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

该项目致力于创建不同抽象程度的计算机生成的面部表情并将其动画化，目的是调查患有注意力缺陷/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，我们将测试非神经典型儿童和青少年面对角色阅读情绪状态的能力。与以前的工作不同，我们想要进行互动实验，让实验者能够实时适应情况。三个合作伙伴为这个研究项目提供了独特的专业知识：Filmakademie Baden-符腾堡州是一家世界著名的计算机动画机构，它的开发归功于Filmakademie应用框架(Frapper)的开发，这是一个面部动画系统，在许多电影中使用，并在弗莱堡大学的初步研究中用于心理实验。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，在过去取得了重要成果。康斯坦茨大学在非照片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。它与巴登-符腾堡州的Filmakademie正在进行合作，并已经在两部动画电影中使用了Frapper的典型艺术渲染方法。拟议的项目希望在一个为期三年的项目中将这三个机构结合在一起。康斯坦茨大学将为各种风格的面部动画开发连贯和可指导的抽象方法。Filmakademie将这些方法整合到他们的应用框架中，对其进行扩展，并将其整合到交互式实验中，允许实验者影响虚拟角色的渲染风格、抽象程度和心理状态。弗莱堡大学将使用虚拟角色进行实验，同时帮助Konstanz和Filmakademie为框架设计更准确和有效的抽象方法。除了支持心理测试，人脸的抽象方法对计算机图形学也非常重要。从计算机动画、虚拟化身到对话和帮助系统的许多应用将受益于可以根据应用以不同程度的细节显示的角色。各种可操纵的非照片真实感绘制技术的发展以及它们与实时动画系统的集成将使得能够以期望的抽象程度来表示所显示的角色的新的人机交互质量。

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.