Perception

Motion Capture

Motion capture is the measurement of the 3D motion of objects or bodies over time, classically with multi-camera optical systems such as Vicon and OptiTrack that triangulate retroreflective markers at hundreds of hertz with sub-millimeter accuracy. Markerless alternatives estimate pose from video using learned models. Robotics uses motion capture for ground-truth evaluation of state estimators, closed-loop control in lab settings, and recording human motion as demonstration data.

Why it matters for physical AI

Precise ground truth is the reference against which localization and estimation are validated, and captured human motion feeds retargeting pipelines that supply humanoids with whole-body skill demonstrations.