• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.11A no.4
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• pp.277-284
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• 2004

This paper presents a facial expression control method of 3D avatar that enables the user to select a sequence of facial frames from the facial expression space, whose level of details the user can select hierarchically. Our system creates the facial expression spare from about 2,400 captured facial frames. But because there are too many facial expressions to select from, the user faces difficulty in navigating the space. So, we visualize the space hierarchically. To partition the space into a hierarchy of subspaces, we use fuzzy clustering. In the beginning, the system creates about 11 clusters from the space of 2,400 facial expressions. The cluster centers are displayed on 2D screen and are used as candidate key frames for key frame animation. When the user zooms in (zoom is discrete), it means that the user wants to see mort details. So, the system creates more clusters for the new level of zoom-in. Every time the level of zoom-in increases, the system doubles the number of clusters. The user selects new key frames along the navigation path of the previous level. At the maximum zoom-in, the user completes facial expression control specification. At the maximum, the user can go back to previous level by zooming out, and update the navigation path. We let users use the system to control facial expression of 3D avatar, and evaluate the system based on the results.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.59-73
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• 2003

As a means of overcoming the linguistic barrier between different languages in the Internet, a new sign-language communication system with CG animation techniques has been developed and proposed. In the system, the joint angles of the arms and the hands corresponding to the gesture as a non-verbal communication tool have been considered. The emotional expression, however, could as play also an important role in communicating each other. Especially, a comic expression is more efficient than real facial expression, and the movements of the cheeks and the jaws are more important AU's than those of the eyebrow, eye, mouth etc. Therefore, in this paper, we designed a 3D emotion editor using 2D model, and we extract AU's (called as PAU, here) which play a principal function in expressing emotions. We also proposed a method of generating the universal emotional expression with Avatar models which have different vertex structures. Here, we employed a method of dynamically adjusting the AU movements according to emotional intensities. The proposed system is implemented with Visual C＋＋ and Open Inventor on windows platforms. Experimental results show a possibility that the system could be used as a non-verbal communication means to overcome the linguistic barrier.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.120-133
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• 2008

This paper presents a novel approach for facial motion tracking and facial expression cloning to create a realistic facial animation of a 3D avatar. The exact head pose estimation and facial expression tracking are critical issues that must be solved when developing vision-based computer animation. In this paper, we deal with these two problems. The proposed approach consists of two phases: dynamic head pose estimation and facial expression cloning. The dynamic head pose estimation can robustly estimate a 3D head pose from input video images. Given an initial reference template of a face image and the corresponding 3D head pose, the full head motion is recovered by projecting a cylindrical head model onto the face image. It is possible to recover the head pose regardless of light variations and self-occlusion by updating the template dynamically. In the phase of synthesizing the facial expression, the variations of the major facial feature points of the face images are tracked by using optical flow and the variations are retargeted to the 3D face model. At the same time, we exploit the RBF (Radial Basis Function) to deform the local area of the face model around the major feature points. Consequently, facial expression synthesis is done by directly tracking the variations of the major feature points and indirectly estimating the variations of the regional feature points. From the experiments, we can prove that the proposed vision-based facial expression cloning method automatically estimates the 3D head pose and produces realistic 3D facial expressions in real time.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.41
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• pp.1-29
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• 2015

This paper aims at studying how to express and be used the characteristics of New age consciousness in the popular culture. New age consciousness is used interchangeably with new age movement. The philosophy of new age is based on humanism, which the infinite potential power of human can change the human himself and the earth forward to be shown the new age of peace, hope and love in an instant. This consciousness is based on the Western secret art and Eastern consciousness against the Christianity and has begun to develop in the alternative religion influenced by Postmodernism and Counterculture movement on 1970's which is against the corruption of American society on 1960's. However, new age consciousness has tried to change to a social movement for the culture, the peace, the happiness of mankind and the healing society rather than a religion idea because of the limitation of the theory itself. Nevertheless, the new age culture contains the characteristics of the religion, and the characteristics has been easily borrowed to the mess media and infiltrated to us. In a broad sense, the religion includes both own religion beliefs and behavior and the social movements and tendencies about the established religion which pursues the holy and the highest value. The religion is valued as a complex culture phenomenon, which the religion presents the right direction and the meaning of life as well as contributes to the maintenance of social order and the social unification. For this reason, the religion and the culture have a deep relationship between mess media and needs to be captured and listen to religious longing lurking deep within the human consciousness in order to give the audience impressed and fun. In the study, the characteristics of New age such as reincarnation, illusion, meditation, monism and pantheism is analyzed for what affects students studying mess media and the popular culture. And then the study is analyzed the characteristics of new age consciousness in the animation through 'Avatar'. This study shed new light on the influence of religion which is ideological identity of popular culture, and I expect to be a little help to have the insight to examine the mess media with a various angles.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.117-122
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• 2005

This paper proposes an algorithm for Facial Characteristic Point(FCP) extraction. The FCP plays an important role in expression representation for face animation, avatar mimic or facial expression recognition. Conventional algorithms extract the FCP with an expensive motion capture device or by using markers, which give an inconvenience or a psychological load to experimental person. However, the proposed algorithm solves the problems by using only image processing. For the efficient FCP extraction, we analyze and improve the conventional algorithms detecting facial components, which are basis of the FCP extraction.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.333-336
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• 2005

The implementation of cellular phone based applications have been growing very fast because of WIPI which is a hardware independent platform. In this paper, we design and Implement a system to combine the animation avatar and e-mail service by using WIPI platform. Also, this system manages scheduling at the same time. This system uses SMS service in order to notify scheduled time and it synchronizes the schedule data with Outlook Express on the computer.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.193-210
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• 2004

In this paper, we develop a real time lip-synch system that activates 2-D avatar's lip motion in synch with an incoming speech utterance. To realize the 'real time' operation of the system, we contain the processing time by invoking merge and split procedures performing coarse-to-fine phoneme classification. At each stage of phoneme classification, we apply the support vector machine (SVM) to reduce the computational load while retraining the desired accuracy. The coarse-to-fine phoneme classification is accomplished via two stages of feature extraction: first, each speech frame is acoustically analyzed for 3 classes of lip opening using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) as a feature; secondly, each frame is further refined in classification for detailed lip shape using formant information. We implemented the system with 2-D lip animation that shows the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage procedure in accomplishing a real-time lip-synch task. It was observed that the method of using phoneme merging and SVM achieved about twice faster speed in recognition than the method employing the Hidden Markov Model (HMM). A typical latency time per a single frame observed for our method was in the order of 18.22 milliseconds while an HMM method applied under identical conditions resulted about 30.67 milliseconds.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.45
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• pp.397-415
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• 2016

This paper will investigate how animated practice can be a research form as practice-led research in an ethnography approach. This practice-led research will explore the issue of the construction of contemporary identities (based on the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and in particular, the Korean youth culture and identity, exemplified, for example, creation of 'avatars' in the virtual characters of animated online games such as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs). In this proposed discussion, I will argue that the sudden period of change in contemporary Korea bears some resemblance to the Victorian era as explored in gothic fiction (e.g. Jekyll and Hyde). In this sense, my animation investigates the connection between the fictional Jekyll and Hyde and a real murder incident by a young Korean boy, which actually happened on the 16th November 2010, in SouthKorea.I will, therefore, construct this practice-led research to obtain the primary data consisted of online and offline practices in 'social ethnography'. These practices engage with specific Korean youth identity, comparing the 'avatar' with the real lives of participants. However, this paper will only focus on the (ethnographic) research process and strategy, using animated (visual) practices, rather than giving the meaning of the specific case of 'Korean-ness'. Eventually, I will explore the four different animated representations as it presents the distinctive animated realties or documentaries by online and offline practices. My intention is to visually interpret the issue of 'Korean-ness' within its socio-cultural context, adapting the convention and code of Jekyll and Hyde concept into an animated documentary in the 'virtual' world (auto-animated documentary by recording avatar interviews and online game footages) and the 'real' world (self-created animated documentary, based on real people and events).

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.35
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• pp.347-374
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• 2014

The aim of this article is to consider the future of industrialization of Augmented Reality contents focusing on cinematic imagination of films that used Augmented Reality techniques and artistic imagination of Augmented Reality Arts in the 21st century. The film showing future technology through cinematic imagination plays an role in the presentation of future vision important. Augmented Reality Arts show the big picture of future arts, future aspect of society, and future culture by using technically possible present technology. I classified the researched films according to Augmented Reality technique. It is expected that Gesture Recognition will develop with transparent display device techniques, Hologram techniques will be changed into individualized communication styles, Biometrics will be able to evolve into multi-Biometrics, and Wearable Computer will develop in the aspect of physical body augmentation and then industrialize. In Augmented Reality Arts, it seems that the various utilization of avatar will be related to Hologram, the utilization of the physiological phenomenon of the human body will be related to Biometrics, the mixture of reality and virtual reality will utilize display devices through Gesture Recognition, and a new experiment of HMD(Head-Mounted Display) will industrialize with the diversification of Wearable Computer. Augmented Reality contents created through the imagination and representation in the films and arts take a role in helping human life, and, at the same time, show the future image industrialized in the way of combination between human and environment without a medium.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.179-192
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• 2007

This study is to search for a new area and a new kind of occupation for fashion in the field of multi-media such as a movie, drama, mass-culture and advertisement, as a basic investigation to improve a potential of a development of fashion in the future, to keep in step with the trend of the changes under the environment of cultural renovation. In this reports, the field and vision of new contents in fashion will be proposed. The definition and environment of multi-media were examined, and various kinds and work areas of new fashion specialists were defined. 12 professionals in each fields relative to multi-media were selected and the status of affairs, problems and requirements of fashion specialists were investigated through the in-depth interviews with them. Finally new fields and visions were suggested on it's future course. The kind of fashion-specialist on the field related to multi-media were like this: 1. Fashion-stylist, Art-director and Image-maker for star on the field of Video industry. 2. Fashion-illustrator for making animation-game character, Avatar fashion product designer and Internet shopping buyer for Online-business industry. 3. Fashion PR director, Fashion-photo stylist for Advertisement industry. 1 classified new field on the field related to multi-media as the above, and I researched the role of specialist in each field and the status of affairs and vision.