Professor Michiyoshi Ae, of Nippon Sport Science University, has been conducting research for many years in Japan within the field of sports biomechanics. In 2019, he was the first Japanese to receive the Geoffrey Dyson Award at the International Society of Sports Biomechanics and is a top researcher who represents Japan. His recent research themes include establishing a standard motion model and improving motion by using it, and conducting biomechanics research to categorize motion. Qualisys’ motion capture system is currently used to measure various sports movements, and many standard movement models are being created and researched.
An Indoor/Outdoor 3D System
The motion capture system in Nippon Sport Science University is 12 Qualisys Arqus A5, which can work outdoors with its protective hardware features. The active filtering function can prevent noise from sunlight, and the strength for outdoor measurement can withstand changes in the weather.
Indoor facilities take advantage of the high portability of the daisy chain connection, which is also a characteristic of Qualisys’ camera system. Since it takes less time and effort from setup to measurement start, the system can measure various sports indoors and outdoors while easily changing the capture location each time.
Analyzing Sports Movements
The 3D positional data is captured by the Qualisys infrared cameras using reflective markers and is analyzed programmatically based on a MATLAB human body model created by the Ae laboratory of Nippon Sport Science University. In the case of ordinary analysis software, it usually uses a Western skeleton model, however this program is very different from the skeleton of Asians, and the Ae laboratory firmly bases it on the skeleton of Asians. They group actively works towards the creation of a standard motion model using the human body model.
The group commends the performance of the motion capture system and its ability to record high-precision measurement, even when measuring outdoors. Speed and resolution are also of great importance when capturing athletes, especially in gymnastics and ball sports. The Arqus cameras’ high-resolution and high-sampling measurement enable extremely accurate data acquisition of these sports movements.
Professor Ae and his team at Nippon Sport Science University along with Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. aim to create a standard operating model based on the Asian skeleton using the Qualisys motion capture system, which will also lead to the development of further educational support tools using the standard operation model.
Since the data that is the basis for creating a standard sports model must be highly accurate, measuring with an optical motion capture system is essential. The high resolution and high sampling of the Qualisys system allows us to record the high accuracy data measurement that we want to acquire.
Michiyoshi Ae
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