Combining 2D Feature Tracking and Volume Reconstruction for Online Video-Based Human Motion Capture

The acquisition of human motion data is of major importance for creating interactive virtual environments, intelligent user interfaces, and realistic computer animations. Today’s performance of off-the-shelf computer hardware enables marker-free non-intrusive optical tracking of the human body. In addition, recent research shows that it is possible to efficiently acquire and render volumetric scene representations in real-time. This paper describes a system to capture human motion at interactive frame rates without the use of markers or scene-intruding devices. Instead, 2D computer vision and 3D volumetric scene reconstruction algorithms are applied directly to the image data. A person is recorded by multiple synchronized cameras, and a multilayer hierarchical kinematic skeleton is fitted to each frame in a two-stage process. We present results with a prototype system running on two PCs.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: PG
• Authors: Christian Theobalt, Marcus A. Magnor, Pascal Schüler, Hans-Peter Seidel
• Keywords: Computer Graphics, Human Motion, Human Motion Data, PG 2002, Volumetric Scene