The description of Bunraku puppet's motion in computer based on Labanotation

The authors are researching the humanoids' movement, where humanoid means human beings, humanoid robots, human puppets, human CG characters and so on. In this paper, we discuss the transformation system between the movement score (dance notation, Labanotation), the movement description in computer and the body movement data (including the motion captured data) which are used to generate Computer Graphics animation of the humanoid's movement. The authors propose a method to describe humanoids' movement in computer which are developed based on Labanotaion (one of the most famous dance notation in the world). The proposed humanoid movement description method can describe not only the movement information which are described by Labanotation but also more detailed movement information. This movement description is called "movement MIDI based on Labanotatopn "or" continuous Labanotation", and it exists between the Labanoation (which the choreographer can read but the computer cannot read) and the humanoid movement data (which the computer can read but the choreographer cannot read). It can be read by both the choreographer and the computer, and it is useful to modify the humanoid movement data in order to modify the CG animation, since the information of Labanotation is not sufficient to generate natural display of CG animation. We report the results of transformation from the humanoid's motion captured data into the proposed movement description in computer.