Xiaosong Yang
Bournemouth University, UK
Biography
The introduction of animation techniques in film production such as motion capture, virtual reality, modelling and simulation, has revolutionized the entire film industry. We (National Centre for Computer Animation, NCCA) as the No.1 UK research and education base for computer animation, are endeavouring to bring these state-of-the-art animation techniques into health industry, benefit more people by improving the efficiency and efficacy of healthcare services. Since 1989, the NCCA (winner of the UK – Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2012), has been at the forefront of computer animation education and research in the UK, and our graduates have made a global impact upon the film industry such as the achievement on the films of Gravity, Inception and Avatar. We have prioritised multidisciplinary applications of our computer animation technology from film production into other fields, especially the Digital health area. In the past five years, we have successfully developed a few medical projects cooperated with doctors and local hospitals. For example, “Augury project”: a sophisticated colorectal surgery simulator collaborated with the consultant surgeons from Bournemouth & Poole NHS; “Neuravatar”: an intelligent virtual avatar to guide GPs to make neurological diagnosis in their clinical practice, guided by Dr. Rupert Page, funded by AHSN; “Digital Psychiatrist”: a facial and emotional recognition system to perform Mental State Examination based on videos and images of patients, collaborated with Dr. Wai Chen.