Marker-less Motion Tracking

The use of markers to track body kinmeatics is not without problems:
 
  • Identification of standard bony landmarks can be unreliable
  • The soft tissue overlying the bony landmarks can move, giving rise to noisy data
  • The marker itself can wobble due to its own inertia
  • Markers can even come adrift completely
  • Children are often irritated by the markers and pull them off


    • Several attempts have been made in recent years to track body segments without markers:
     

  • UK group (David Hogg & Tony Heap)
  • Caltech group (Goncalves, Bernardo, Perona)
  • Maryland group (Gavrilla & Davis)
  • MIT group (Ali Azabayajarni)
  • Japanese group (Masaaki Mochimaru)
  • Vienna group (Chris Kirtley, Arnold Baca & Prof. Herbert Hatze)
  • Visual Computing Lab, U of Houston (Kakadiaris)
  • Stanford Movement (Christoph Bregler et al) - pdf paper here


    • Some of these applications relate to the use of hand motion as a computer input device, while some are for virtual reality purposes. So far there have been relatively few applications of the technology to biomechanics.

    Know of any more? Please email me!  kirtleymd@yahoo.com