My Presenting Avatar

My Presenting Avatar aims at the automatic generation of a presentation by an avatar from unstructured textual information. It was funded by the DGCIS as a WEB 2.0 project. It started in December 2009 and it ended in January 2012.

Table of Contents Description Partners Cantoche Lingway Telecom !ParisTech

Description

The original target of the project is to analyze text documents to automatically create a presentation by an avatar. The audio is produced by speech synthesis and behavior of the avatar must be synchronized and consistent with his word. The starting point of the chain of generation of presentation is the semantic analysis of textual sources and creating a narrative that includes signs of communicative intentions, then translated into words and behaviors of the avatar. Lingway does the first link in the chain and send to the module developed by Telecom, a structured text in FML. Telecom !ParisTech module, the Greta's BehaviorPlanner, computs behaviors and converts them in BML. Finally, Cantoche plays the final presentation by the avatar, allowing the user to intervene in the text or non-verbal behavior. Cantoche is more responsible for project coordination and integration of software components in two successive versions of the system. Perceptual tests are made by Telecom !ParisTech in the second year.

Partners

Cantoche

Cantoche is an international company that combines since its inception in 1999, a unique technological know-how for humanized interfaces and to create interactive animated characters. The company is based in France and, since late 2006, the United States.

task: animation of the avatar, integration of prototypes and project coordination.

Lingway

Lingway is a software company specializing in applications of text mining and semantic search technologies based on Natural Language Processing (NLP), in the wake of the "Semantic Web".

task: semantic analysis of textual information and FML file generation.

Telecom !ParisTech

Telecom ParisTech (formerly Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications) is a major French engineering schools and is considered the first in science and information technology.

task: behavior management of the avatar and BML file generation.