A sketch-based gesture interface for rough 3D stick figure animation

This paper introduces a novel gesture interface for sketching out rough 3D stick figure animation. This interface can allow users to draw stick figures with the system automatic assistance in figure proportion control. Given a 2D hand-drawn stick figure under a parallel view, there is a challenge to reconstruct a unique 3D pose from a set of candidates. Our system utilizes figure perspective rendering, and introduces the concept of ‘thickness contrast’ as a sketch gesture combined with some other constraints/assumptions for pose recovery. The resulting pose can be further corrected, based on physical constraints of human body. Once obtaining a series of 3D stick figure poses, user can easily sketch out motion paths and timing, and add their preferable sound/background. The resulting 3D animation can be automatically synthesized in VRML. This system has been tested on a variety of input devices: electric whiteboard, tablet PC, as well as a standard mouse