Technische Universität München: First steps in virtual dancing – RECORD & REPLAY of the Disco Fox Dancing is one of the two IMMERSENCE scenarios for direct Person-to-Person interaction in virtual environments. TUM aims at creating a virtual dancing partner based on the concept of Record – Replay – Recreate: First the interaction between dancing partners is recorded. Then one of the partners will be substituted by a robot providing the recorded haptic information to the partner. Finally, the main challenge will be to construct a haptic and visual agent which is realistically interacting with the human partner. TUM has now implemented step one and two by recording and replaying a dancing couple. The demonstrator is based on a two-arm mobile platform as haptic interface. Due to the limited number of two contact points, the simulation of a standard dancing posture with three contact points (close-up dancing with one direct hand contact and the second hand posed on the partner’s shoulder) is not possible. Therefore a dance was selected where the partners hold each other by their hands: the Disco Fox. As a first step, important positions of a real dancing couple were tracked like the hands, elbows, shoulders. No interaction forces were recorded as this data is intended to implement a position controlled virtual dance partner. The figure below shows an example of motion capturing with a real dancing couple. The blue lines link the hands, elbows, and shoulders of the male partner. As the male will be replaced by the platform with the haptic feedback arms, only hands are of interest. The female is represented by the red lines. Here, we recorded more data points for later comparison: In addition to the male’s points, the hip, the body’s center of mass, and the feet are tracked. Click for video 1: Sample motion capturing data of a dancing couple The dancing demonstrator integrates music as auditory cue for timing of motions and haptics as a communication channel between the partners. Vision is to be integrated at a later stage. No interaction forces were recorded as this data is intended to implement a position controlled virtual dance partner. The interaction was replayed by replaying the recorded positions: The haptic feedback arms of the platform trace the trajectories of the male’s hands. At this stage no active interaction is possible as the “male” platform does not react to feedback of the human female. The following videos show the replay of the recorded movements: Click for video 2: Replay In the next step, TUM will ‘re-create’ a virtual dance partner, which will be able to detect signals given by the human and to react in a natural way.
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