Jack (human modeling)

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The Jack human simulation system was developed at the Center for Human Modeling and Simulation[1] at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s, 1980s & 1990s as an ergonomic assessment & virtual human prototyping system for NASA space shuttle development. In 1996 the software was spun off into a privately held company and is now sold as an ergonomic human simulation toolkit by UGS[2]. The research and development of the Jack system have let to such standards as H-anim and MPEG4 Body Animation Parameters [3].

The roots of most modern human animation Inverse kinematics systems can be traced to the research and development done for the Jack system. Some of these animation systems include the Alias-Wavefront Maya (software) System and the in house animation systems used by Industrial Light & Magic.

[edit] Corporate History

The original Jack software company was called Transom. It was sold to Engineering Animation, Inc. (EAI) which later was acquired by Unigraphics Solutions (UGS). Unigraphics was then re-incorporated into Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and then spun-off again as a privately held company called UGS. After the acquisition of Tecnomatix, Jack became officially part of the Tecnomatix product line. UGS was eventually acquired by Siemens.