Santos

Santos is a human-like figure, that looks, moves, and reacts like we do.  Santos is a life-like digital human that was created by VSR researchers.

The Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) program at The University of Iowa has been conducting research on human modeling and simulation. VSR will be providing a  glimpse into their human software (a digital intelligent character) called Santos at the annual meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Digital Human Modeling for Design and Engineering (DHM) Conference, June 15-17, 2004 at Oakland University, Michigan, USA. Santos has deformable skin, contracting muscles, is anatomically correct and lives in a real-time interactive immersive virtual reality environment. VSR is a program comprising 36 researchers at the University of Iowa.

Visual Environment

            1.               realistic human appearance
2.                realistic deformation of skin
3.                high number of polygons
4.                real-time dynamic lighting
5.                real-time shading
6.                particle system based environmental effects
7.                web-based deployment

 Interface with Santos

            1.                gesture based communications
2.                vision-based user-recognition
3.                voice recognition
4.                haptic devices
5.                3d input devices
6.                "Buddy" interaction and communications for
            design
7.                autonomous or user defined

 Movement and feedback based on human anatomy and physiology

            1.                anatomically correct biomechanical models
2.                muscle-skeletal system
3.                highly accurate muscle models
4.                strength, fatigue, and endurance evaluation
5.                balance
6.                monitor vital signs
7.                variable anthropometric data

 Advanced posture and motion prediction

            1.                optimization-based approach using newly developed
            human performance measures
2.                89 degrees of freedom
3.                physics-based
4.                vision-dependent
5.                user-definable end effector path prediction
6.                responds autonomously to infinitely many scenarios
7.                motion constraints include:
            a.     fatigue
            b.     discomfort
            c.     effort
            d.     strength
            e.     restrictions due to outer garments
            f.      joint ranges of motion
                                                    i.     disabilities
                                                   ii.     levels of physical fitness

                        g.     vision
            h.     reach envelope

PC-based VR Environment

            1.                real-time modeling and simulation
2.                real-time movement
3.                real-time interactivity
4.                compatible with multi-wall immersive displays
5.                inherently stable haptic devices
6.                vrpn compatibility vr devices
7.                sophisticated spatial sound synthesizer

 Dynamic simulation

1.                joint force and torque analysis
2.                external load analysis
3.                balance
4.                optimization-based dynamic analysis enabling
            increased degrees of freedom with no equations
           of motion.
        a.     approach to motion that doesn’t require
              solving equations of motion

Artifical Intellegence

            1.                Volitional cognition
2.                virtual human interaction
3.                crowd simulation
4.                situation awareness
5.                behavior representation and prediction
6.                task/procedure execution of motion

 Task-based environment interaction and awareness

            1.                collision detection
2.                object avoidance
3.                object recognition
4.                intelligent object handling and manipulation

 Validation

            1.                experimental-based confirmation using motion
            capture
2.                niosh
3.                cdc

 CAD format compatibility

            1.                formats
2.                optimize formats for real-time
3.                texture compression

 Clothing simulation

            1.                computational cloth models
2.                computational draping methods
3.                thermodynamic modeling
4.                cloth bulking motion restriction
5.                modeling of nbc

Virtual Soldier Research
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
Tel. (319) 335-5722
Fax. (319) 335-5669
Email: amalek@engineering.uiowa.edu
Web: http://www.digital-humans.org

Analysis Suites

            1.                Ergonomics
2.                Advanced reach envelope analysis
3.                Vision analysis
4.                biomechanics
5.                process analysis
6.                motion analysis