Victor Zordan
Using Computers to Capture Human Motion
Movies, games and digital music — who wouldn't want to work with assistant professor Victor Zordan? Zordan, a faculty member in the computer science and engineering department at UCR, is one of the most popular professors around.
Working with the latest in motion capture technology, game software, and 3D virtual worlds, Zordan is developing cutting-edge techniques in graphics and animation. Computer animation remains a critical resource for movies, television and the electronic game industry, but its many applications also include general, vocational and medical education.
Recently, a grant to Zordan's department provided tools to perform human motion capture, a technique for creating character animation. Motion capture equipment records the movements of an actor, but not his visual appearance. These movements are collected as animation data which is then mapped to a 3D character model created by a computer artist. The result is a character that moves the same way as the original actor. Zordan was awarded the grant to make improvements to this process of "fitting" the data in order to better animate the character model.
Zordan has been an animation enthusiast and graphic programmer for more than twenty years, and a researcher investigating animation techniques for more than ten years. His research interests are in physical simulation, motion capture and algorithms used to create believable (and unbelievable) motion. His research aims to explore new uses for animation, not only for entertainment, but also for medical and training applications.
