Abstract
MOVement-oriented animation Engine (MovEngine) is a software library, which was originally developed within a research project conducted at Salzburg University from 2008 until early 2013. One of the objectives in this project was to create a computer application which aids research in re-constructing dance through animated movement sequences, utilizing a movement language based on existing systems of movement notation. Since 2012 the software—in its current developmental stage—is being tested and integrated into movement notation studies at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and its development is continued within an MA course in Movement Notation/Movement Analysis at the university. The software allows to create a three-dimensional, animated representation of movement based on a variety of sources and facilitates the exploration of possible variations in the movement material. This new unique and methodologically highly potential technological tool provides the possibility to access referential material on dance and to transfer/translate the referentiality into visuality, thus revealing the motoric and kinetic aspects of the material. While the goal of the original project was focused on historic dance research, the employed technical approach may be also applied in a variety of other contexts, e.g. in creating learning tools, in automated animated visualization of movement notation scores or in generating robotic movement. MovEngine gains a high degree of flexibility by extending traditional key frame animation techniques with a system of movement orientated instructions, which are based on principles of movement analysis as known from systems of movement notation (Eshkol Wachman Movement Notation and Kinetography Laban). This paper outlines the key features of MovEngine by describing the role of movement notation principles in the generation of animated movement.
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Notes
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Kinetography Laban was introduced by Rudolf von Laban in 1928 [3]. The system is explained in detail in the article The problem of recording human movement by Jacqueline Challet‐Haas in this publication.
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The Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) was a research institute of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was founded by Heinz von Foerster, a scientist of Austrian origin, who made important contributions to cybernetics and constructivism. The BCL continued to exist from 1958 until 1874.
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See also the article Approaches to the representation of human movement: Notation, Animation and Motion capture by Tom Calvert in this publication.
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See also the article Benesh Movement Notation for humanoid robots? by Eliane Mirzabekiantz in this publication.
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Many of the primary publications on EWMN by Noa Eshkol include an introduction to the notation system. One of the most complete summaries can be found in Fifty Lessons by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1980) [15]. Some more recent additions to the systems are outlined in Angles and Angels (1990) [16]. After Eshkol’s death in 2007 Sapir and Harries started to summarize certain aspects of the system by comparing Eshkol’s primary publications. Their first book About Time (2009) [17] mainly deals with aspects of time in EWMN.
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Drewes, H. (2016). MovEngine—Developing a Movement Language for 3D Visualization and Composition of Dance. In: Laumond, JP., Abe, N. (eds) Dance Notations and Robot Motion. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 111. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25739-6_5
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