Segmentation and Classification of Human Actions and Actor Characteristics with 3d Motion Data

In this paper we have used 3D motion capture data with the aim of detecting and classifying specifichuman actions. In addition to recognition of basic action classes, actor styles and characteristics such asgender, age, and energy level have also been subject to classification. We have applied and compared threemain methods: nearest neighbour search, hidden Markov models, and artificial neural networks. Usingthese techniques, we have proposed exhaustive algorithms for detection of actions in a motion piece andsubsequently classifying the segmented actions and respective characteristics of the actors. We have testedthe methods for various sequences and compared the results for a comprehensive evaluation of each of theproposed techniques. Our findings can be largely used for general classification of human motion data formultimedia applications as well as sorting and classifying data sets of human motion data especially thoseacquired using visual marker-based motion capture systems such as the one employed in this research.