Thierry Guiard-Martigny
Inst. de la Commun. Parlee, Grenoble Cedex 9, France
David J. Ostry
McGill Univ., Montreal, PQ H3A 1B1, Canada
With the development of precise 3-D motion measurement systems and powerful computers for 3-D graphical visualization, it is possible to record and fully reconstruct jaw motions. In this paper, a video demonstration of a visualization system for displaying 3-D jaw movements in speech will be presented. Kinematic records of jaw motion and the corresponding speech signal are recorded using an optoelectronic measurement system. The three orientation angles and three positions which describe the motion of the jaw as a rigid skeletal structure and derived from the empirical measurements. These six kinematic variables, which account fully for jaw motion kinematics, are used to drive a real-time 3-D animation of a skeletal jaw and upper skull. The visualization software enables the user to view jaw motion from any orientation and to change viewpoint in the course of an utterance. Selected portions of an utterance may be re-played and the speed of the visual display may be varied. The user may also display, along with the audio track, individual kinematic degrees of freedom or several degrees of freedom in combination. The system is now being integrated into a 3-D audio-visual articulatory speech synthesizer. [Work supported by NIH Grant DC-00594.]