On Raising a Digital Human by Norman I Badler

On Raising a Digital Human by Norman I Badler

This book tells the story of building digital virtual human models in the context of the background, choices, and occurrences that shaped the author's own involvement and personal evolution. Such digital models found motivating applications in engineering, anthropology, medical, and group simulation problems, and numerous connections to other disciplines informed and enriched their design, development, and deployment. This personal perspective on developments in the field is enhanced by extensive citations that provide pointers into relevant literature, recognize the contributions of co-authors and collaborators, and give external evidence for claims. Both academic and corporate interest in virtual beings has exploded in recent years, and while this book does not survey the current state of the art it is an essential window into how the field arrived where it is today. The technical discussions throughout the book are deliberately accessible with extensive references to the literature for further reading. This book will be of interest to readers who want to understand the history of virtual human beings, how they evolved, and especially how they must address numerous human characteristics to achieve any sense of "human-ness." 

"The book is a good read for anyone who wants to understand how technology tries to copy real human behavior and movementResearchers, graduate students, and industry professionals will learn how Dr. Badler became an influential scientist through the valuable insights he shares." (Gulustan Dogan, Computing Reviews, May 12, 2025)

Norman I. Badler is the Rachleff Family Professor (Emeritus) of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. in Creative Studies Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1970 and his M.Sc. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto in 1971 and 1975, respectively. Prof. Badler has been a leading scholar in computer graphics and animation, co-authoring more than 275 technical papers with over 23,400 citations and a Google Scholar h-index of 77. He was elected the national Vice-Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) in 1978 and 1980 and served as the Senior Co-Editor-in-Chief for the journal Graphical Models for 20 years. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several other journals, including MIT Press’ Presence.