[huml-comment] Re: Fwd: gait characterization research Re: walk

[James Landrum <james.landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>]

I reviewed article, and discovered most links to researchers web sites 
were broken, and among other things, the BBC news goofed on name of 
Southampton researcher, (Mark Nixon, not Mark Dixon) so I checked the 
institutions' web sites and found the following:.
Main researchers are
Aaron Bobick, Georgia Tech;  http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~afb/
Gait Research at ISIS, U. of Southampton; 
http://www.isis.ecs.soton.ac.uk/image/gait/
Also, not so long ago, there was a TV documentary on "walking with 
Prehistoric Beasts, including a short segment on animation of hominids 
walking, based on fossil skeletal evidence of australopithecines,  homo 
habilis, homo erectus, and that research was also conducted in UK,but I 
don't recall specifics at this time.  lots of other gait research 
underway at various institutions, just type in following keywords, 
hominid and gait in any search engine.

Rex Brooks wrote:

> I thought I would pass this tidbit along.
>
> Ciao,
> Rex
>
>> Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 19:54:08 -0700
>> From: "cognite@zianet.com" <cognite@zianet.com>
>> X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
>> To: "L. Reafsnyder" <budoka42@mindspring.com>,  rexb@starbourne.com
>> Subject: gait characterization research Re: walk
>> X-Rcpt-To: <rexb@starbourne.com>
>> X-DPOP: Version number supressed
>> Status: U
>>
>> some tracking down of this research might be relevant to the HuML 
>> work. The researchers involved aren't named in this, but it looks 
>> related to the Native Dancer material perhaps.
>> SC
>>
>> received:
>>
>>> Saturday, 1 February, 2003, 09:24 GMT
>>> Walk offers clues to identity
>>>   Everyone walks in their distinctive way
>>>  A new technique of personal identification
>>>  is being developed that uses something as simple as the way you 
>>> walk to work out who you are, as BBC World ClickOnline's Andrew Webb 
>>> reports.
>>>   Each and every one of us has our own distinctive way of walking, 
>>> called our gait. Many of us share general characteristics, but 
>>> physical differences make a difference in the way we move.
>>>  Because they have wider pelvises, women sway their hips more than men.
>>>  And people from one country can have a different gait to those in 
>>> another.
>>>  What is of particular interest to scientists is trying to make a 
>>> computer do what we all do instinctively - know within a split 
>>> second that the lolloping or swaggering figure coming towards us is 
>>> a close relative, a complete stranger, or one of our best friends.
>>>  Researchers at Georgia Tech in the US city of Atlanta are trying to 
>>> teach computers to record the precise way we move.
>>>  Checking identities
>>>  Volunteers walk through a studio while wearing metallic disks. A 
>>> computer monitors the position of each disk and builds up a digital 
>>> picture of the person's gait.
>>>   Person's walk broken down into a computer image
>>> When the computer analyses film shot in a different location, it 
>>> identifies the volunteer as being the same person.
>>>  "Right now we're at the stage of verification," said Professor 
>>> Aaron Bobick, associate professor of computational vision at Georgia 
>>> Tech.
>>>  "If somebody comes in with an ID that says that's John, and then I 
>>> see this person walking around outside can the computer tell that it 
>>> really is John? The current performance levels are getting us close 
>>> to being able to do that pretty well."
>>>  The security industry is interested in the technology as a way of 
>>> picking a criminal out in a crowd.
>>>  The real challenge for scientists is to be able to recognise 
>>> someone's gait out in the real world.
>>>  Lines of symmetry
>>>  At the University of Southampton in England, gait aficionados 
>>> believe they are cracking that problem.
>>>  So we put them to the test. The first step was to generate a 
>>> computer image of me walking through their lab.
>>>  Mark Dixon of Southampton University explained: "We film as you 
>>> walk and then we bung the film into computers.
>>>  "These then pull out a series of numbers, and each time you walk 
>>> past the camera you should get the same set of numbers.
>>>  "A different person walks past and they produce a different set of 
>>> numbers. We then recognise you by that set of numbers," he said.
>>>  Each person's walk is broken down into a computer image marking out 
>>> lines of symmetry as the body moves.
>>>  Gait monitoring
>>>  The technique has only become possible in recent years as the power 
>>> of microprocessors has accelerated.
>>>  The question is whether the 7,000 gigabyte memory bank can tell me 
>>> apart from everyone else it has stored.
>>>  In a bustling street the computer has difficulty separating me from 
>>> all the other movement, but when I am the only person in shot there 
>>> is no problem.
>>>  Another way to confuse the computer is to radically alter my walk. 
>>> The lines of symmetry generated are so different to my normal walk 
>>> that the computer is unable to recognise me.
>>>  If gait technology ever catches on as a security weapon could it be 
>>> that criminals start looking for inventive ways to avoid being 
>>> recognised?
>>>  Perhaps adopting someone else's walk will become the ideal way of 
>>> foxing tomorrow's gait monitoring police.
>>>  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2712995.stm
>>
>
>

-- 
From the Desk of James E. Landrum III
Database Manager
Archaeology Technologies Laboratory (ATL; http://atl.ndsu.edu)
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA; http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota 58105
Ph: 701-231-7115 (my desk) and ATL 701-231-6434
FAX: 701-231-1047
email: james.landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu