Vizij: A Workshop & Tutorial on Expressive Robot Faces

Software infrastructure for rendered robot faces is fragmented, yet there are many open research questions to address regarding robot faces, emotional expression, gaze, and animation. In this workshop-tutorial hybrid, we invite researchers and practitioners interested in robot faces to share their expertise and learn about the Vizij open source ecosystem and how it can be used to define, animate and deploy expressive rendered robot faces fully integrated with various robot platforms. We will illustrate the full software pipeline required to implement an expressive social robot face starting from scratch and going all the way to defining and connecting a custom face to a real-time conversational engine. Participants will be able to follow along on their own devices viewing and controlling their custom rendered robot face. Participants will also hear from ecosystem partners who have begun integrating with Vizij and learn about best practices and lessons learned.