Romanian Sign Language Oral Health Corpus in Video and Animated Avatar Technology

Abstract

The goal of this article is to respond to a research question: what are the appropriate steps and challenges in building a parallel collection of data required for e-health systems design and implementation for deaf people both in avatar and video technology? The paper presents the steps taken in order to create a parallel collection of dentistry data for prevention education needed in development of medical education system for deaf people. The specific feature of this type of applications is that the medical information and concepts are converted in sign language for deaf users through an avatar. Two types of avatars are taken into consideration: the animated avatar will display an animated figure, and the video avatar will display recorded humans in order to make a comparative analysis between video technology and animated technology used in e-health applications for deaf people using avatars. The study starts with the project phase and continues with implementation followed by results analysis. The two collections of data are stored in different formats. In the case of the avatar video format, the collection is stored as files in video format. In the case of the animated avatar, the collection of files contains expressions and phrases in SiGML animated format. The content must be prepared in advance in both forms before assembling the applications. An important part of this paper covers detailed description of the process of editing signs for both forms of the avatars. The application software and the format of the files are presented in extenso. The final part consists of results of the comparative analysis and foreshadows the next steps to be made for future research.