Biomechanical models for animation and life sciences

Motion capture and data driven technologies have come very far over the past few years. In terms of human capture the high volume of research that has gone into this sub group has led to very impressive results. Human motion can now be captured in real time which when used in the creative sectors can lead to blockbuster films such as Avatar. Similarly in the medical sectors these techniques can be used to diagnose, analyse performance and avoid invasive procedures in tasks such as deformity correction. There is, however, very little research on motion capture of animals. While the technology for capturing animal motion exists, the method used is inefficient, unreliable and limited, as much manual work is required to turn blocked out motions into acceptable results. How we move forward with a suitable procedure however is the major question. Do we extend the life of marker based capture or do we move towards the holy grail of markerless tracking? In this talk we look at a possible solution suitable for both possibilities through physically based simulation techniques. It is our belief that such techniques could help cross the gap in the uncanny valley as far as marker based capture is concerned but also be useful as far as markerless tracking is concerned.