The Virtual Caliper project provides you with software tools to rapidly generate metrically accurate avatars based on measurements. These avatars can be generated offline for later import into game engines or alternatively within the game engine itself. Avatars are based on the SMPL body model and support skeletal mesh animation.
Authors
Sergi Pujades, Betty Mohler, Anne Thaler, Joachim Tesch, Naureen Mahmood, Nikolas Hesse, Heinrich H. Bülthoff, and Michael J. Black
Abstract
Creating metrically accurate avatars is important for many applications such as virtual clothing try-on, ergonomics, medicine, immersive social media, telepresence, and gaming. Creating avatars that precisely represent a particular individual is challenging however, due to the need for expensive 3D scanners, privacy issues with photographs or videos, and difficulty in making accurate tailoring measurements. We overcome these challenges by creating “The Virtual Caliper”, which uses VR game controllers to make simple measurements. First, we establish what body measurements users can reliably make on their own body. We find several distance measurements to be good candidates and then verify that these are linearly related to 3D body shape as represented by the SMPL body model. The Virtual Caliper enables novice users to accurately measure themselves and create an avatar with their own body shape. We evaluate the metric accuracy relative to ground truth 3D body scan data, compare the method quantitatively to other avatar creation tools, and perform extensive perceptual studies. We also provide a software application to the community that enables novices to rapidly create avatars in fewer than five minutes. Not only is our approach more rapid than existing methods, it exports a metrically accurate 3D avatar model that is rigged and skinned.
Venue:
Downloads
We are providing the following applications as part of the Virtual Caliper software release:
- BodyCreator
- Desktop application which allows to create body shapes based on body measurement input
- Unity source project files and standalone binaries for Windows/Linux/macOS
- BodyMeshExporter
- Command-line tool which creates female/male skeletal meshes in FBX format using the body description information generated by the BodyCreator tool
- Blender/Python project files and command-line scripts for Windows/Linux/macOS
- BodyCreatorVR
- Virtual Reality demo application for HTC Vive which allows to modify an avatar body shape in real-time based on 3D UI measurement input
- Unity source project files and standalone binaries for Windows
- BodyMeasurementVR
- Virtual Reality application for HTC Vive which allows to make body dimension measurements with the HTC Vive wand trackers
- Unity source project files and standalone binaries for Windows
Before you can download the software you have to register here.
You will then receive a confirmation email which you must use to activate the registration. Access to software download section will then be activated.
Referencing The Virtual Caliper
@article{pujades2019virtual,
title={The Virtual Caliper: Rapid Creation of Metrically Accurate Avatars from 3D Measurements},
author={Pujades, Sergi and Mohler, Betty and Thaler, Anne and Tesch, Joachim and Mahmood, Naureen and Hesse, Nikolas and B{\"u}lthoff, Heinrich H and Black, Michael J},
journal={IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics},
volume={25},
number={5},
pages={1887--1897},
year={2019},
publisher={IEEE},
doi={10.1109/TVCG.2019.2898748}
}More Information
- IEEE page (including Open Access PDF Version): https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8648222
- The Virtual Caliper Project page at MPI IS: https://ps.is.mpg.de/publications/vcaliper-2019
Contact
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Photo credits: Jan Rottler and Thomas Motta
