The cost-effective method to develop a real-time motion capture system

Abstract

Great movie, animation, or game studios like using motion capture system because motion capture is able to retarget realistic performances from an actor to various virtual characters. However, the cost of motion capture system is too expensive to be affordable by budget limited SOHO studios. For this reason, this paper proposes a low-cost, effective, and easy method based on low-priced webcams to develop a real-time motion capture system. The proposed method involves three advanced techniques. The first is a dynamic background subtraction technique to overcome much foreground noise due to flickering images captured from low-priced webcams with unstable camera exposure. The second is a fast camera calibration frame technique instead of the traditional time-consuming and cumbersome calibration processes for 3D space reconstruction. The third is a motion prediction technique to alleviate inaccurate 3D reconstruction due to ghost motion pictures captured from low-priced webcams with inefficient camera shutters. The results verify that the presented motion capture system is a cost-effective apparatus for SOHO studios. © 2009 IEEE.