Organic Motion: Motion capture without the suit
Organic Motion Demo from tonyhightower on Vimeo.
Tony Hightower – Chalk another one up to years of coding obscurity finally being brought to the bright light of day: Organic Motion, a New York-based software house, has upgraded their new type of motion capture software to coincide with the launch of the new Intel Core i7 chip. As these things go, it's a pretty solid step forward.
Motion capture has been used in medical, military, physical training and entertainment for decades. But one of the problems with the technology was that it generally has involved using physical markers placed at certain points on the subject and using those to re-create the subject digitally. Some marketing guy pastes some ping-pong balls on Tiger Woods, he swings a few times, and then he can either analyze his swing or EA Sports winds up with their latest title.
Problem is, you're following the markers, not the subject itself, so there will be inconsistencies between them and the subject. (Not to mention the effect pasting balls on the outside of Tiger's body would have on the naturalness of his swing.) These distinctions get more important when you're using motion capture for, say, actual physiotherapy or military exercises, where exact replication is absolutely vital.
Andrew Tschesnok, CEO of Organic Motion, thinks he's got that licked. He's developed a new capture program that doesn't require any markers at all. Instead, it uses a series of 2-D cameras to capture a form and render it in real time — and with a startling degree of accuracy. I got the chance to see it in action last week:
They've worked out almost all the bugs. (It didn't seem to like my shaven head, and it needs to be able to see your feet so it knows which way you're facing), but it rendered most movements pretty cleanly and quickly, and while we were using it in a well-lit 16x16 space, there's no reason that the theater area couldn't be expanded to an area as large (or as small) as whatever camera hardware you're using could handle.
Tschesnok is interested in using it for military and medical applications, but at the CES last January, he used four prototypes in four different locations in Las Vegas to beam the members of Smashmouth into a "garage" in the convention hall.
And of course, he sees many retail possibilities: "You could set this up in a sporting goods store, and have the customer get on a treadmill for a minute, and it could analyze their gait and let them know what kind of shoe would work best with their walk, or even if they need a certain kind of orthotic or other adjustment. Much of that could be done automatically. Or imagine your living room at home is set up with one of these. You could go to an online clothing store, get measured, make a purchase, and have it shipped to you, without ever having to go outside."
I have to say, the idea of buying pants without having to put on a pair and leaving your house sounds kind of alright.
Tony Hightower really misses Total Request Live.
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The pants thing sounds like the auto-tailor in Woody Allen's 'Sleeper'
"Alright, alright, we'll take it in"
Follow-up: Here's a better video showing a bit more of what it can do, and the Organic Motion site has more specs, application ideas and video footage to further flesh out some of the possibilities of this stuff.
- Tony H
There are applications for this everywhere.
In ten years time people will look at my buff physique and ask " so, what are you, a triathlete? Special forces? An olympian?"
and I will reply
"No Madam, I, am a physical web designer"
omg, if they open a room for recording, the demand from Second Life pole-dancers alone could finance their whole company! (not to mention other hard-to-animate activities involving two or more players)