Natural Language Implementation for Virtual Humans

谢里登学院建议与领先的互动数字媒体内容制作商Seed Interactive合作，帮助他们在人与虚拟人的互动中实现解决方案的突破性交付。该项目将集中研究和开发各种媒体交付平台内的言语互动，包括虚拟和增强现实以及商业游戏引擎。其目标是增强这些交互的可信度和现实性，以及整体用户体验。虚拟人(VHS)是计算机生成的角色，他们展示出与人类相似的品质，并使用自然的人类形态进行交流，包括面部表情、语音和手势。录像机商业应用大幅增长的潜力，得益于未来五年预计国际市场增长的两个重要领域的发展：虚拟和增强现实，以及人工智能。媒体和娱乐领域存在商业化机会；所有部门都存在培训和模拟；以及在医疗保健、就地老龄化和教育等领域为人与人之间提供服务提供补充支持。 然而，目前，研究和商业化受到各种因素的阻碍，包括端到端解决方案所需技术的复杂性。该项目将使来自数字艺术、计算机科学和社会科学的Sheridan研究人员团队能够与行业合作伙伴和大学合作者合作，开发出有利于公司的解决方案，同时在加拿大多个经济和社会福利部门产生次要好处。该项目将利用该学院在实时动画、虚拟和增强现实、移动计算、游戏、机器学习和老年人研究方面的研发优势。它将有助于发展一个具有全球意义的虚拟人研究专题组，该专题组由安大略省英才中心同时提供两年资助。

Sheridan College proposes to partner with SEED Interactive, a leading interactive digital media content producer, to help them achieve breakthrough delivery of solutions within human-virtual human interaction. The project will centre on research and development into verbal interactions within a variety of media delivery platforms including virtual and augmented reality and commercial game engines. The goal is to enhance the believability and realism of these interactions and the user experience as a whole. Virtual humans (VHs) are computer-generated characters that exhibit human-like qualities and communicate using natural human modalities including facial expressions, speech and gesture. The potential for dramatic growth in the commercial application of VHs is being enabled by developments in two significant areas of predicted international market growth over the next five years: virtual and augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. Commercialization opportunities exist within media and entertainment; training and simulation across all sectors; and supplementary support for human-to-human provision of services in areas such as healthcare, aging in place, and education. At the present time, however, research and commercialization is hampered by a variety of factors including the complexity of the technologies required within an end-to-end solution. The project will enable a team of Sheridan researchers from the digital arts, computer sciences, and social sciences to work together with an industry partner and university collaborators to develop solutions that benefit the company while having secondary benefit throughout multiple Canadian economic and social welfare sectors. The project will leverage the college's research and development strengths in real-time animation, virtual and augmented reality, mobile computing, gaming, machine learning, and elder research. It will contribute to the development of a globally significant research cluster on Virtual Humans being established with concurrent two-year funding from the Ontario Centres of Excellence.