Method and apparatus for providing personalised audio-visual instruction

Abstract

A method of and apparatus (10) for providing a personalized audio-visual instructional aid for assisting a person (11) to emulate preferred positions and / or movements in undertaking an activity by capturing position and / or movement data of the person (11) or an object associated with and controlled by the person undertaking the activity using position and / or movement sensing devices such as MEMS sensors (13) on the person (11) or object and using a computer (16) to analyze and compare the captured data with pre-stored data relating to preferred positions and / or movement in undertaking the activity and generating a visual presentation (19) based on the differences between the captured position and / or movement of the person or object and the preferred positions and / or movement and adding to the generated visual presentation, audio instructional comments relating to the differences.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]This invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing personalized audio-visual instruction and in particular to a method and apparatus which uses sensed data coordinates of a human movement or movement of an object hi order to provide the basis for producing a personalized audio-visual teaching presentation or aid.BACKGROUND ART[0002]Accurate three-dimensional tracking of human movement has the potential to enable many kinds of human-computer interaction and vision-based methods promise tracking without encumbrance by body-mounted apparatus. The latter form of tracking can be based on the use of optical sensors affixed to a person's body however sensors of this type can become obscured and therefore accurate movement sensing is not always possible. Furthermore, setting up of a movement tracking studio using mocap cameras requires a large area, is very expensive, and for the organizations that do set up these facilities, the data collection procedures a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]The present invention thus provides in one aspect, a method of providing a personalized audio-visual instructional aid for assisting a person to emulate preferred positions and / or movements in undertaking an activity, said method including the steps of capturing position and / or movement data of said person or part of said person or an object associated with and controlled by said person whilst said person undertakes said activity using position and / or movement sensing means attached to or worn by said person or attached to said object, analyzing and comparing said captured t data with pre-stored data of preferred positions and / or movement in undertaking said activity, generating a visual presentation based on the differences between the captured positions and / or movements of said person or object and said preferred positions and / or movements and adding to said generated visual presentation, audio instructional comments relating to said differences to assist a person to emulate said preferred positions and / or movements.

[0015]In another aspect, the present invention provides apparatus for providing a personalized audio-visual instructional aid for assisting a person to emulate a preferred movement during an activity, said apparatus including position and / or movement sensing means adapted to be attached to or worn by said person or part of said person or attached to an object associated with and controlled by said person for capturing position and / or movement data of said person or object whilst said person undertakes said activity, means for analyzing and comparing said captured data with pre-stored position and / or movement data relating to preferred positions and / or movements in undertaking said activity, means for generating a visual presentation based on the differences between the captured positions and / or movements of said person or object and said preferred positions and / or movements, and means for adding to said generated visual presentation, audio instructional comments relating to said differences to assist a person to emulate said preferred positions and / or movements.

[0016]The method and apparatus used for the personalized audio-visual teaching presentation enable a person or pupil to more clearly emulate another movement and receive expert advice to improve their technique without an expert person needing to see the pupil's movement.

[0028]The present invention has particular applications to teachings in sport, so as to help and assist a person emulate a particular movement or technique. The present invention however may also be applied to many other applications where an emulation or overview of a precise movement is required. Thus, the invention may be applied to various applications in the arts fields, for example the teaching of dance steps or within the medical rehabilitation field where precise movements are required to be performed and expert advice given. Additionally, the present invention may be used in games to detect the movement of a person or their equipment whilst playing a game, analyze that movement against a preferred movement or successful strategies to play the game and show back on screen how they have performed with audio instructional comments to help the player understand where their movement differs from an experts.

[0030]In this latter aspect, the present invention provides a method for providing a personalized audio-visual instructional aid for assisting a person to emulate preferred actions in undertaking an activity in relation to an object controlled by said person, said method including the steps of capturing position and / or movement data of said object whilst said person undertakes said activity using position and / or movement sensing means on said object, analyzing and comparing said captured data with data of preferred positions and / or movements in relation to said activity, generating a visual presentation based on the differences between the captured positions and / or movements of said object and said preferred positions and / or movements and adding to said generated visual presentation, audio instructional comments relating to said differences to assist a person to emulate said preferred actions in said activity.

Problems solved by technology

The latter form of tracking can be based on the use of optical sensors affixed to a person's body however sensors of this type can become obscured and therefore accurate movement sensing is not always possible.

Furthermore, setting up of a movement tracking studio using mocap cameras requires a large area, is very expensive, and for the organizations that do set up these facilities, the data collection procedures are long and complicated.

The problem with 3D human movement capture is that while it can be very effective for some applications within the confines of a very expensive studio, remote sensing movement systems have not been designed which can be used in general public areas where they are likely to be required such as tennis courts, golf driving ranges, and gyms or in the home environment.

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