estimation of where the subject is fixating in depth and, consequently, recording, analysis, and modeling of gaze vergence, which will yield more believable characters. Second, the proposed model provides a component of subtle gaze jitter, which is critical for dynamic realism as the eyes are never perfectly still. Third, the description of the rotations of the eyes is mathematically concise, follows physiological laws, and is easy to implement. Finally, the proposed modeling effort includes perceptual studies designed to investigate the influence of each model component and to optimize the parameters of the resulting complete model. The procedural model is two-staged and reminiscent of the functionality of human vision: a bottom-up stage of eye rotation, which will be used to represent gaze when selecting a series of look points, followed by a top-down stage of gaze orientation dependent on a given task. Building a perceptual science underlying gaze modeling will foster the believability of synthetic actors, and will more broadly impact diverse areas such as social robotics where realistic gaze simulation is crucial for creating likable robots.

眼动在人类交流中起着关键作用，但它们仍然是人形动画的重要绊脚石。 计算机产生的化身目前缺乏现实的目光，在潜意识中分散观众的注意力，从而损害了使用这些图形参与者的许多应用程序的有用性（例如，教育 /辅导 /培训 /培训系统结合了动画剂），这是一种被称为“ Uncanny Valley”的感知问题。 该项目代表了两位具有互补技能的研究者之间的合作，他们将通过开发一个针对化身的注视动力学模型来解决该问题，该模型结合了详细的现实世界测量值（借助双目眼球跟踪），并对眼睛的眼睛运动和眼睛的外部皮肤区域进行信号分析，以产生改善的综合动画动画。 项目活动将包括创建凝视动作数据库，感知实验，以提高我们对人类凝视不同组成部分的显着性（眼球旋转，ger，抖动，抖动，皮肤运动运动）及其在物理空间中的信号特性，以及在典型任务（例如阅读和对话）中的实施以及将动画量进行启动的范围。 PI打算在本研究中开发要开发的软件。 PI正在开发的凝视模型与先前的方法不同。 首先，尽管其他人对Cyclopean Avatar的凝视建模很少，但很少有人能够访问稳定增长的眼睛跟踪文献，以包括双眼眼球运动。 PI认为，三维物理空间中的双眼眼睛跟踪允许估计受试者在深度固定的位置，并因此对凝视狂热的录制，分析和建模，这将产生更可信的特征。 其次，提出的模型提供了微妙的凝视抖动的组成部分，这对于动态现实主义至关重要，因为眼睛永远不会完全静止。 第三，对眼睛旋转的描述在数学上是简洁的，遵循生理定律，并且易于实施。 最后，提出的建模工作包括旨在研究每个模型组件的影响并优化所得完整模型的参数的感知研究。 该程序模型是两阶段的，让人联想到人类视觉的功能：眼旋的自下而上阶段，在选择一系列的外观点时将用来表示凝视，然后是凝视方向的自上而下的阶段，取决于给定的任务。 建立一门感知科学的凝视建模将促进综合参与者的可信度，并将更广泛地影响各种领域，例如社交机器人技术，在这些领域中，现实的凝视模拟对于创建可爱的机器人至关重要。