Pugh

Pugh is a computer generated interactive character designed to help hearing impaired children learn to lip read.

Sophisticated motion tracking technology was used to accurately model the movements of a person’s mouth when speaking. These models are used by Pugh to generate a realistic moving mouth that can ‘speak’ text, the idea then being that people learn to lip read by following Pugh’s mouth.

An iPhone app has been developed which is available to download on the app store. The app has had over a thousand downloads to date and has received positive feedback as both an educational and fun application.

Project Status

Prototype. Academic led project at the University of Salford. 

Project Needs

Funding to further develop the concept into e.g. educational software. Also seeking partners to utilise the realistic mouth movements in other applications e.g. children’s cartoons or similar.

This project is led by Dawn Shaw, Senior lecturer in Video Technology at the University of Salford. d.m.shaw@salford.ac.uk