Action capture with accelerometers

Abstract

We create a performance animation system that leverages the power of low-cost accelerometers, readily available motion capture databases, and construction techniques from e-textiles. Our system, built with only off-the-shelf parts, consists of five accelerometers sewn into a comfortable shirt that streams data to a computer. The accelerometer readings are continuously matched against accelerations computed from existing motion capture data, and an avatar is animated with the closest match. We evaluate our system visually and using simultaneous motion and accelerometer capture.