Insert skeleton in 3D model programmatically

Question

Background

I'm working on a project where a user gets scanned by a Kinect (v2). The result will be a generated 3D model which is suitable for use in games.

The scanning aspect is going quite well, and I've generated some good user models.
Example: A 3D model of a user Note: This is just an early test model. It still needs to be cleaned up, and the stance needs to change to properly read skeletal data.

Problem

The problem I'm currently facing is that I'm unsure how to place skeletal data inside the generated 3D model. I can't seem to find a program that will let me insert the skeleton in the 3D model programmatically. I'd like to do this either via a program that I can control programmatically, or adjust the 3D model file in such a way that skeletal data gets included within the file.

What have I tried

I've been looking around for similar questions on Google and StackOverflow, but they usually refer to either motion capture or skeletal animation. I know Maya has the option to insert skeletons in 3D models, but as far as I could find that is always done by hand. Maybe there is a more technical term for the problem I'm trying to solve, but I don't know it.

I do have a train of thought on how to achieve the skeleton insertion. I imagine it to go like this:

Scan the user and generate a 3D model with Kinect;

1.2. Clean user model, getting rid of any deformations or unnecessary information. Close holes that are left in the clean up process.
Scan user skeletal data using the Kinect.

2.2. Extract the skeleton data.
2.3. Get joint locations and store as xyz-coordinates for 3D space. Store bone length and directions.
Read 3D skeleton data in a program that can create skeletons.
Save the new model with inserted skeleton.

Question

Can anyone recommend (I know, this is perhaps "opinion based") a program to read the skeletal data and insert it in to a 3D model? Is it possible to utilize Maya for this purpose?

Thanks in advance.

Note: I opted to post the question here and not on Graphics Design Stack Exchange (or other Stack Exchange sites) because I feel it's more coding related, and perhaps more useful for people who will search here in the future. Apologies if it's posted on the wrong site.

Unknown Unknown · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-30T11:46:06

A tricky part of your question is what you mean by "inserting the skeleton". Typically bone data is very separate from your geometry, and stored in different places in your scene graph (with the bone data being hierarchical in nature).

There are file formats you can export to where you might establish some association between your geometry and skeleton, but that's very format-specific as to how you associate the two together (ex: FBX vs. Collada).

Probably the closest thing to "inserting" or, more appropriately, "attaching" a skeleton to a mesh is skinning. There you compute weight assignments, basically determining how much each bone influences a given vertex in your mesh.

This is a tough part to get right (both programmatically and artistically), and depending on your quality needs, is often a semi-automatic solution at best for the highest quality needs (commercial games, films, etc.) with artists laboring over tweaking the resulting weight assignments and/or skeleton.

There are algorithms that get pretty sophisticated in determining these weight assignments ranging from simple heuristics like just assigning weights based on nearest line distance (very crude, and will often fall apart near tricky areas like the pelvis or shoulder) or ones that actually consider the mesh as a solid volume (using voxels or tetrahedral representations) to try to assign weights. Example: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/11/volumetric-heat-diffusion-skinning/

However, you might be able to get decent results using an algorithm like delta mush which allows you to get a bit sloppy with weight assignments but still get reasonably smooth deformations.

Now if you want to do this externally, pretty much any 3D animation software will do, including free ones like Blender. However, skinning and character animation in general is something that tends to take quite a bit of artistic skill and a lot of patience, so it's worth noting that it's not quite as easy as it might seem to make characters leap and dance and crouch and run and still look good even when you have a skeleton in advance. That weight association from skeleton to geometry is the toughest part. It's often the result of many hours of artists laboring over the deformations to get them to look right in a wide range of poses.