SIMI°Motion

SIMI°Motion analyzes the movement of people, animals and any other objects in 2D or 3D. Movements are captured using digital video technology, and the video stream is stored in AVI format directly onto the hard disc using FireWire technology (a.k.a. IEEE-1394 or iLink). 2D/3D data can be generated easily and presented in a variety of graphical diagrams, reports, and 2D/3D displays.

SIMI°Motion offers 2D/3D motion analysis utilizing standard or high-speed video, analog data acquisition, and signal processing.

The system has an intuitive user interface. SIMI°Motion is user-friendly in terms of setup and usage. The spatial calibration and marking of joints (using reflective markers) are the only preparations required.

It is a flexible and mobile motion analysis system, as it allows several objects to be captured simultaneously in nearly any environment.

If you need

to have video along with 2D/3D kinematics, EMG and kinetics data

flexibility and portability

to use motion analysis for animal research

prolonged capture requirements

high-speed video for sports related applications such as baseball and golf

then SIMI°Motion will work for you.

Features

Live synchronized recording with up to 8 digital high-speed video cameras
High-speed cameras from Basler (100hz), Basler (210hz) or AVT (202hz) are supported and directly controlled by the software
High-speed cameras from Photron or Redlake with frame rates exceeding 200 fps can also be integrated with SIMI°Motion
Regular DV cameras (60hz) from SONY, Panasonic, Canon, JVC, Hitachi can be used, but are not recommended if 100% synchronization is needed.
Integration of analog devices such as force plates (AMTI, Kistler/Bertec) and EMG (BTS, Noraxon, Delsys, etc.)
Video editing features which allow cropping and saving with full quality, or recompressing the clips with any codec
Pan/Tilt/Zoom: Simple setup and highly improved validation allow the capture and analysis of movements within wide dimensions.
Automatic 3D calibration validation to ensure accuracy
User-friendly reporting features including easily generated user-defined HTML reports. Even video clips can be added

How to use the system

Capturing and Tracking

Space/volume in which movement will take place needs to be calibrated using a 3D object with known dimensions or the SIMI laser calibration system
Movements are recorded with two or more high-speed cameras synchronously
Sequences are saved to the hard disk using FireWire (IEEE-1394a/b) cables and boards
Reflective markers can be tracked in SIMI°Motion automatically (marker tracking system) or manually (mouse). New is a real-time tracking capability
After tracking, raw data can be smoothed and gaps can be automatically filled using common filter algorithms.

Computation of Data

3D data is computed automatically using the camera calibration
The flexibility of the system allows (with the use of more than two cameras) the calculation of the 3D data on points not visible in all camera perspectives at the same time

Analysis

3D Kinematics motion analysis with calculation of coordinates, velocity and acceleration
Calculation of angles, angular velocity and angular acceleration
3D Inverse Kinematics with calculation of joint centers and rotation angles
3D Inverse Dynamics with calculation of forces and moments
Center of gravity (Hanavan, Clauser, Dempster, de Leva, etc.)
Smoothing and filtering of data with various algorithms
Arithmetic operations on calculated data
Rich pool of operations to analyze and solve specific problems (FFT, integration, down sampling, interpolation and derivation, etc.)
Templates for calculation and reports

Presentation

Visualization of results as tables, diagrams (normalized, zoomed, x/y relations etc.), stick figures, sequence of images and superimposed video
Export of diagrams and graphs for use in third party software
Export/Import of data to/from external applications (ASCII, C3D, etc.)
3D model view can be added to the traditional stick diagram and graph views. Choose from solid, wire-frame or skeletal models and present movement in a neutral or natural environment.

Applications

Clinical - Gait Analysis, Rehabilitation, Physical Therapy, Podiatry, Orthopedics, Chiropractic
Sports science - sports performance, and research
Research - Biomechanics, Kinesiology, Neuroscience, Neurobiology, Human Performance, Physical Education, Exercise Science, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Industry and ergonomics