On scaling strategies for the full-body postural control of virtual mannequins

Due to its intrinsic complexity. full-body postural input has been Mostly limited to off-line motion capture and to on-line Puppetry of a virtual character with little interaction with its environment (e.g. floor). The motion capture technology is now mature enough to envision the on-line full-body postural control of virtual mannequins involved in precise reaching tasks. We have investigated such tasks for mannequins of differing body heights in comparison to that of the system user. Such broad-range avatar control is relevant for virtual prototyping in various industrial sectors as a single person is responsible for evaluating a virtual prototype for a full range of potential end-users. In the present paper we report on two scaling strategies that can be enforced in such a context of height-differing avatar control. Both scaling strategies have been evaluated in a wide-range reach study both in front of a stationary immersive display and with an HMD. A comparison is also made with a baseline scenario, which exploits a simple rigid shape (i.e. a proxy), to assess the specific influence of controlling a complex articulated avatar. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.