Computer graphic modeling of american sign language

The essential grammatical information of American Sign Language (ASL) is conveyed through changes in the movement and spatial contouring of the hands and arms. An interactive computer graphic system is described for the analysis and modeling of sign language movement. This system consists of four components. The first component reconstructs actual movements in three dimensions and allows the user to interactively segment and transform the data for later analysis. The second component allows a user to interactively create synthetic signs by specifying angle functions in a jointed model. The third component provides a novel technique for manipulating movement quality independently of spatial path. The fourth component allows the building of complex stimuli and real-time stimulus sequencing for psycholinguistic experiments. The emphasis is on interactive techniques and data structures that allow analysis and modeling of the complex hand and arm movements of American Sign Language.