Keyframe interpolation with self-collision avoidance

3D-keyframe animation is a popular method for animating articulated figures. It allows artistic expressiveness by providing control to the animator. The drawback of this process is that it requires significant effort from the animator. Recently, work has focused on high level techniques such as adapting reference movements. However, whatever the way the animation is produced, the final process is an interpolation between keyframes. Our problem is that these interpolations do not deal with the avoidance of collisions between the limbs of an articulated figure, either an animator has to add new keyframes or the motion produced contains unrealistic positions. In this paper we present a new interpolation method producing self-collision free paths based on geometrical properties. Our method is a high level interpolation in which any classical interpolation method can be used. Experimental results using a human model show that the animator can reduce the level of detail needed for describing a movement and still get realistic results at interactive speeds.