Motion Toolbox: An interactive multimedia package for studying human movement

Movement analysis is an important tool in sports science, orthopaedic surgery, physiotherapy, and rehabilitation. However, presentation of the data in an intuitively understood manner is difficult, because of its four-dimensional nature (3D space plus time), and the large amount of data which is generated (angles, velocities, accelerations, forces). Application to teaching at the undergraduate level has therefore been limited. With this problem in mind, an interactive multimedia package, Motion Toolbox, has been developed, which consists of a sequence of QuickTime video which can be scrolled through the movement, together with a tool palette from which commonly used biomechanical measurements are selected from a database and displayed graphically. The database allows the student to interactively compare and contrast the biomechanics of a variety of movements, including pathological conditions such as stroke, amputation, cerebral palsy, and arthritis.