re Re: Automatic hand gesture recognition for SignWriting
Gan Lu
glu at UCLAN.AC.UK
Mon Jan 4 23:34:34 UTC 2010
Dear Valerie and Adam, and everyone;
Thank you very much for the video and the passage that post online, that's really helpful to me.
So now, I will develop the system based on that. If there is any news, I will keep you informed.
Thanks
Gan
>>> Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>>>>
Hello Lik-Kwan, Ulrike, and Everyone -
Thank you for your messages. We are happy to work with you.
Adam Frost is visiting a school for the Deaf in Jamaica right now, and
will be back to SignWriting work on January 11th. Before he left on
his trip, Adam corrected the writing of one sign in the old 1999
Frosty document, plus created a video of that one page only, with a
dead face...no facial expressions...since that is the way the 1999
version was written by Deaf author Lourdes Tollette. Of course, we all
know that real ASL needs facial expressions, and we always write
facial expressions...this old 1999 document is an exception...Once
Adam comes home from Jamaica, he will sign his own version of Frosty
in ASL, creating a full video, and then he will write it in
SignWriting and post it, with facial expressions.
So for your work right now, you have a video for that one page from
1999:
http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchword.php?ui=1&sgn=5&sid=459
Keep us informed of your project and I hope funding can be found
later...I am happy to help with any grant writing if needed...
2010 will certainly be a successful year!
Val ;-)
-----------------------------
On Jan 4, 2010, at 8:47 AM, Lik Shark wrote:
> Dear Val
>
> Sorry for my late response as I was on holiday. Thank you in advance
> for agreeing to provide video for our project. We will keep you
> informed of our progress and will produce a video when we have done
> the prototype demonstrator to seek your opinion on our direct SW
> input based on hand gestures. I will also talk to Ulrike to work out
> a plan to seek external funding. We should be able to get a small
> amount of funding to support visits, to develop ideas and to
> progress the preliminary demonstrator development (there should be
> some schemes for US-UK exchange). Once the demonstrator is done and
> successful, we could use it to apply for major funding to support
> the full development.
>
> I have made direct SW input as my new year resolution and let's make
> it a successful new year for us.
>
> Lik-Kwan
>
>
> >>> Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> 28 December 2009 21:11 >>>
> Hello Prof Lik-Kwan Shark and everyone -
>
> Adam will create a second version of Frosty....signing his own version
> on a video and then transcribing that video and placing that
> transcription in SignPuddle ASL LIterature too...as a second version
> of the same story...
>
> Adam will write a simplified version without facial expressions, and
> write a more expressive version with facial expressions...that way you
> can choose between the two versions, for your research work...with
> video of everything...signed by Adam, a native ASL signer...and
> written in vertical columns as it should be.
>
> So in the first week of January we will deliver this to you -
>
> We look forward to possible funding for our work together -
>
> Val ;-)
>
> Valerie Sutton
> Sutton at SignWriting.org
>
> -----------
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 28, 2009, at 11:52 AM, Valerie Sutton wrote:
>
> > Hello Prof. Lik-Kwan Shark!
> > Thank you for your message below, which was sent to me by Gan Lu,
> > since my email was not working well last week and I missed your
> > original sending of the message...I believe all of my email
> > addresses are working again - let's hope!
> >
> > I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and happy 2010, which
> > starts a new decade of software development...
> >
> > I have placed my responses inbetween your paragraphs below...I am
> > also including our software designer and programmer, Steve
> > Slevinski, in this message, since Steve is the expert when it comes
> > to SWML, Binary SignWriitng (BSW), the SignWriting Image Server, and
> > SignPuddle software...all of our latest software, which is the
> > standard for programming SignWriting today...
> >
> > SignWriter DOS is out of date for a variety of reasons. It is the
> > software from the 1980s and 1990s...a whole decade ago! The new
> > software of the 2000's and 2010's...the world standard for
> > SignWriting programming, is developed by Steve...and new programs
> > are coming in 2010 based on Steve's SignWriting Image Server
> > (SWIS)...http://www.signbank.org/swis/
> >
> > One of the new developments will be the SignWriting MediaWiki
> > Plugin, which will make it possible to have Wikipedias written in
> > sign languages...the Wikimedia Foundation is looking forward to
> > using the MediaWiki Plugin for an American Sign Language Wikipedia,
> > where writers will write their articles in SignWriting directly on
> > the web... just wanted to share that with you, if it would have any
> > interest to your students and programmers...
> >
> > I am also including Adam Frost in this message. Adam is born-Deaf,
> > native to ASL, and is a skilled teacher and editor of
> > SignWriting...Adam will be re-writing the Frosty the Snowman
> > sequence to make it more up-to-date, plus I am asking Adam to do the
> > video of that sequence for you, since he is Deaf and native to ASL.
> >
> >
> >> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<LiK-Kwan Shark Wrote<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> >> Dear Valerie
> >> Thank you so much for your very positive personal response to my
> >> research student, Mr Gan LU, on the above PhD project. Your energy
> >> and help have not only motivated the student, but also gave a few
> >> ideas for us to consider. With significant synergies between your
> >> work and our work, I believe it would be useful to explore possible
> >> working relationship with you.
> >
> > Yes, we agree! and happy to meet you ;-)
> >
> >
> >> The work conducted by Gan is a collaboration project between my
> >> Applied Digital Signal and Image Processing Research Centre and the
> >> International Institute for Sign Language & Deaf Studies led by
> >> Prof Ulrike Zeshan.
> >
> > Really? Wonderful. Ulrike and I have communicated before about
> > SignWriting. At one point we discussed sending a SignWriting teacher
> > to a conference there, but then funding did not come and so it did
> > not happen...but I know, if we had the right funding, that a
> > teacher, like Adam, would really benefit the students and teachers
> > there...British Sign Language has not been written that much, and
> > more skilled BSL writers are necessary...Adam could teach some
> > teachers who know BSL, how to write their sign language, and it
> > would start to spread in the UK ...
> >
> > If your project is successful this will be wonderful for all
> > SignWriting users around the world...
> >
> >
> >> By using a special data glove which is able to provide angular and
> >> position information of all hand joints, we have successfully
> >> applied it to immersive manipulation of virtual objects by using
> >> some simple hand gestures, and we would like to extend the work by
> >> building a simple demonstrator for sign writing to show the
> >> potential of the direct gesture based input method against other
> >> input methods.
> >
> > Wow. This will be very impressive indeed...
> >
> >
> >> This has led to the requirement of selecting a simple and short
> >> section of sign text for implementation, the need of a video with
> >> the corresponding sign gestures to provide standard movement, and
> >> software to enable keyboard based sign input for interface design
> >> and comparison. Your advice from a user perspective will therefore
> >> be extremely valuable. From our engineering perspective, the ideal
> >> sign text should involves little facial and body gestures (which
> >> will be pre-input if they exist), since the demonstrator is for
> >> hand gesture based input at this stage.
> >
> > I see. That makes sense that you focus on hand gestures right now of
> > course. Later, it will be important to include facial expressions,
> > since they are a part of the grammar of sign languages. Without
> > writing facial expressions, you are only writing a portion of sign
> > language....
> >
> > But certainly that is a good place to start...and you are right that
> > Frosty the Snowman does not include facial expressions because at
> > that time, the writer was not that skilled and she didn't know how
> > to write facial expressions...so it gives us a document with just
> > hand and arm movement, which is what you need...
> >
> > What would help is if the end result of the writing is in vertical
> > columns ...that is SignWriting that is up to date...
> >
> > Here is that exact paragraph, written in vertical columns in
> > SignPuddle (we will be editing it a little today):
> >
> > http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchword.php?
> > ui=1&sgn=5&sid=459
> >
> >
> >
> >> This has led to the sign text selected by Gan and he did not choose
> >> BSL due to lack of documentation. I understand from him that you
> >> have also helped him to get the SignWriter working, and the
> >> remaining problem is to have a video. For demonstration purpose,
> >> the video could be produced to sign the selected text in the most
> >> common way (it does not have to be in the way signed by the
> >> original author) as long as it comes with the corresponding sign
> >> text. Are you able to assist? If there are conditions attached to
> >> the assistance, we would be very happy to consider.
> >
> > I would be happy to do that for you, but I would suggest that I ask
> > Adam Frost to sign it for us, since he is born-Deaf and a native
> > signer...in case later you want facial expressions, it will give you
> > a video that would "feel" deaf...of course I can do it too, but I am
> > just a "hearing person" smile...
> >
> >
> >> The demonstrator is just a start of our long term research goal of
> >> whole body gesture recognition, the intention is to use it as a
> >> basis to apply external funding to develop a full system by
> >> combining with our other research activities in dynamic facial
> >> expression recognition based on dynamic 3D camera and human motion
> >> modelling based on synchronous multiple cameras. With your movement
> >> writing as an excellent application of our technology, perhaps we
> >> should think about a formal collaborative partnership between us.
> >> What do you think?
> >
> > Yes. I would be grateful for a formal collaboration. Our
> > organization here is very small. We are a US non-profit educational
> > organization, called the "Center for Sutton Movement Writing. Our
> > Center only has six workers...Steve, Adam, myself and 3 others...I
> > am the director of our Center, and I write the grants to try to keep
> > the organization going...Our organization needs funding, since of
> > course I will pay Adam and Steve to help you with your project...so
> > if our two organizations could receive funding for the project, we
> > all would be most grateful...
> >
> > We are located in the US...the organization was founded in southern
> > California (San Diego area) ... but we donate materials and
> > technical support to around 40 countries, so we are international in
> > scope...so I do not know how that works with international
> > funding...but I am happy to help write any grants or do any work to
> > explain the funding needs...Just tell me what you plan, and we can
> > talk more about budgets and so forth...so keep me informed...
> >
> > And Happy New Year to all of you as well!
> >
> > Thank you for this message and for our new collaboration -
> >
> > Val ;-)
> >
> > Valerie Sutton
> > (see signature info below)
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Finally, my best wishes to you for X'mas and new year.
> >>
> >> Lik-Kwan
> >>
> >>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Prof. Lik-Kwan Shark
> >> Head of ADSIP Research Centre
> >> Department of Technology
> >> University of Central Lancashire
> >> Preston PR1 2HE
> >> UK
> >>
> >> Tel: +44 (0)1772 893253 (Direct)
> >> Tel: +44 (0)1772 893310 (Department Office)
> >> Fax: +44 (0)1772 892915
> >> Email: lshark at uclan.ac.uk
> >>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > ----------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Val ;-)
> >
> >
> > Valerie Sutton
> > Sutton at SignWriting.org
> >
> > SignWriting
> > Read & Write Sign Languages
> > http://www.SignWriting.org
> >
> > SignPuddle
> > Create SignWriting Documents Online
> > http://www.SignBank.org/signpuddle
> >
> > SignWriting Shop
> > Books, DVDs, Lessons, Services
> > http://www.SignWriting.org/shop
> >
> > SignWriting List
> > Technical Support: Ask questions...
> > http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/swlist
> >
> > SignWriting Literature Project
> > Writing Literature in Sign Languages
> > http://www.SignWriting.org/literature
> >
> > SignWriting Sponsors Forum
> > Help Educational Non-Profit Organization
> > http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/sponsors
> >
> > Deaf Action Committee For SignWriting
> > Center For Sutton Movement Writing
> > a US educational nonprofit organization
> > PO Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038, USA
> > Tel: 858-456-0098 Skype: valeriesutton
> >
>
____________________________________________
SW-L SignWriting List
Post Message
SW-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
List Archives and Help
http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/
Change Email Settings
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/sw-l
More information about the Sw-l
mailing list