Principal Investigator Wojciech Matusik
One of the most difficult computer graphics challenges is creating digital humans that are indistinguishable from real ones. This process has applications in movies, games, medicine, cosmetics, computer vision, biometrics, and virtual reality. The problem is challenging because we are incredibly sensitive to the subtleties of human appearance and motion. In order to solve the problem, we have been appling data-driven methods to capture and analyze human appearance, shape, motion, and contact with external forces. All these components are essential for creating realistic virtual humans. We have developed algorithms for computing image-based and polyhedral visual hulls to capture human shape and appearance in real-time. We have improved these systems by using high-quality templates or multi-view normal maps. In order to capture motions outside of a special studio, we have designed wearable systems that combine miniature ultrasonic and inertial sensors. In parallel to investigating full-body capture methods, we have been exploring methods for face acquisition.
We have been applying the developed models to recreate more realistic robots and animatronic characters.