Motion Capture Toolkit

Jack's Motion Capture Toolkit is a set of tools that helps you configure and quickly start virtual reality (VR) devices; register and scale the human in a virtual environment; and subsequently drive, record and replay the Jack human figure's motions. The Motion Capture Toolkit provides features and new tools for:

Motion Capture Toolbar -- Providing quick access to frequently used commands within the toolkit, the toolbar makes using the Motion Capture Toolkit functions within Jack very easy. Collapsable, the toolbar can be hidden when not in use. In addition, it provides context-sensitive help for each button on the bar.

Stereo Window Layout and Sensor Configuration -- Properly defining the stereo window and configuring the sensors are very important functions. With this toolkit, users can easily set and save preferences for VR sessions. Specifically, users can:

• Select male or female MOCAP figures
• Set and save sensor configurations (e.g., indicating where each sensor is located)
• Set and save stereo window for head-mounted display applications

Special Motion-tracking Human Figures -- The Motion Capture Toolkit provides specially designed male and female figures. These human figures differ from the standard Jack humans:

• Joints are optimized for motion capture
• Sites are positioned for sensor attachments

Quick start-up of Flock of Birds or MotionStar -- This function allows users to automatically load the Flock of Birds module. It also starts the motion-tracking device in Jack.

• Configuration is set using previously saved settings
• A Flock of Birds dialog will appear if a configuration has not been previously saved
• A representation of the motion tracking equipment is loaded in the Jack world

Auto Configuration for Head-mounted Display -- The Motion Capture Toolkit provides the ability to design the Jack environment to produce stereo eye windows on the head-mounted display. It:

• Loads stereo-viewing windows and places them at specified locations in the display
• Automatically turns the stereo view windows within Jack into right and left eye-view windows

Quick Start-up of Cyberglove -- The Motion Capture Toolkit automatically loads the cyberglove module and starts the glove.

• Configuration is set using previously saved settings
• A cyberglove configuration dialog will appear if a configuration has not been saved previously

Sensor Display Toggle -- Users can quickly switch between the display of sensors and transmitter. This allows you to easily turn off or on the display of the motion-tracking equipment.

Site Display Toggle -- Users can quickly toggle display of sites currently used to constrain the human figure. This permits you to view all sites used by the Motion Capture Toolkit for editing or evaluation purposes.

Stick-figure Display Toggle -- Users can easily toggle the display of lines that connect the sensors. This creates a "best case" stick figure between sensors to represent the human form.

Auto-scale Human -- This feature automatically scales the human figure, speeding up the process by using real sensor locations. This feature will then predict anthropometric dimensions of unknown dimensions based on known data.

Auto Registration and Connection to Sensors -- The Motion Capture Toolkit provides automatic registration and connection of the Jack human figure to the sensors. The human figure within Jack is constrained by the sensors, eliminating the time required to register the location of the human figure to the sensor locations. Time is also saved by having the toolkit create appropriate constraints and attachments based on the user-specified sensor configuration.

Record Motion as a Channelset -- The Motion Capture Toolkit records channelsets. This permits users to record human or sensor motion for playback within the Jack animation system. With this, you can record the motion of any selected human figure.

Replay Sensor Motion -- The replay sensor motion feature allows users to load one of the recorded channelsets of sensor motion. It then automatically creates channelset motion on the animation timeline. This helps you quickly playback and review captured motion. The replay feature also creates all the necessary figure bindings to create the channelset motion.