How Video And Motion Analysis Tools Unmask Otherwise Unseen Conditions
Video editing and the creation of new content for social media is at the peak of the wave nowadays, since most influencers communicate through video, and there are a lot of people trying to get into that tendency. It’s a vast market that demands more and more editors, sometimes for really big jobs, others just for a lot of small jobs, but with a constant payment flow that makes this profession more profitable than ever.
Since there are a great number of people that don’t know how to use the right tools for the job, the current demand for video editors is quite high. And there’s no sign that it will go down. On the contrary, there’s more and more pressure on servers, phones, and all related to video, to increase in terms of quantity, quality, and, above all, new ways to shine in a world that, at this point, has almost seen it all.
In this context, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes in terms of different software and tools that help not only the end user, but also those that are trying to make a living out of this. Since there’s also a lot that goes on in terms of work, other than that huge wave of TikTok and Instagram, the growth of such tools is great news for those that are trying to escape a little from this tendency and start creating something more artistic, or at least something that has another kind of technical challenge.
What Is Motion Analysis?
It’s a great tool that has been used in sports since ages, and now it’s finding another dimension in a lot of industries, like, for example, the automotive industry and its need to check and fix some of the problems with its cars. The images of the “crash dummies” in slow motion are quite fixed in our brains, and they are one of the first examples of this kind of technology.
In it, the use of video to capture those events that might go unseen by the naked eye, in the case of the automotive industry, helping to grasp a better understanding of what is going on with their cars during a crash. It has helped ever since to create better and safer cars, in particular in terms of structure and safety methods, but also in terms of keeping the users safe by studying what happens to the body when we crash.
Something really similar happens in the aeronautic industry, which uses video motion analysis to improve the way some aircraft fly, land, and crash. Something similar happens in many businesses around the world that use video evidence to evaluate what went wrong and try to come up with fixes, or at least new protocols that avoid those kinds of problems.
It s a really promising kind of technology that has grown a lot since those slow motion videos of the test crashes, getting into the world of sports as well as security. The ability to predict how a person will act in certain situations, or maybe the form of an athlete that wants to improve, relies deeply on the use of motion capture and analysis.
Advanced technology in sports and movies
One of the main uses for software like Kinovea is the analysis of athletes in sports, allowing trainers to check what they are doing and try to modify what is going off by pinpointing exactly where the problem is. That’s one of the key advantages of this technology in sports: being able to capture the exact moment when the “form” of an athlete is deviated and work on fixing it through constant analysis of videos.
The option to capture the motion by adding terminals to the person is also creating a new way of evaluating an athlete’s performance, but also in the creation of new videos, games, and movies. For example, the way some martial artists kick can be easily reproduced by adding some sfx and the result of this motion capture to easily create an animated video, or a new exciting fighting videogame.
Also, it would be really hard for a stuntman to perform yoga on the top of Everest, but with motion capture, they can easily add him there and make it some unseen condition with the use of technology. Something similar happens with some fights, which could get quite dangerous with the use of blades or knives, so to add a little bit of realism, some Hollywood producers use motion capture to add a real blade to a fight and then just add the second fighter digitally.
A new path
For those interested in starting to use this kind of technology, there are options out there that are cheap, and trial software that will be fully functional until you decide to pay for it. For example, ProAnalyst is one of the most advanced software packages on the market, being able to capture different motions in 3 dimensions, allowing a greater understanding of what is going on at a determined moment.
Another great option is Kinovea, a free software that can be used to analyze videos, add variables, and, for example, follow the line of a ball in sports and project where it goes and where it should have gone. PhysMo is also a great opportunity for those wanting to try this kind of technology, allowing them to capture everything from sports to a cat walking and allowing fast analysis.