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This page introduces the walking synthesizer. A computer program that simulates the human walk. It was written by Koert van Mensvoort
Introduction |
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Has it ever occurred to you how well we are capable of recognizing our friends and relatives at
great distance?
Even when the distance is to great to identify their faces, we still are often able to recognize them.
Of course this capability is partly due to the recognition of the persons clothes. But also,
and not for the least, due to the persons
walking behavior.
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HistoryAt the end of the seventies, James E. Cutting did a series of experiments regarding the perception of the human walk. He wondered whether humans can identify the sex of a walker by their walking behavior. For his experiments he used human walkers but, he had to filter out all additive information that could influence the sex-identification of the walker (like moustaches, or skirts). Cutting did this by placing reflective tape on the joints of his walkers and filming them in an almost dark room. The dot walkers on the film shows are walkers from which all additive sex-information is filtered out. |
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Cutting found that we are pretty well able to identify the sex from the walking behavior.
At the State University of New York, Robert J. Logan and Richard E. Pastore, did research about the identification of the sex of a walker, from the sound of the walk. They found that we can identify the sex of a walker by the walking sound. RelevanceDue to the increasing computational power in modern computers, graphical applications in which humanoids play an active role come into sight. In the light of these developments it is necessary to obtain further knowledge about the way humans perceive the human walk.The Walk SynthesizerA computer program is written, which enables the researchers to synthesize walking behaviors. This program we call the Walk Synthesizer. The walk calculations are implemented in the C++ class Walker. This C++ class can calculate a treedimensional human walk movement in realtime. The walk behavior can be controlled to the smallest detail. The Walker class is also able of calculating curved walks. The class can be linked to any C++ program.The Walk Synthesizer program renders the walkers to the screen (tree different visualizations) and adds walking sounds (through prerecorded samples of human walkers). A set of walking stimuli can be created and played. During the experiment the subjects are asked to determine the sex of the walker. The response of the subjects can be recorded in a text file. |
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The C++ class Walker in which the walking behavior is implemented and the complete MS Word document of the Walk Synthesizer report (dutch) are available for download (zipped). | |||
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