A survey of computer vision-based human motion capture

A comprehensive survey of computer vision-based human motion capture litera ture from the past two decades is presented. The focus is on a general over view based on a taxonomy of system functionalities, broken down into four p rocesses: initialization, tracking, pose estimation, and recognition. Each process is discussed and divided into subprocesses and/or categories of met hods to provide a reference to describe and compare the more than 130 publi cations covered by the survey. References are included throughout the paper to exemplify important issues and their relations to the various methods. A number of general assumptions used in this research field are identified and the character of these assumptions indicates that the research field is still in an early stage of development. To evaluate the state of the art, the major application areas are identified and performances are analyzed in light of the methods presented in the survey. Finally, suggestions for fut ure research directions are offered. (C) 2001 Academic Press.