How to SPOKEN ENGLISH TO SIGN ENGLISH TRANSLATOR SYSTEM
It has been one of our long-standing commitments to aid the social integration of the deaf community into the mainstream of society. One such means to this end is the development of assistive techniques to automatically translate sign language. This paper discusses a technique for translating English into its visual counterpart, Signed English. Such an endeavor requires the creation of an application that has the ability to take written or spoken language and generate an animated gesture sequence representative of its content. This application consists of three main portions: a means by which English Language can be input into the system, an algorithm that analyses the input and provides correlating kinematic data to an animation process, and a virtual avatar that acts as an interpreter conveying the information How to SPOKEN ENGLISH TO SIGN ENGLISH TRANSLATOR SYSTEM
The exclusion of the deaf community from mainstream society is in pan due to the lack of knowledge most hearing people have of sign language. To most, there seems to be no need to learn a language that is spoken by such a small minority unless perhaps a relative is unable to hear. Even with a desire to learn the task may seem insurmountable due to the unique formational and grammatical rules of the language.
This linguistic rift has led to the call for an automatic translation system with the ability to take voice or written text as input and produce a comprehensive sequence of signed gestures through computing.
A system of this caliber would serve a variety of purposes. It could be used as a tool to help train translators, and any others interested in learning sign language, as well as be used as a personal automated interpreter whenever necessary.
The main problems encountered in building such a system are: finding a communication system that is equally intuitive to the deaf and hearing worlds, since the English language and American Sign language are syntactically and semantically dissimilar; and creating computer animation that is realistic and human-like in both movement and appearance.