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Ball Catching: an example of psychologically-based behavioural animation

Behavioural animation aims to stimulate the behaviour of a character so as to automatically produce sections of animation. An important aspect is simulation of perceptuo-motor behaviour: the ways in which a virtual actor senses and reacts to its virtual environment. The fact that all of the information about the virtual environment is available to the computer makes the problem easier then the equivalent problem in robotics but, to balance this, there is a greater requirement to produce realistic human-like behaviour. These two features combine to make this a novel and interesting area of study. 
This paper presentsa new approach: in which results from experimental psychology are used as a basis for these algorithms. This provides us with guiding principles for the design of perceptuo-motor routines at a higher level then the computer vision methods while maintaining a stong basis in real vision. 
As a demonstration of this approach: we describe a simulation of how a cricket or baseball fielder runs to catch a ball. This is a real world problem that requires very specific perceptuo-motor skills and a tight coupling between vision and action. There is extensive work on this area in the experimental psychology literature. Using psychological theories produces a simple, efficient computer algorithm which produces a realistic running path. This example supports the thesis that results from experimental psychology provide a sound basis for behavioural animation.