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Along with 5 or so other manufactures of motion capture equipment, I saw the
Organic Motion system at the 2008 Game Developer's Conference in San
Francisco. Other companies such as Moven (a suit based system) and
Optitrack (low end, $5,000 system) were there, along with the old stalwarts,
Motion Analysis Inc.
With the Organic Motion system, the capture volume is small, and permanently
fixed. Apparently the company needs to come out and do the installation for
you. As far as using it, it was pretty neat. After standing in a T-pose
for one or two seconds, the sensors look for a difference between you and
the white backdrop. Once the software gets a feel for you, you are free to
move, without any sensors attached.
According to the sales person at the booth, the software has a library of
human movements with which it will try to validate to what it tracks from
the human mover. Possibly a big red flag for research oriented users...?
Overall, I didn't get the feeling like the system was ready for use in human
movement or biomechanics right out of the box. I don't know how much
tooling and customization it would take, and of course that really depends
on what type of research the user is doing. It does, however, seem like a
great solution for animation (at least for a small volume. Not sure about
facial captures though). The company is only 2 years old, and from what I
understand, they have sold their first few units this year to some animation
studios in the UK.
At the very least, it is great to see novel motion capture equipment come to
market. The biomechanics applications still appear to be lagging, however,
in most of the solutions. I assume most growth in this industry will
continue to become more and more driven by applications such as animation,
video games, and commercials.
Matt O'Brien, B.S. Kinesiology
San Francisco CA
Organic Motion system at the 2008 Game Developer's Conference in San
Francisco. Other companies such as Moven (a suit based system) and
Optitrack (low end, $5,000 system) were there, along with the old stalwarts,
Motion Analysis Inc.
With the Organic Motion system, the capture volume is small, and permanently
fixed. Apparently the company needs to come out and do the installation for
you. As far as using it, it was pretty neat. After standing in a T-pose
for one or two seconds, the sensors look for a difference between you and
the white backdrop. Once the software gets a feel for you, you are free to
move, without any sensors attached.
According to the sales person at the booth, the software has a library of
human movements with which it will try to validate to what it tracks from
the human mover. Possibly a big red flag for research oriented users...?
Overall, I didn't get the feeling like the system was ready for use in human
movement or biomechanics right out of the box. I don't know how much
tooling and customization it would take, and of course that really depends
on what type of research the user is doing. It does, however, seem like a
great solution for animation (at least for a small volume. Not sure about
facial captures though). The company is only 2 years old, and from what I
understand, they have sold their first few units this year to some animation
studios in the UK.
At the very least, it is great to see novel motion capture equipment come to
market. The biomechanics applications still appear to be lagging, however,
in most of the solutions. I assume most growth in this industry will
continue to become more and more driven by applications such as animation,
video games, and commercials.
Matt O'Brien, B.S. Kinesiology
San Francisco CA