Acquisition and modeling of human body form data

We describe some of our recent work on the computer-assisted acquisition, interaction, manipulation and display of three-dimensional data in general, and the human body form in particular. The work encompasses four distinct areas: 1) the automatic acquisition of 3-D surface points using a light-scanning technique, 2) the automatic construction of mathematical surface descriptions from point-contour data, 3) interaction and manipulation of 3-D data with multiple hand-mounted sensors, and 4) real-time stereo display of computer-synthetized continuous-tone images on special head-mounted display devices. We present some of our preliminary results in each of these areas and outline how they will be combined into a single comprehensive system. This system we expect will significantly enhance the computer's capabilities to assist in working with complex three-dimensional structures such as human bodies. As a simple example, we expect the system should be able to automatically digitize a human model, and within a few minutes generate a three-space approximating surface conforming to the human model's surface. Another person, wearing a helmet-like display device, will see through his helmet's visor not only the human model, but also the computer-generated approximating surface superimposed on it. As this human viewer moves around the model, the computer-generated surface will appear to stay on the model, and he'll be able to reach out and modify any portion of it or indicate that the digitizing system should re-scan parts of the surface whose approximation he deems unsatisfactory. Other applications of the system — for diagnostic medicine, architecture, and molecular modeling — will also be suggested.