Prototype for Learning and Teaching Arabic Sign Language Using 3D Animations

This paper presents the improvement and the enhancement of a prototype for learning and teaching Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) based on high-performance translation system from Arabic texts to their equivalent in ArSL using 3D animations; a hybrid translation approach combining rulebased and statistical techniques is supposed to be used. Previous efforts conducted by the team were devoted to the development of the prototype and the preparation of linguistic resources, including bilingual parallel corpus and an animated sign-dictionary (3D animations). In this phase, we focused in the sign visualization of the end-user application, the new eSign software version “JASigning” is used as 3D avatar player to illustrate the translation result; it is also used to create the 3D animations.