Today, thanks to the technological progress in the area of information and communication, many techniques appeared to allow communication in sign languages. In the web, sign languages contents are presented using three different formats: images, videos and 3D animations. Thanks to its advantages, 3D animation represents one of the best formats used as sign language’s content support. In fact, many web developers prefer to create contents based on virtual signer. In this context, the research laboratory UTIC of the University of Tunis [8], initiated since 2006 a national research project entitled Websign [17] aiming at improving communication with deaf community through the use of ICT. Websign is an avatar-based system allowing the translation of written text to sign language. The system is based on a multi-community approach to respond to the needs of the locality of sign language. It allows using specific dictionary for each community in addition to a common dictionary shared by all. One of the originalities of the project is the ease of creating dictionaries, and in particular, adding new words without any programming skills thanks to the web based human-software interface we have developed.
Main Topic: AVATAR ANIMATION
Requirements for signing avatar technology
Realistic animation of manual and bodily gestures
[Paper (PDF)]
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