I am a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. My advisor is James Kuffner. I am a member of the graphics lab. My research interests are in computer graphics, computer animation, and motion planning.

Research

		Face Poser: Interactive Modeling of 3D Facial Expressions Using Model Priors We present an intuitive interface for interactively posing 3D facial expressions. Manfred Lau, Jinxiang Chai, Ying-Qing Xu, and Heung-Yeung Shum. Face Poser: Interactive Modeling of 3D Facial Expressions Using Model Priors, ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, 2007. Project page
		Animation Theatre piece on Behavior Planning This animation shows the travails of an explorer, skateboarder, dancer, and a herd of babies as they navigate an obstacle course. We use our Behavior Planning framework to automatically generate their motions. Manfred Lau, James Kuffner, and Moshe Mahler. A Behavior Planning Framework for Efficient Character Animation, Eurographics Animation Theatre, 2007. Animation page
		Precomputed Search Trees: Planning for Interactive Goal-Driven Animation We present a "Precomputed Search Trees" technique that can synthesize motions 4,000 times faster than real-time. The key idea is to precompute a search tree of motion clips. The best available solution paths and motion sequences can then be efficiently extracted during runtime through a series of table lookups. Manfred Lau and James Kuffner. Precomputed Search Trees: Planning for Interactive Goal-Driven Animation, ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, Vienna, Austria, 2006. Project page
		Behavior Planning for Character Animation We use planning techniques and motion capture data to automatically generate natural motions for animated characters. Manfred Lau and James Kuffner. Behavior Planning for Character Animation, ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, Los Angeles, CA, 2005. Project page
		Footstep Planning for the Honda ASIMO Humanoid We present a footstep planner for the Honda ASIMO humanoid robot that plans a sequence of footstep positions to navigate toward a goal location while avoiding obstacles. Joel Chestnutt, Manfred Lau, German Cheung, James Kuffner, Jessica Hodgins, and Takeo Kanade. Footstep Planning for the Honda ASIMO Humanoid, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, April, 2005. Project page

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