The Canterville ghost: from motion capture to real-time virtual reality
![[Translate to English:] Photograph with a virtual green ghost to the left that looks suprised and has streaming hair around her face. To the right, a man is half turned around, looking suprised at the ghost.](/fileadmin/_processed_/e/0/csm_crea_6b4112da8b.jpeg)
It started as a question from Riksteatern's sign language ensemble CREA: "Can you help us make an animated character who speaks sign language in real time on stage in our upcoming show about the Ghost of Canterville? It has been done before in England on a fixed theatre stage with lots of technology. But we want a cheap solution that is possible to take on tour. Can you help us?"
The Humanities Lab at Lund University is good at motion capture and took on the task. A few months later, they had developed a solution that could read a sign-language speaking actor backstage, which is shown in real time as a sign-language speaking avatar on stage.
Since then, CREA has refined the solution into a fully-functional stage technology for touring that can be set up in a couple of hours.
Watch CREA's Promotion video for the performance. (Subtitles in English and Swedish.)- lu.instructuremedia.com
In addition to contributing to this project, the Humanities Lab has developed the ability to make really advanced motion capture useful for research in areas such as medicine, humanities, human-robot interaction and zoology.
To spread knowledge about the technology and the Humanities Lab's capabilities, and offer a unique cultural experience, we are handing out tickets to one of the four performances that CREA gives in Lund on the weekend of 7-9 February 2025.
•7 February at 13.00
•7 February at 19.00
•8 February at 18.00
•9 February at 15.00
Place: Lund City Theatre, Kiliansgatan 13 in Lund
Language: Swedish Sign Language, Translated into Swedish Speech
If you are interested in a free ticket to one of the performances, you can register your interest via a web form in Swedish at ai.lu.se/sv. Please note that the number of tickets we can hand out is limited. The form is in Swedish.
Riksteatern Crea - riksteatern.se
Save the date for: Workshop on motion capture on 7 February
In connection with the performance The Canterville Ghost in Lund, the Humanities Lab will also arrange a workshop aimed at everyone with an interest in how the motion capture technology works in practice. Interested researchers, engineers, system developers, theatres, etc. are welcome.
Contact
The management of free tickets for the performances is organised by AI Lund and the Humanities Lab in Lund.
•Stefan Lindgren, research engineer, Lund University Humanities Lab
•Jonas Wisbrant, AI Lund and Lund University's profile area natural and artificial cognition
•Maja Petersson, administrative coordinator, Lund University Humanities Lab
* Mocap is an abbreviation of the English term Motion Capture and refers to techniques that digitise movements so that they can be analyzed in, for example, research or, as in this case, reproduced in another way.