Integrating Age Attributes to Virtual Human Locomotion

Abstract

Computer animation of human locomotion has become popular in recent years because of the desire to use human beings as synthetic actors in three-dimensional simulation environments. However, it has always been a challenging problem in computer animation since techniques based on kinematics, dynamics, biomechanics, robotics, ... may be required to produce a realistic human motion. Various control mechanisms to implement such human locomotion systems have been proposed, but most of them are only suitable for animation of adult locomotion, not for that of the elderly. In this paper, we present a model for simulating locomotion depending on age. Observations from biomechanics, gerontology about age-related changes in gait pattern, kinematics and kinetic values are integrated into the model in order to produce realistic ageing locomotion. The proposed model modulates a kinematic walking pattern as a function of the normalized velocity. The preliminary results have showed that they are realistic and able to be used in simulations of crowds or virtual human behaviours in virtual environment applications.