Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Measuring the motion of objects in 3D dimensions, including the motion of the human body, is an essential task in many applications. Almost all current methods, including the NSERC funded research of the applicants, use optical methods. These rely on cameras for measuring motion, since high quality cameras are ubiquitous, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive. However, they suffer from problems with occlusion of line of sight and have lower accuracy under the typical conditions of measuring human motion (errors >> 1mm). To validate the accuracy of camera-based research systems, and to train them using machine learning techniques, we need ground truth data that are more accurate than our systems and do not suffer from the same limitations. We will acquire two complementary instruments that have high accuracy (accuracy << 1mm) and do not suffer from visual occlusion. One instrument tracks 3D motion using magnetic fields, and another using a mechanical armature connected to the tracked object. No measurement system is perfect - by acquiring two complementary systems we can demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of our research systems under a wide range of conditions. The instruments will be used by the applicants and other researchers in the fields of computer graphics, computer vision, human-computer interfaces, and biomechanics, to develop better motion capture systems, including those using cameras and other novel sensing modalities. Specifically, they will be used to rigorously test our research systems and to quantitatively assess the accuracy of these systems. The instruments will also be used to create a database of ground truth motion that could be used for calibrating camera-based motion capture systems and to generate data for training deep neural networks to track motion from video. Such systems benefit Canada by making low cost, high quality motion capture systems for a range of applications including patient monitoring systems, natural computer interfaces, virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, computer games, and visual effects.