Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'Science Fiction' and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
|
Yes, they have these in the real world, but what happens when they are cheap enough so anyone can play with them? Computers once cost millions of dollars each, but when they were cheap enough to put one on your desk at home, many other uses surfaced.
Most of us collect something about ourselves, whether it is pictures of our families, bronzed baby shoes, or other objects. But collecting data about how your body moves in space - that's different. "Motion capture" is defined as the recording of body movement for later analysis. The information gathered can be as simple as a small set at points in space representing wrist, elbow, shoulder points, etc. Or, very complex structures like the changing expressions on a person's face, requiring hundreds of datapoints for a very small area, can be captured.
The earliest technology for this purpose, rotoscoping, was used to make Snow White, the Disney animated feature, more compelling. This technique utilized frame-by-frame film of live actors; animators then traced over the frames.
The first motion capture "suits" were electromechanical telefactoring devices; they lead to real-time control of puppets or allowed actors to script movements of computer graphics characters in the 1980's.
Optical tracking of the human body, using small markers at various points on the body, was also used at this time. The person was then filmed, and then the datapoints gathered from the film.
Take a look at a brief motion capture suit video to get a good look at how the motion of the suit translates into data usable in real time by a computer graphics program.
Don't miss this fascinating Flash application made from motion capture suit data. For more detailed information about the history of motion capture suits, be sure to see this very nice article A Brief History of Motion Capture for Computer Character Animation.
For a look at the first telefactoring device, see Waldo, from the Robert Heinlein story of the same name. Heinlein invented the term as well as the concept of telefactoring. Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources: Motion Capture Suit-related
news articles:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
Smart TVs Are Listening!
'You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard...'
Police Drones In China Would Like To Have A Word With You
''OVERRIDE,' the City Fathers said suddenly, without being asked anything at all.'
Are The Thought Police Listening To Everyone All The Time?
'... they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.'
RoboShiko! Sumo Exercises Still Good For Robots
'... the expressionless face before me was therefore that of the golem-wrestler, Rolem, a creature that could be set for five times the strength of a human being.'
Giant Robotic Hands At Gundam Next Future Science
'Waldo put his arms into the primary pair before him; all three pairs, including the secondary pair mounted before the machine, came to life.'
JWST Finds Bucking Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
'... the glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.'
BeamBike Solar Power Canopy For Electric Bikes
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
|
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
||