Sign language (SL) was first acknowledged as a separate language only in the 1960s. Similar to spoken language, it evolved from different cultural backgrounds. Every country has its own sign language with various dialects, which are based on different
Sign language (SL) was first acknowledged as a separate language only in the 1960s. Similar to spoken language, it evolved from different cultural backgrounds. Every country has its own sign language with various dialects, which are based on different rules than the spoken language.
Although several websites provide video clips in which sign language interpreters translate the text, much Internet content remains cryptic for the deaf community. To inform deaf people quickly in cases where there is no interpreter on hand, researchers are working on a novel approach to provide content. Their idea: avatars. These animated characters could be used in the context of announcements at train stations, or on websites.
Virtual Conversation Agent (avatar) are a technology for displaying signed conversation without the necessity of displaying a video of a human signer. Instead, the systems use 3D animated models, which can be stored more efficiently than video. The avatar can produce movement of the fingers, hands, facial gestures for facial expressions (happiness, surprise etc.), body movements, and co-signs, in which two different words or ideas are signed at the same time. The avatar can be programmed to communicate in either a Sign Language (for example American Sign Language (ASL) or French Sign Language (LSF)). Advances in computer graphics capabilities mean that personal computers and smartphones are able to produce this animation with much great clarity than in the past, when transitions between the signs were rough and smooth and the hands had to return to a central position between each sign.
To capture the motions of deaf people, the scientists and researchers make use of affordable cameras and sensors that are typically used by teenagers for computer games. A computing method transfers the movements of the entire body onto the avatar. In the long term, the researchers want to create a collection of short sign language sequences that can be used by the deaf to interact on