A Kinect-based movement assessment system: marker position comparison to Vicon

Abstract

Accurate movement analysis systems are prohibitive in cost and size to be accessible to the general population, while commercially available, affordable systems lack the accuracy needed for clinical relevance. To address these limitations, we developed a Depth Camera Movement Assessment System (DCMAS) featuring an affordable, widely available depth camera (e.g. Microsoft Kinect). After examining 3D position data for markers adhered to participants and a flat surface, captured with both DCMAS and the industry standard Vicon system, we demonstrated DCMAS obtained measurements comparable, within soft tissue artifact, to the Vicon system, paving the way for a breakthrough technology in preventative medicine.

Keywords:

• Clinical assessments
• Kinect
• depth camera
• Vicon

Acknowledgements

The authors take this opportunity to thank Anthony Luke MD, Richard Souza PhD, Cindy Conti MS, and the laboratory members at the UCSF High Performance Center for use of their motion tracking facilities, and Dr. Louis Cheng of Applied Biomechanics, LLC for his support of this work.

Notes

This work may lead to the development of products that may be licensed to Bioniks LLC, in which authors (JCL, OMOR, BF, and MS) have a business and/or financial interest. Authors have disclosed those interests fully to UCSF and UC Berkeley, and have in place an approved plan for managing any potential conflicts arising from this arrangement.

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://doi.org/10.1080/10255842.2017.1340464.

1 More sophisticated methods exist, e.g. Camplani and Salgado (2012), Solh and AlRegib (2010), and may be utilized in future work.

2 The specific measurements of the markers shown in Figure 4 are presented in Tables S.2–S.6. in the Supplemental Material.

Additional information

Funding

This research was sponsored by a Proof-of-Concept Award from the University of California Office of the President [#269333, JCL], the UCSF James O. Johnston Award (BF), the David S. Bradford Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery (JCL), a grant from Applied Biomechanics, LLC, a grant from the National Institutes of Health [R41AR068202; JCL & BF], a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (MS), and a National Institutes of Health Training [grant number #T32 GM008155] (JLH); University of California, San Francisco [James O. Johnston Award]; National Science Foundation [grant number 1000109313].