Impact of non-photorealistic rendering for the understanding of emotional facial expressions by children and adolescents with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders

该项目涉及在不同抽象层次上创建和动画计算机生成的面部表情，目的是研究患有注意力缺陷/多动障碍（ADHD）和自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的受试者如何感知这些表情。在与虚拟角色的对话中，我们将测试非神经正常的儿童和青少年阅读角色面部情绪状态的能力。与之前的作品相反，我们想进行互动实验，让实验者实时适应情况。这三个合作伙伴为这个研究项目提供了独特的专业知识：巴登堡电影学院是世界知名的计算机动画机构，它开发了电影学院应用框架（Frapper），这是一个面部动画系统，在其他特征中，被用于许多电影，也被应用于弗赖堡大学的心理学实验的初步研究。弗莱堡大学是研究注意力缺陷/多动障碍和自闭症谱系障碍的领先中心，在过去取得了重要的成果。康斯坦茨大学在非真实感渲染和计算机生成抽象方面拥有丰富的专业知识，成为计算机图形学社区的重要参考。该公司与巴登- <s:1>符腾堡电影公司（Filmakademie baden - wrttemberg）正在进行合作，并已经在《星际猎人》中创造了原型艺术渲染方法，并在两部动画电影中使用。拟议中的项目希望在一个为期三年的项目中把这三所院校联合起来。康斯坦茨大学将为多种风格的面部动画开发连贯和可操作的抽象方法。Filmakademie将把这些方法集成到他们的应用程序框架中，对其进行扩展，并将其集成到交互式实验中，允许实验者影响渲染风格、抽象水平、虚拟角色的精神状态。弗莱堡大学将使用虚拟人物进行实验，同时为Konstanz和Filmakademie提供帮助，为框架设计更准确有效的抽象方法。除了支持心理测试外，人脸的抽象方法对计算机图形学也非常重要。许多应用程序，从计算机动画、虚拟化身到对话和帮助系统，都将受益于可以根据应用程序以不同程度的细节显示的角色。各种可操纵的非真实感渲染技术的发展及其与实时动画系统的集成将使人机交互的新质量成为可能，其中显示的字符以预期的抽象程度表示。

The project deals with creating and animating computer-generated facial expressions in different levels of abstraction for the purpose of investigating how they are perceived by subjects with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In a dialog with a virtual character we will test the ability of non-neurotypical children and young teenagers to read emotional states in the face of the characters. In contrast to previous works we want to conduct interactive experiments that allow the experimenter to adapt in real-time to the situation.The three partners provide unique expertise for this research project: the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg is a world-known institution for computer animation that has to its credits the development of the Filmakademie Application Framework (Frapper), a system for facial animation, among other features, that is used in many films and that was also applied in a preliminary study with University of Freiburg for psychological experiments. The University of Freiburg is a leading center for investigating Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders, having obtained important results in the past. The University of Konstanz has great expertise in Non-photorealistic Rendering and computer-generated abstraction, becoming an important reference in the Computer Graphics community. It has an ongoing collaboration with Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and already created prototypical artistic rendering methods in Frapper that were used in two animation films. The proposed project wants to bring together the three institutions in a three-year project. The University of Konstanz will develop coherent and steerable abstraction methods for facial animations in a number of styles. The Filmakademie will integrate these methods in their application framework to extend it and to integrate it into interactive experiments, allowing the experimenter to influence rendering style, level of abstraction, mental state of the virtual character. The University of Freiburg will use the virtual characters for their experiments, while providing help to Konstanz and the Filmakademie to design more accurate and effective abstraction methods for the framework.Aside from supporting psychological tests the abstraction methods for faces are also very important for Computer Graphics. Many applications ranging from Computer Animation, virtual Avatars to dialogue and help systems will benefit from characters that can be displayed in various degrees of detail in dependence to the application. The development of various steerable non-photorealistic rendering techniques and their integration into a real-time animation system will enable a new quality of human-computer interaction in which the displayed character is represented in an intended degree of abstraction.