Abstract
Using digital human model (DHM) in the early phase of design is becoming an important practice nowadays. Thus, how to simulate the realistic human motion and facilitate the motion generation process is always the main concern. This research focuses on generating motions through operational semantics. The Method Time Measurement (MTM) system is used as the basis for defining the operational motion semantics to generate human motions in a digital environment. By using the MTM semantics as the motion command and applying simple rules for locomotion, the upper and lower limb motions and the gesture of a DHM can be generated automatically. The virtual simulation results obtained from this newly developed system can be used to proactively evaluate job and workplace design, as well as conduct ergonomic evaluations. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.