Modeling the motion of the human body

I build statistical models for understanding and predicting human motion. I use motion capture technology to record the position of markers attached to the body during motion. The data consist of the 3D trajectories of these markers. This involves various types of functional data including curves, 3D trajectories and orientation trajectories. All these components need to be combined to produce a coherent prediction of human motion. I am interested in how factors such as height, weight, age and gender affect motion and in constructing models to predict new motions. The main area of application of my work has been in digital human modeling for virtual manufacturing applications. Many products and workplaces are designed in a virtual world before they are realized. To test these environments, one needs a virtual human to explore the performance of these designs for human use. One example of such design software is Jack. Before I moved to the University of Bath in July 2006, I was associate director of the Human Motion Simulation Laboratory at the University of Michigan. I am also interested in facial motion.

Related Publications

Faraway J. (1997) Regression Analysis for a Functional Response Technometrics 39 254-261.
See also software and data related to this article.

Faraway J., Zhang X. and Chaffin C. (1999) Rectifying Postures Reconstructed From Joint Angles To Meet Constraints Journal of Biomechanics 32 733-736

Chaffin D., Faraway J., Woolley C., Park W. and Wang Y. (1999) Simulating Industrial Reach Motions for Biomechanical Analyses Industrial Engineering Research Conference

Chaffin D., Faraway J. and Zhang X. (1999) Simulating Reach Motions SAE Human Modeling for Design and Engineering Conference, SAE Technical Paper 1999-01-1916

Faraway J. (2000) Modeling reach motions using functional regression analysis. SAE Technical Paper 2000-01-2175

Chaffin D., Faraway J., Zhang X. & Woolley C. (2000) Stature, Age and Gender Effects on Reach Motion Postures Human Factors 42 408-420.

Faraway J. and Hu J. (2001) Modeling Variability in Reaching Motions. SAE Technical Paper 2001-01-2094

Faraway J. (2003) Regression Modeling of Motion with Endpoint Constraints Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation 14 31-41.

Faraway J. (2003) Data-based Motion Prediction Journal of Passenger Cars - Electronic and Electrical Systems 722-732

Faraway J. (2004) Human Animation using Nonparametric Regression Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 13 537-553

Choes, S and Faraway J. (2004) Modeling Head and Hand Orientation during Motion using Quaternions SAE Transactions, Journal of Aerospace, 2004-01-2179

Shen Q. & Faraway J. (2004) An F Test for Linear Models With Functional Responses Statistica Sinica 14 1239-1257

Park W., Chaffin D., Martin B. & Faraway J. (2004) A Computer Algorithm for Representing Spatial-Temporal Structure of Human Motion and a Motion Generalization Method Journal of Biomechanics 38 2321-2329

Reed, M.P., Faraway, J., Chaffin, D.B., (2005). Critical features in human motion simulation. Proceedings of the 49th Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. HFES, Santa Monica, CA.

Reed, M.P., Faraway, J., Chaffin, D.B., and Martin, B.J. (2006).The HUMOSIM Framework: A new approach to human motion simulation for ergonomic analysis. Technical Paper 2006-01-2365. SAE International, Warrendale, PA.

Faraway J. & Reed. M (2007) Statistics for Digital Human Modeling in Ergonomics Technometrics 49 262-276

Faraway J., Reed M. and Wang J. (2007) Modeling 3D trajectories using Bézier curves with application to hand motion Applied Statistics 56 571-585.

Faraway, J. (2008) Statistical methods for human motion modeling Handbook of Digital Human Modeling: Research for Applied Ergonomics and Human Factors Engineering, edited by Duffy, V., published by CRC Press

Faraway J. and Choe S. B (2008) Modeling Orientation Trajectories Statistical Modeling to appear.