Starting Motion Capture-February 9th, 2017

On Tuesday of this week, I travelled to Embry Riddle to get my first in depth introduction to the Vicon motion capture software. After that, we were able to capture two lifts, one stoop and one squat lift. Setting up the software is not as simple as just turning on the cameras. All six cameras must be checked to ensure that they are directed at the right spot, and are focused. After this, the field must be masked so that the cameras do not pick up on anything else in the room. The area where motion capture can occur must be declared. This is done by walking in circles waving a T-shaped wand where the subject will stand while they perform the lift. This wand is also used in the next step to declare the X, Y, and Z axes. This is done by placing the wand on the ground. After this, the subject can enter the field. Once the subject enters the field, the markers can be named on the system. For this motion capture, the markers for wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle had to be declared. This allows the system to connect the lines to better represent the lift. One problem we encountered this week was that the system was switching the description of the markers during the middle of the lift. This happened when I brought my elbow in close to my body. The marker on my elbow would overlap with the marker on my hip and the system would confuse the two markers. We had to repeat the motion capture for the stoop lift three times because of this but we eventually got good data. Another issue that we encountered this week was that I was too tall to wear the skin tight suit that is usually worn for motion capture(a blessing and a curse). This is an issue because this meant we had to attach the markers to the outside of my jeans. This meant that the markers could move without matching my movement precisely. One solution to this was rolling up my sleeves and pants. The markers were then placed directly on my skin. In the future, I plan on wearing the shorts so that we can capture more accurate data. The videos I have attached are from the lifts. This is not from the vicon software because the vicon software only displays two lines which makes it very difficult to understand what is going on. These videos are recorded on a normal video cameras so that what the software is displaying can be understood. The first video is the stoop lift, the second is the squat lift. In the next couple weeks, I will continue working with the motion capture system, collecting more data. After that, I will begin analyzing my data and movements.