ACM TechNews

Virtual Hand Gets Under the Skin

New Scientist (08/14/08) Barras, Colin

Researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver presented realistic animations of the hand at the recent ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles. The team modeled the bones, tendons, and muscles of the hand and forearm, and created software to coordinate the contraction and relaxation of muscles and forces transmitted by tendons to produce hand gestures. They used a layer of skin to clothe the virtual muscles and tendons. Motion capture technology is unable to provide such a view of the movement of muscles and tendons underneath the skin. The new hand animation models would make it possible for surgeons to predict the results of hand surgery. "Using our technique, you can show what effect rerouting a tendon would have on the hand before you actually do the surgery," says Shinjiro Sueda, head of the research team. Sueda, Andrew Kaufman and Dinesh Pai are also offering a graphics software plug-in so animators can improve the realism of their hand animations.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/
dn14532-virtual-hand-gets-under-the-skin.html

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