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Topic · Control and Systems Engineering

Human Motion and Animation

Human Motion and Animation is a research topic within Control and Systems Engineering. Science Explorer counts 13k research works in it since 1951. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores various techniques for synthesizing and controlling human-like motion, including character animation, inverse kinematics, interactive control, physics-based animation, and virtual reality applications. It covers topics such as deep learning frameworks for motion synthesis, efficient retrieval of motion capture data, real-time motion retargeting, and the use of AI in virtual environments.

  • Motion Synthesis
  • Character Animation
  • Inverse Kinematics
  • Interactive Control
  • Physics-based Animation
  • Human Motion Data
  • Virtual Reality
  • Deep Learning
  • Motion Capture
  • Biped Locomotion
Research works
13k
fractional, since 1951
In the world top 10%
1.3k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+95%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
43% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Human Motion and Animation

Which countries lead Human Motion and Animation research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (1.3k and 489 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.3k works
  2. 2 United States 489 works
  3. 3 Japan 259 works
  4. 4 India 219 works
  5. 5 Indonesia 165 works
  6. 6 South Korea 152 works
  7. 7 Germany 132 works
  8. 8 United Kingdom 127 works
  9. 9 France 94 works
  10. 10 Canada 76 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 42.9%United States: 16.3%Japan: 8.6%India: 7.3%6 others listed: 24.9%43%largest
China1,287 · 42.9%United States489 · 16.3%Japan259 · 8.6%India219 · 7.3%6 others listed746 · 24.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Human Motion and Animation research?

By volume in 2022-now, Tsinghua University publishes the most Human Motion and Animation research, followed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Tsinghua UniversityChina 36 works
  2. 2 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 33 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 32 works
  4. 4 Zhejiang UniversityChina 28 works
  5. 5 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 28 works
  6. 6 Peking UniversityChina 23 works
  7. 7 Beihang UniversityChina 22 works
  8. 8 The University of TokyoJapan 19 works
  9. 9 Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 19 works
  10. 10 Beijing University of Posts and TelecommunicationsChina 19 works

Who are the leading researchers in Human Motion and Animation?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Human Motion and Animation include Geoffrey E. Hinton, Xiangyu Zhang and Xiaogang Wang.

  1. 1 Geoffrey E. Hinton Canada 454k citations
  2. 2 Xiangyu Zhang 327k citations
  3. 3 Xiaogang Wang China 260k citations
  4. 4 Andrew Zisserman United Kingdom 255k citations
  5. 5 Li Fei-Fei United States 225k citations
  6. 6 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  7. 7 Trevor J. Darrell United States 206k citations
  8. 8 Christopher D. Manning United States 179k citations
  9. 9 Luc Van Gool Switzerland 177k citations
  10. 10 Jitendra Malik United States 170k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Human Motion and Animation?

The most cited paper in Human Motion and Animation is "Minimum snap trajectory generation and control for quadrotors" (Daniel Mellinger, Vijay Kumar, 2011), with 2,396 citations. Next come "Simulated Annealing" (2,377) and "SCAPE" (1,575).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Minimum snap trajectory generation and control for quadrotors Daniel Mellinger, Vijay Kumar Conference paper May 2011 2,396
2 Simulated Annealing Kathryn A. Dowsland, Jonathan M. Thompson Book chapter 2012 2,377
3 SCAPE Dragomir Anguelov, Praveen Srinivasan, Daphne Koller et al. · ACM Transactions on Graphics Jul 2005 1,575
4 Synthesis and evaluation of linear motion transitions Jing Wang, Bobby Bodenheimer · ACM Transactions on Graphics Mar 2008 1,540
5 “Put-that-there” Richard Arthur Bolt Conference paperOpen access 1980 1,449
All 98 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Human Motion and Animation research done?

The largest centres of Human Motion and Animation research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China) and Seoul (South Korea).

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 269 works
  2. 2 TokyoJapan 107 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 102 works
  4. 4 SeoulSouth Korea 79 works
  5. 5 HangzhouChina 69 works
  6. 6 ShenzhenChina 59 works
  7. 7 WuhanChina 54 works
  8. 8 GuangzhouChina 52 works
  9. 9 NanjingChina 51 works
  10. 10 Hong KongChina 48 works
See Human Motion and Animation on the map

Where is the best place to study Human Motion and Animation?

Among universities, judged by research, Carnegie Mellon University, ETH Zurich and Tsinghua University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 27.92%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →ETH ZurichStanford UniversityCarnegie Mellon Univ…Tsinghua University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 77.831.1%13.5×18 +82.8%
2ETH ZurichSwitzerland 74.837.2%6.1×14 +63.8%
3Tsinghua UniversityChina 72.025.0%4.8×36 +190.7%
4Stanford UniversityUnited States 71.235.0%3.5×17 +141.6%
5University of Hong KongChina 65.430.0%5.6×17 -
6Peking UniversityChina 65.226.7%3.5×23 +460.3%
7Hong Kong University of Science and TechnologyChina 62.724.2%9.5×13 +480.4%
8Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 59.720.2%7.3×19 +116.7%
9National University of SingaporeSingapore 59.528.6%4.0×15 +277.1%
10Zhejiang UniversityChina 57.321.2%3.2×28 +166.0%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Human Motion and Animation, country by country

Is Human Motion and Animation research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 95% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Human Motion and Animation.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Human Motion and Animation as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.017% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%0.030%Human Motion and Animation0.021% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Human Motion and Animation over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Human Motion and Animation9.5% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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