Data Management and Data Mining in Computer Animation Production, a Facial Animation Case Study

Given the rapid growth of the computer animation industry (global revenue of over 180 billion GBP in 2015), industrial practitioners encounter many challenges and among them one is to deal with the constant and speedy generation of data in mammoth volume and from varied sources. The management and reuse of such data in particular for animation production is critical for the industry to reduce their reproduction cost and inspire human ingenuity where machine power has been utilized to deal with tedious tasks and artists can focus on creative ones.

The aim of the proposed research is to develop intelligent data management and data mining solutions to store, search and interpret existing animation data, discover patterns in large data sets, and most importantly to reuse them for new creation and design in animation production, where facial animation has been carefully selected as a case study to test research hypothesis and implement pilot experiments.

Given the rapid growth of the computer animation industry (global revenue of over 180 billion GBP in 2015), industrial practitioners encounter many challenges and among them one is to deal with the constant and speedy generation of data in mammoth volume and from varied sources. The management and reuse of such data in particular for animation production is critical for the industry to reduce their reproduction cost and inspire human ingenuity where machine power has been utilized to deal with tedious tasks and artists can focus on creative ones.

The aim of the proposed research is to develop intelligent data management and data mining solutions to store, search and interpret existing animation data, discover patterns in large data sets, and most importantly to reuse them for new creation and design in animation production, where facial animation has been carefully selected as a case study to test research hypothesis and implement pilot experiments.

Facial animation is key part in character animation. It is difficult to animate due to the complex topology of mesh and underlying facial muscle anatomy structure. Human eyes are sharp to detect the defect in a facial animation. Not only able to automatically detect the faces in a data set (current state of the art), the proposed research will aggregate the dynamic feature in facial movement and generate animation in an automatic or semi-automatic manner, taking live inputs of various user interactions, which revolute the technology and the way of animation production. It aims to reduce the production time to 1/10~1/3 with great cost saving.

The PhD Studentships are open to UK, EU and international students. Candidates for a PhD Studentship should demonstrate outstanding qualities and be motivated to complete a PhD in 4 years and must demonstrate:

a 1st class honours degree and/or a relevant Master’s degree with distinction or equivalent. If English is not your first language you’ll need IELTS (Academic) score of 6.5 minimum (with a minimum 6.0 in each component).

Additional eligibility criteria:

Candidates must demonstrate a strong background in computer science and/or mathematics.

In addition to satisfying minimum entry criteria, BU will look closely at the qualities, skills and background of each candidate and what they can bring to their chosen research project in order to ensure successful completion.

Applicants will be asked to submit an online application form and a proposal (approximately 1500 words) outlining their understanding of the project for which they are applying, the approach they would envisage taking and what qualities they will bring to the research community.

Please note:

Current BU Doctoral students are not eligible to apply for a Studentship
Current MRes/MPhil students can apply, subject to satisfactory completion of their Research Degree prior to being able to take up the award
PhD Studentships cannot be used to support BU staff to complete doctoral programmes.

How to apply: Applications are made via our website using the Apply Online button below. If you have an enquiry about this project please contact us via the Email NOW button below, however your application will only be processed once you have submitted an application form as opposed to emailing your CV to us.