A Critical and Comparative Analysis on Real-World Applications

In this paper we provide the reader with a simple, yet thorough, overview of what is motion capture, its history and evolution so far and processes used in acquiring the tri-dimensional data of the recorded scene, take or animation. A brief look at the “mocap” process’s (short for motion capture) structure is given followed by an extensive list of the technologies behind the most popular systems used today. We dive into the inner works of acoustical, mechanical, magnetic and optical mocap systems, also discussing the differences between active, passive and markerless optical systems, since these are the most popular of the above referred. Later on we also provide some insight into facial motion capture, right after we compare the data acquisition systems and quickly overview the generic data file structure. Finally we provide examples of real-world applications and some possible research fields in the area along with our conclusions.