Chatty, The Facially Animated Mannequin/Robot

By David Ponce

Perhaps to call this contraption a robot would be stretching the meaning of that word a little. So, think of it more like a mannequin with a creepy, yet innovative feature. It’s called “Chatty”, and is on display at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2006. Developed by the Ishikawa Optics & Art Corporation, its point is to give the mannequin/robot a more realistic, human-like face.

A video image of an actual human face (or the face of a computer-generated character, if you prefer) is projected onto the inner surface of the mannequin?s face, which serves as a three-dimensional video screen. Audio synced with Chatty?s video lip movements gives the face an astonishingly realistic look.

Of course, like all good such stories, there’s a nice video for you to watch, after the jump.

[The Chatty Homepage] VIA [Robot Gossip]