A Learning Tool To Assist In Animation Of Bipedal Walk Cycles

This paper studies the activity of bipedal walking with the objective of describing procedural techniques to automate this process. The main problem this paper explores is how to mathematically characterize the relationships and motion of different limbs involved in the process of walking and to represent realistic and natural walk cycles. Other issues discussed are possible variations to create different types of walk cycles. The results have been used to implement and develop a learning tool to assist students in the creation of animated walk cycles. This paper is reporting on the methods used to create a practical computer-assisted tool to show and teach students how walk cycles get affected by different parameters without having to learn every facet of their complicated 3D animation applications. The results can also be applied to many different areas of visualization, such as architectural and virtual reality environments, where human or bipedal models are involved.