VICON’S 30TH BIRTHDAY EDITION LIFE SCIENCE ENTERTAINMENT ENGINEERING VICON STANDARD VICON STANDARD from the start a global business and it is realised that motion capture, as it became A WALK DOWN interesting to recall that the primary means known, could also add nuance to the of communication with overseas customers performance. The first users of mocap and distributors was telegraphy (“Telex”) were pioneering CGI film facilities such MEMORY LANE running at about one word per second. as Industrial Light and Magic and Digital Domain but very soon afterwards computer From the start, the fledgling business had game developers began to use similar a small and lumpy revenue stream from techniques. Vicon benefited from an sales of Vicon systems which allowed it explosion of small game development start- to continue development of the product ups, many in the UK. In some cases, a Vicon and to increase staff from the initial five. It system was their first major investment. was largely unclear where the main growth Management meeting of Oxford Medical Systems opportunities lay. The terms “clinical gait Motion capture for animation quickly who formed Oxford Dynamics to exploit the analysis”, “motion capture”, and “CGI” had became a primary driver of new emerging technology, 1978/79. One entirely deliberate feature of this short history is that it makes no mention yet to be coined. But early Vicon customer developments in camera and software by name of any former and current employee. For a company that has always requirements included precursors of most technology to make Vicon systems larger, of today’s major markets and applications, faster, and more accurate. New high- believed that it exists only through its employees, this may be thought an odd including prosthetics and orthotics, gait resolution image sensors were developed, decision. But the fact is that there are so many people, past and present, who analysis for neuromuscular disability, cameras were designed with embedded sports performance and injury avoidance, microprocessors, digital networks replaced have made key contributions that there is simply not space to do justice to them vehicle safety and ergonomics, robotics analog video cables. Improved software all. They are constantly present in our collective memory and present actions. and aerospace. The notable absence was models calibrated to the body shape and any motion capture for film animation and motion of individual subjects allowed computer games. the flow of data through the processing pipeline from patient or performer to days for a single gait cycle, this type of Oxford Dynamics redesigned the electronics In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a growing clinical report or CG animation to be made system was used for seminal pieces of to suit rapidly-evolving minicomputers and BY JULIAN MORRIS number of hospitals were starting to in “real-time”. (Vicon raw data has always biomechanical research, including Paul’s made the revolutionary decision to turn a perform complex orthopaedic and been measured in real time.) Vicon systems AND TOM SHANNON pioneering estimates of hip joint loading bi-planar 2D measurement system into a FOUNDERS, VICON neurosurgery to improve the gait of became quicker and easier to use. which paved the way for the design of photogrammetrically-calibrated 3D children with disabilities due to congenital The name Vicon is an abbreviation of reliable total joint replacements. (John kinematic measurement system. The first conditions and perinatal trauma. They While Vicon was evolving, Oxford Metrics “Video Converter”. This gives some Paul died late last year and a short obituary Vicon systems were shipped in 1981 to needed and were starting to evolve was also growing in other ways. In 1999, indication of the state-of-the-art at the appears elsewhere in this edition.) University of West Virginia (sheep walking standardized methods of assessments, 2d3 was established to exploit recent time the first Vicon system was developed. on a treadmill), Boston Childrens’ Hospital including gait analysis. Oxford Metrics advances in computer vision, particularly This situation was clearly never going (clinical gait analysis), and Saitama decided to turn Vicon into a measurement methods using “structure-from-motion” Measurements of human motion, particularly to allow this branch of biomechanics to Rehabilitation Hospital (also clinical system that included everything that was shared with Vicon. In 2001, Oxford walking, have a long history going back to advance beyond isolated and laborious gait analysis). In all three cases, the needed to support that standardization Metrics floated on the London Stock the beginnings of photography in the 19th research projects, so a number of academic computers were housed in special rooms including software to perform biomechanical Market, becoming OMG plc. The Group has Century. By the 1970s a fairly standardised engineers, notably Winter in Waterloo, as large as some modern gait labs. analysis right through to a clinical report. made a number of corporate acquisitions, methodology had emerged. Two, three, or Furnée in Delft, and Paul, Jarrett and Considerable time was spent observing and including the merger of Vicon with Peak even four 16mm cine cameras running at Andrews in Glasgow, began to consider the In 1983, Oxford Instruments floated on the discussing the practices and requirements Performance in Denver which is today the 25 or 50 frames/second were placed to the design of more automated systems. The London Stock Market in order to fund and of the leading hospitals and clinicians location of the main Vicon office in North sides and in-line with the walking subject. Departments of Engineering Science and focus on the rapidly-growing demand for in the field. The majority, such as David America. Specialist video image capture, The film strips were sent to a lab for Orthopaedic Surgery in Oxford joined one its superconducting magnets for nuclear Sutherland and James Gage, were in the tracking, and analysis, also provide the developing and then placed one after the of these largely collaborative projects in magnetic resonance imaging. Along with US but the same standardized methods technology base for Yotta, Vicon’s partner other in a “digitising projector”. This device 1977. In 1979 Oxford Dynamics (the original several other OI businesses, Oxford Dynamics were also coming into use in Europe and company within OMG concerned with allowed the two-dimensional coordinates name of Oxford Metrics, and part of Oxford was purchased by its staff and began life other parts of the world. By 1993, Oxford the automated surveying and reporting of points on the body to be measured Instruments) decided that the technology in July 1984 as Oxford Metrics Ltd in an Metrics could deliver a Vicon system and of the condition of road networks and and transferred to a computer. Although had commercial potential and licensed asbestos-roofed shed about 100m from its install it in an empty room to allow a hospital, related infrastructure. Most recently, extremely laborious, often taking several prototype designs. Under the name Vicon, present site. As indicated above, Vicon was with appropriate training of clinical staff OMG has started a new business, OMG but without a resident engineer, to start a Life, to develop products for the rapidly- clinical gait analysis service. A significant expanding consumer wearables market, part of this breakthrough was the starting with the Autographer camera. customers around the world. From We hope you enjoy reading this special WELCOME TO VICON’S simultaneous emergence of personal Practical Planning to Establish a Gait commemorative edition and if you’d like computers with high-quality graphics. After 30 years, perhaps the most 30TH BIRTHDAY EDITION Laboratory in 1991, Orofacial Movement to be featured in a future issue, please remarkable thing about Vicon is this. OF THE STANDARD. Analysis in Infants in 2002, to A Hopping let us know at the email below or on our In the mid-1990s, just as clinical gait Despite the extraordinary engineering Success for Outdoor Capture in 2011. social media channels. analysis became standardized, an entirely developments that have been made in 2014 marks three decades of pioneering Although The Standard began as a Life new application for Vicon systems began imaging and data processing, both inside motion capture and the latest edition of Science magazine, in 2010 we expanded Editorial Team: to emerge. The generation of increasingly and outside the company, a Vicon user The Standard reflects that history: this its remit to include the many exciting Hayley Roberts & realistic computer graphics imagery (CGI) from 30 years ago would recognise all 66 page special issue showcases some of projects being developed in the Katie Johnson based on animated 3-dimensional computer the component parts of today’s Vicon the most diverse, unique and successful Engineering and Entertainment markets, models created a need to drive those system and would quickly understand Vicon customers, old and new. which has resulted in The Standard being Contact: models with realistic motion. Initially how to operate it. The fundamentals more widely read than ever before. [email protected] Since 1991, The Standard has been the need was simply to save time over of Vicon measurement are unchanged. celebrating the amazing work of our hand-drawn animation but it was quickly And the Vicon of 2044? First Vicon Analog Camera 2 3 VICON ENGINEERING VICON STANDARD JSC engineers use the Vicon systems to additional flexibility and precision over NASA’S JOHNSON SPACE CENTER ensure that new space suit designs allow previous models used by the team. astronauts to interact with vehicles and their environment unhindered. Examples “Vicon was particularly helpful with this USES VICON SYSTEMS TO TEST include testing how astronauts and their partial gravity simulator test,” said Cowley. space suits will perform if their vehicle “We were able to see differences with the breaks down and they have to walk several Vicon system we wouldn’t have been able SPACE SUITS AND VEHICLES miles back to base with a limited oxygen to quantify readily with other methods of supply.