Design and Implementation of Synthetic Humans for Virtual Environments and Simulation Systems

The subject of this paper is the design and implementation of a synthetic human, i.e. a three dimensional model that looks and acts like a real human. We have implemented a system that encapsulates all the important features that we believe a synthetic human should have in order to be effective in both virtual environments and simulation systems. Our approach combines appealing graphics with effectiveness and the ability to interact with simulated environments that use physically based modelling. The paper discusses important design and implementation issues, such as the use of human geometry models, animation, inverse kinematics, collision detection, etc. Key-Words: Virtual Reality, Virtual Environments, Simulation, Human Modelling, Computer Graphics, Computer Animation