JP2001075976A - Method and device for managing motion data of object in multidimensional space and recording medium recording managing program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently retrieve a motion by remarkably reducing the amount of data to be used for calculating interaction when retrieving the motion of an object caused by the interaction concerning the data of the object in a multidimensional space. SOLUTION: When a retrieval expression expressing the concerned motion is inputted, a retrieval control part 11 is called. While referring to a motion description data base 1, the retrieval control part 11 decomposes the retrieval expression into a contact relation list and an inclusive relation list and an index processing part 13 is called for obtaining the data and time block of an object matching to these lists. While referring to an index data base 3, the index processing part 13 prepares the list of the data and time block of the object and a numerical data processing part 15 is called. While using the coordinate data of the object, the numerical data processing part 15 calculates the detailed mutual relation between objects. Finally, the retrieval processing part 11 cancels provided overlapped answers or merges the answers and outputs them as a result.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an operation data management device for recording and retrieving information on the operation of an object in a multidimensional space, and more particularly to computer graphics using operation data of an object in a three-dimensional space. Creation, geographic information management,
The present invention is applied to a system for performing navigation, or a system for performing teleconference support, communication support, and virtual world management using a three-dimensional space created virtually on a computer, and a computer system for controlling the system. The present invention relates to an operation data management method and a management device for recording operation data of an object and searching for the recorded operation data, and a recording medium on which an operation data management program is recorded.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the increase in the amount of data that can be stored and calculated by computers and the development of database systems that handle geographical information, geographical data that has been conventionally treated as two-dimensional data has become increasingly three-dimensional. It is becoming possible to store and process it as data. In recent years, a database system called a spatial database or a spatiotemporal database that can accumulate and manage position, shape, and characteristic data of an object in a multidimensional space has been proposed, and its usefulness is being recognized.

[0003]

However, in the conventional spatial data management method, generally, information of coordinates, shapes, and characteristics of each object at each time is recorded and individually managed. Is suitable for performing
Recording of actions performed while multiple objects interact
Not suitable for searching.

[0004] For example, in the action of "walking" by a human, each part of an object called a human is hierarchically structured, and a moving trajectory of the relative position coordinate of each part with respect to a parent part is recorded with time. By doing so, it is possible to record human "walking" movements. This is because the human body is one individual and the movable parts are connected to each other, so that the movable range of each part is largely restricted, so that the amount of data to be recorded can be suppressed. On the other hand, when recording an action formed by a plurality of separate objects, such as “two people pass each other,” it is necessary to calculate the interaction from the data of the individual objects. However, in general, the amount of interaction data to be calculated by increasing the number of objects involved in the interaction increases in proportion to the square of the number of objects, and the interaction between objects can be defined infinitely. There is a problem that the data amount of the interaction becomes enormous. For this reason, a method of calculating an action by interaction from data of all objects recorded at the time of executing a search is not efficient.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to reduce the number of object data used for calculation before calculating the interaction without losing the accuracy of the search result of the operation, thereby making it possible to search for the operation by the interaction. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus for managing operation data of an object in a multidimensional space, and a recording medium storing an operation data management program, for improving efficiency.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided a method for managing motion data of an object in a multi-dimensional space, comprising the steps of: Numerical values or mathematical expressions representing shapes and characteristics, a plurality of figures having a contact or inclusion relationship, and a time are recorded as an index and recorded as an index, and the movement of an object in a multidimensional space is represented by a figure and a time. And a search step for searching using the index assigned to the set of.

In addition, the apparatus for managing motion data in a multidimensional space according to the present invention provides a numerical value representing the coordinates, shape, and characteristics of a figure required to specify the shape of the object in the multidimensional space. Or a mathematical expression, a recording unit that records a plurality of graphics and a time in which a contact relationship or an inclusion relationship has occurred and a time as an index, and an operation of an object in a multidimensional space,
It has a search unit for searching using an index given to a figure and time.

Since the operation of the object is searched using the index assigned to the set of the figure and the time, the number of data of the object is reduced, and the search is made more efficient.

[0009]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a search part of the object motion data management apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. For example, it is used by being incorporated in a system that executes virtual world management, and is started when an operation of an object is searched in such a system. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a data recording portion of the operation data management device according to the embodiment of the present invention. When storing data of an object in a multidimensional space in the object database, it is started to create an index used at the time of search.

The search portion of the motion data management device shown in FIG. 1 holds an object database 5 holding data of objects to be searched for motion, and an index assigned to the object data based on contact and inclusion relations. An index database 3 that performs the search, an operation notation database 1 that records the relationships between various operations, contact relationships, and inclusion relationships, which are referred to when the search formula is decomposed into a combination list of contact relationships and inclusion relationships, When a search expression to be given is given, the search process control unit 11 analyzes the search expression and controls the operation search process, and executes the search process based on the index given to the object using the contact relationship and the inclusion relationship. Index processing unit 13 for extracting object data to be applied
And a numerical processing unit 15 that performs processing at a numerical level on the extracted object data to search for operation data that exactly matches the operation of interest.

In the search portion of the operation data management device thus configured, when a search expression S representing a target operation is input as shown in the flowcharts of FIGS. The search control unit 11 is called to search for an operation from the object database 5 (step 120). First, the search control unit 11 refers to the action notation database 1 and converts the search expression S into the contact relation list (a ₁ ,..., A _j ) and the inclusion relation list (b ₁ ,... B _k ). (Step 210). Next, the search control unit 11 calls the index processing unit 13 for each element of the list, and refers to the index database 3 to list the set of data and time section of the corresponding object ([o ₁ , st ₁ , et ₁ ], ..., [o _m, st
_m , et _m ]) is created (step 220). Further, the index processing unit 13 calls the numerical data processing unit 15 for each element of the list of the set of the object data and the time section, and lists the data of the object performing the corresponding operation and the list of the time section ([p ₁ , su ₁ , eu ₁ ],... [p, su _n , eu _n ]) are created (step 230). Finally, the search control unit 11 performs a process of integrating elements that overlap as an answer from the obtained list, and creates an answer (step 240). The answer (action) created in this way is output (step 13).
0).

For example, an action caused by the interaction of two humans, such as "shake hands", is expressed simply by using the contact relation in a form that the right hand parts of the two humans have a contact relation at a certain time. Can be. When searching for this operation, the search control unit 11 first searches for a search expression corresponding to “shake hands” while referring to the operation notation database 1 to “have a contact relationship between two human right hand parts at a certain time. ]. Next, the index processing unit 13 is called to check the time at which the part “right hand” of the object “human” has a contact relationship with another object. The index processing unit 13 searches for the contact relation list and the label given to the object, and the like.
The time at which a contact relationship occurs between objects corresponding to “human” and “right hand” is checked, and the result is returned as a list of pairs of the object and the time section. The index processing unit 13 gives the list and calls the numerical data processing unit 15. The numerical data processing unit 15 calculates the exact position of the object, the direction of the motion, and the like using the actual object coordinates, shape, and characteristic data for the time section and the object data narrowed down by the index, and strictly describes “handshake”. Is calculated and returned. Finally, the search control unit 11 examines the list of objects and time sections corresponding to the obtained “handshake” operation, and if there are duplicate answers, integrates them and returns the result as a result.

The data recording part of the operation data management device shown in FIG. 2 is a minimum inclusion area for calculating a minimum area called a bounding area, which includes an object from the shape of the object, for each object of the input object data. It has a calculation unit 21 and a mutual relationship determination unit 23 that determines the contact relationship and the content relationship between the bounding areas of each object at each time.

In the data recording portion of the operation data management device thus configured, when the object data is input, first, the minimum inclusion area calculating section 21 calculates the interaction between the objects at high speed. Compute a simple figure that completely encompasses. This simple figure is called a bounding area. As the figure, for example, a rectangle or a circle or a combination of these figures is used in a two-dimensional space, and a rectangular parallelepiped or a sphere or a combination of these three-dimensional figures is used in a three-dimensional space. For example, if the object is a human, the bounding area can be a single sphere that completely encompasses the individual human. Alternatively, a human can be broken down into arms, legs, torso, and head, and a spherical bounding area can be calculated for each part, and the bounding area corresponding to a human can be expressed as a combination of the bounding areas of each part. it can. The shape of the bounding area is not limited to the shape described above, and can be freely selected by an application system incorporating the operation data management device. Next, the interrelationship determination unit 23 inspects, at each time, whether a contact relationship or an inclusion relationship has occurred for the bounding area calculated for each object.
The contact is a case where a part of the bounding area of the two objects is in contact or has an overlapping part, and one bounding area is not completely included in the other bounding area. Inclusion is when the bounding area of one object is completely encompassed by the other. When finding a contact relationship between the objects, the mutual relationship determination unit 23 sets a time when the relationship starts and ends, and a pair of the objects having the contact relationship as an index. Record. Similarly, the mutual relationship determination unit 2
When an inclusion relationship is found between objects, the pair 3 sets a time when the relationship starts and ends and a pair of the objects having the inclusion relationship as an index, and records the index in the index database 3.

A plurality of bounding areas can be set for one object. For example, if you are a human
To set both bounding areas, one spherical bounding area covering the whole human, and the bounding area as a combination of the bounding areas calculated for each part of the human arm, leg, torso, and head Can also. Also, depending on the application system incorporating the system, the bounding area may not have a shape that completely covers the object. Since the bounding area of any shape is used to simplify the calculation between figures in calculating the contact and inclusion relationship between objects, if the object shape itself is a simple shape, The shape of the object itself can be used as a bounding area.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an apparatus for managing operation data of an object according to another embodiment of the present invention.

In this embodiment, the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is implemented using a personal computer or the like.
34, a storage device 35, an output device 36, a recording medium 37, and a data processing device 38. The input device 31 is a keyboard or the like for inputting a search expression. Database 3
2 to 35 are the operation notation database 1 in FIG.
It corresponds to the index database 3 and the object database 5.
The storage device 35 corresponds to a hard disk. Output device 3
Reference numeral 6 outputs data of the object performing the operation of interest and a time period in which the operation is performed. The recording medium 37 is shown in FIG.
FD (Floppy Disk), CD-R recording operation data management program comprising the processing of FIG.
It is a recording medium such as OM and MO. The data processing device 38 is a CPU that reads a management program of operation data from the recording medium 37 and executes the program.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention,
A system that performs computer graphics creation, geographic information management navigation using multi-dimensional space, especially motion data of objects in three-dimensional space, or remote using virtual three-dimensional space created on computer, In a computer system that controls a system that performs conference support, communication support, and virtual world management, it is possible to realize efficient search of an object operation, particularly, an operation of an object generated by interaction.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a search part of an operation data management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a data recording portion of the operation data management device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of a search part of the operation data management device shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation of a search part of the operation data management device shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an operation data management device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 operation notation database 3 index database 5 object database 11 search control unit 13 index processing unit 15 numerical data processing unit 21 maximum inclusion area calculation unit 23 mutual relation determination unit 31 input device 32 to 34 database 35 storage device 36 output device 37 recording medium 38 data processing device 110-130, 210-240 steps

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An operation data management method for recording operation data of an object to a predetermined system and searching for the recorded operation data, the method comprising: specifying an object shape in an object in a multidimensional space; A numerical value or a mathematical expression representing the coordinates, shape, and characteristics of a figure required for the recording, a plurality of figures having a contact relationship or an inclusive relationship and a time are recorded as an index, and a recording step is performed. A method for managing motion data of an object in a multidimensional space, comprising a search step of searching for the motion of the object using an index given to a set of a figure and a time. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the recording step calculates a bounding area that is a simple figure completely including the input object, and for each time, the contact relation or the inclusion is calculated for the bounding area calculated for each object. It is checked whether or not a relationship has occurred. If the relationship has occurred, the time at which the relationship was started and the time at which the relationship was completed, and the two objects having the relationship were set as an index. The method of claim 1, comprising the step of registering. 3. The search step comprises the steps of: inputting a search expression representing an operation of interest; and referring to an operation notation database that records relationships between various operations, contact relationships, and inclusion relationships, and converting the search expression into contact relationships. Decomposing into a list and an inclusion relation list; from the contact relation list and the inclusion relation list, referring to the index database;
Creating a list of a set of time intervals indicating the time at which the contact or inclusion relationship started and the time at which the contact relationship was completed; and, from the data of the object and the list of the set of time intervals, data of the object performing the corresponding operation 3. The method of claim 2, comprising the steps of: creating a list of sets of time intervals and time intervals; and integrating the overlapping elements of the list to create an answer. 4. An operation data management device that records operation data of an object to a predetermined system and searches for the recorded operation data. The operation data management device specifies an object shape in a multidimensional space. Numerical values or mathematical expressions representing the coordinates, shapes, and characteristics of the figures required for the operation, and a recording unit that records a pair of figures and times that have a contact or inclusion relation as an index and records them as an index. An apparatus for managing motion data of an object in a multidimensional space, comprising a search unit for searching for the motion of the object using an index given to a set of a figure and a time. 5. A minimum inclusion area calculation means for calculating a bounding area which is a simple figure completely including an input object, and a bounding area calculated for each object at each time. A check is made to determine whether a contact relationship or an inclusion relationship has occurred. If the relationship has occurred, the time at which the relationship started and the time at which the relationship ended, and the two objects at which the relationship occurred, are set as an index. 5. The apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising a reciprocity judging means for registering in the index database. 6. An object database which stores data of an object to be searched for an operation, an index database which stores an index given to the object data based on a contact relation and an inclusion relation, and An action notation database that records the relationship between the actions, contact relations, and inclusion relations, and a search expression that represents the action of interest, and refers to the action notation database to decompose the search expression into a contact relation list and an inclusion relation list From the contact relation list and the inclusion relation list, referring to the index database, and a set of time sections indicating the time when the contact relation or the inclusion relation starts and ends. Index processing means for creating a list of the data and time of the object performing the corresponding operation from the list of the set of the data and the time section of the object. 6. A numerical data processing means for creating a list of sets of sections, and an output means for integrating the obtained data of the object and the overlapping elements from the list of sets of time sections and outputting the result. The described device. 7. A process for calculating a bounding area which is a simple graphic completely including an input object, and for each time, whether a contact relationship or an inclusion relationship occurs for the bounding area calculated for each object. A check is performed to determine whether or not the relationship has occurred. If the relationship has occurred, the time at which the relationship started and the time at which the relationship has ended, and the two objects having the relationship, are set as an index. Recording medium for recording an operation data management program to be executed by a computer. 8. A process of inputting a search expression representing an operation of interest, and referring to an operation notation database for relations between various operations, contact relationships, and inclusion relationships, and decomposing the search expression into a contact relationship list and an inclusion relationship list. And processing of referring to the index database according to claim 7 from the contact relation list and the inclusion relation list, and a time indicating a time at which the contact relation or the inclusion relation starts and ends. Creating a list of sections; creating a list of sets of data and time sections of the object performing the corresponding operation from the set of data and time sections of the object; integrating elements that overlap in the list And a recording medium for recording an operation data management program for causing a computer to execute a process of outputting the result.