Hi everyone,

This is my first try at a mocap project, and I just downloaded the iPi basic 30-day trial. I'm excited to get started. I have a kinect xbox one.

I'd like to capture hand motion - position and orientation, no need for fingers at this point - then take the mocap into maya and use it as an animation path, not as skeletal data for character animation. Does anyone have any tips on this?

Also, if I have time I'd like to analyze the mocap data for instantaneous velocity and acceleration and use it to attach to the animation path in maya. I think iPi exports to something matlab can read? I have access to matlab. Or can velocity/accel be output directly from iPi.

Thanks a bunch for any advice.

-M

Hi
For accurate capturing of hand orientation consider using PS Move controller in addition to Kinect.
FYI our software does not capture finger movements. Fingers can only be keyframed in iPi Mocap Studio manually.
For analysis of velocity/acceleration you may look into the Biomech addon. Activate 30-days trial on Biomech tab.

OK thanks for the reply. I'll try a PS Move. Is the limitation on kinect-only hand orientation and finger capture based on kinect's limitations or your software's? I see in the kinect studio that it's trying to make joints for my fingers and wrist, from what I can tell. Maybe it's not accurate enough in your experience to offer it in your software? You wiki on motion controllers says "Wrist rotations can be tracked only with motion controllers due to low resolution of video." Are you only using video for your mocap? I figured you'd be using the depth sensor, or a blend of sensors, from what little I've learned about kinect so far.



Great, thanks.

And if anyone has advice on taking a BVH into maya and converting it to an animation "motion path" (a NURBS curve, not yet sure if there are methods for defining a motion path), I'm wondering about that as well.

We do not use "native" Kinect tracking provided by Kinect SDK. It is aimed for realtime gesture recognition and lacks accuracy, especially on unusual poses/movements.
Our proprietary tracking algorithms focus on accuracy in the first place (and are not realtime currently). We use only depth data for tracking, color data is just for reference.

Considering hands, the notice about insufficient resolution applies equally to color and to depth data.
Hand/finger tracking provided by Kinect SDK is more like a guess than an actual vision.

OK, thanks a bunch. That's great to know.

After looking more into this and just to be clear, I just need the PS Move and not the PS Eye or other PS tracking device? iPi will use the kinect for wrist position and the PS Move for wrist orientation at the same time, correct? I hope so, I just ordered a PS Move and compliant USB bluetooth dongle. :)

Yes, you're right. PS Move can be used with any camera/depth sensor supported by our software.