Touch and Go

Athletes work hard to tune their muscles to work efficiently. Yet technique is just as important as fitness to their overall performance. From sprinters to dancers, golfers to javelin throwers – a vital part of training is re-watching hours of their own events – looking for the slightest area for improvement. Here, computer science and biomechanics combine to turn a 2-dimensional video of a sprinter into a 3D-printed ‘motion sculpture’, tracing graceful movements between frames as red waves. Handling these objects may give sportsmen and women a fresh perspective on their own performance, but also help to prevent injury – avoiding habits that might eventually cause orthopaedic injury to muscles and bones. Medical professionals are also interested in applying the techniques to videos captured inside the body – printing sculptures of beating hearts, or bending spines to guide future surgery.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

Website

• Image from work by Xiuming Zhang and colleagues
• Dept of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Published in the proceedings of the 31st ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium, 2018