| This thesis concerns the acquisition, modeling and manipulation of the human form. First, we acquire body models. We introduce an efficient bootstraped algorithm that we employed to register over 2,000 high resolution body scans of male and female adult subjects. Our algorithm outputs not only the traditional vertex correspondences, but also directly produces a high quality model which can be immediately deformed. We then employ the result to fit noisy depth maps coming from now commercially available 3D sensors such as Microsoft's Kinect and PrimeSense's Carmine. We then switch focus to the topic of body manipulation. We first revisit the more traditional way of specifying bodies from a set of measurements, such as coming from clothing sizing charts, showing how the statistics of the population learned during the registration can aid us in accurately defining the body shape. We then introduce a new manipulation metaphor, where we navigate through the space of body shapes and poses by directly dragging the body mesh surface. We conclude by describing a new real-time system for image-based body manipulation called BodyJam, that lets you change your outfit with a finger snap. BodyJam is inspired by a technique invented by the surrealists a century ago: "Exquisite Corpse", a method by which a collection of images (of body parts) is collectively assembled. BodyJam does it on a video display that mirrors the pose in real-time of a real-person standing in front of the camera/display mirror, and allows the user to change clothes and other appearance attributes. Using Microsoft's Kinect, poses are matched to a video database of different torsos and legs, and "pages'' showing different clothes are turned by hand gestures. |
