How to connect a video camera to Qualisys Track Manager (QTM)

Many times you want video footage besides kinematic data. The video that you can get from Qualisys Oqus cameras might be super large in size and many times, as the cameras are mounted at height, yo may not capture the video from sideways (normally for gait analysis). Qualisys itself suggested Blackmagic Intensity Pro card to connect non-FireWire cameras. Using the card, you will connect the output of your camera (component, one yellow video and two read and white audio output) to the card and on the other side, you will connect the card to your computer with QTM installed on it. With a price of 200$, it does not seem to be a good option.
Here is a cheaper option:
You need:
1- One Audio-Video Grabber: Basically, it is the cheaper and simpler version of Blackmagic (£7).

2- Component cables of your video camera: Almost all cameras have this useless cables. With the introduction of HDMI, almost no one uses them anymore. If you want to have higher quality video with this method, you have to buy an HDMI adapter for AV Grabber as well (I did not test this).

Here is what you have to do:
1- I was using QTM 2.11 on a 64bits Windows 7. I connected the AV grabber to the computer and it started to recognize the USB. The driver was not successfully installed and I did not have any CD.
2- I downloaded EasyCap W7 Driver here (alternative link) and extracted the folder on my PC.
3- Right click on My Copmputer > Properties > Device Manager
4- In your Other devices, you see USB 2.0 Video Capture Controller, with no installed driver. Right click on it and select "Update Driver Software" and then "Browse my computer for driver software", then hit "Browse" and locate the folder you already extracted on your PC. Proceed forward and ignore the "Windows Security" warning by selecting "Install this driver software anyway".
5- After installing the driver, unplug the USB cable. Now turn on your video camera and adjust the output settings (select to transfer images to component output), connect the component cable to the camera and USB, and finally connect the USB to your computer.
6- Now open QTM and go to "Tools > Project Options > Input Devices" and select "USB2.0 ATV" from the right side with a green light saying that it is enabled.
You can now enjoy the cheap solution. You can use your video camera as a Skype camera as well.

tested by Pooya Soltani

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Exergame evaluation design

Good systematic review. It mentioned parameters that are good to be considered.
Peng, W., Crouse, J. C., & Lin, J. (2013). Using Active Video Games for Physical Activity Promotion: A Systematic Review of the Current State of Research. Health Education & Behavior, 40(2), 171-192.
Link: http://heb.sagepub.com/content/40/2/171.full.pdf+html

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Game screening

Subjective info provided by game assessment: This is not really provided by the evaluator but people can put this info in a separate part in the game or their console to know if playing exergames are risky or not. Health screening such as medical history questionnaire (Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire or PAR-Q) or a review of their chronic disease risk factors. A general health history usually includes occupation, extended periods of sitting, or repetitive movements. In lifestyle, they might provide information on what they do for recreation and what are their hobbies. On medical history, they might give information on their past injuries and surgeries. Game designers might use such information to suggest if a certain game is helpful or hazardous for certain players. They may also list their Chronic Conditions and this is quite important as most of the game titles involve repetitive movements and it's good to know if playing those games can actually help to overcome the issue (e.g. obesity).
Objective information might be as of interest of those game developers who are into making health and fitness games. During game evaluation, one might measure resting and exercise physiological measurements (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate), resting anthropometric measurements (e.g., height, weight, body fat percentage, circumference measurements), and specific measures of fitness (e.g., muscular endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness). measuring body composition for selected volunteers and use the information during the game design phase ensure safe play. Postural test can also be used during prototype testing.

...essentials of personal fi tness...

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Human movement evaluation needs an ergonomic approach!
1981

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Environment setup

I just read a paper entitled "Evaluation of the Kinect™ sensor for 3-D kinematic measurement in the workplace". Since the passive systems (e.g. Vicon or Qualisys) are expensive and bulky, Kinect could be good alternative.

In the object detection, they were saying:

The Kinect had trouble detecting dark surfaces that absorbed light. It was also blind to shiny surfaces that resulted in specular reflection and even rough surfaces if the angle of incidence of incoming light was too large.

As at the first step, it looks like a great cheat code during playing Exergames (playing semi-naked if you are not not sure what to wear), this feature is very important in performance analysis in Exergames. This setup requirement plays a key role in detecting novice and experienced players.

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Serious Game Informatics

I read a paper titled "Accessible Telehealth - Leveraging Consumer-level Technologies and Social Networking Functionalities for Senior Care" and I thought how come would it be related to Exergames. I started to read it anyway. It was saying that most of the time people don't know about the symptoms of a disease or they don't know how much physical activity is needed. The personal health informatic section is also getting costly. Using serious games and particularly using social networks can be a good alternative to know more about their health and participate and learn new thing through gaming and having fun.
They were arguing that "lack of content" is one of the things that makes the Exergames boring after some time. They first came with the idea of "replacement for physical activity" but in action we saw that they don't increase the levels of physical activity in long term usage.

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long term enjoyment

Just read a paper on "The Effect of Exergaming on Vascular Function in Children*". In this paper, they also assessed level of enjoyment with PACES questionnaire within Hi-intensity and Low-intensity Exergaming. Having relatively same results for both conditions, authors concluded that children enjoyed them the same.
I believe, this sense of achieving and accomplishing is illusory. I believe long term considerations of enjoyment will show different results.


*: Andrew Mills, Michael Rosenberg, Gareth Stratton, Howard H. Carter, Angela L. Spence, Christopher J.A. Pugh, Daniel J. Green, Louise H. Naylor, The Effect of Exergaming on Vascular Function in Children, The Journal of Pediatrics. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022347613003958)

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learning or fitness

I am reading a paper on Active Learning (1). In that study, they are using active pedaling to control a mouse in which eventually helps them learn about nutritional concepts. Challenging tasks results in continued persistence, allows players to use different strategies while having greater interest for performing the given task better (2). However, it’s not clear whether when the tasks are completed successfully, there would be any interests towards continuing them or not. This happens frequently during Exergames as they have lots of repetitive movements. So maybe this is the reason why they are interesting for a short period and after sometimes it gets boring.

(1): Mellecker, R. R., Witherspoon, L., & Watterson, T. (2013). Active Learning: Educational Experiences Enhanced Through Technology-Driven Active Game Play. The Journal of Educational Research, null-null.

(2): Turner, Julianne C. (1995). The influence of classroom contexts on young children's motivation for literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(3), 410.

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not stimulus as they seem

Based on a study by Owens et al. (2011)*, participation is physical activity using active video games, mostly works for children and not for adults. According to their low subject study, levels of physical activity in families owning Nintendo Wii was compared. Children were displaying a significant higher levels of physical activity compared to adults in which was declined from the first 6 weeks of playing with the device to the second week (from 21.5 +/- 9.0 min.d(-1) to 3.9 +/- 4.0 min.d(-1)).
Most measures of health-related fitness in their exploratory study remained unchanged after 3 months of home use of the device. Promoting these devices may not be sufficient stimuli for fitness changes.

*: Owens, Scott G., Garner, John C., III, Loftin, J. Mark, van Blerk, Natalie, & Ermin, Kevser. (2011). CHANGES IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND FITNESS AFTER 3 MONTHS OF HOME WII FIT (TM) USE. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(11), 3191-3197. 

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More than a game

"More Than a Game: Friendship Relational Maintenance and Attitudes Toward Xbox LIVE Communication"

An empirical investigation of relational maintenance and closeness between friends who communicate via Microsoft's Xbox LIVE service. 

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Design Ideas

I am reading a very cool qualitative study* on usability of Exergames in people with Multiple Sclerosis. It's amazing. Sometimes, just reading people's comments about Exergames gives you important insights on application of them in certain domains.

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First Person Shooter goes SERIOUS

We know them. They are complaining all the time that you are not getting enough physical activity. They say that you are a lazy couch potato. They encourage you to leave your favorite First Person Shooter (FPS) and participate in Active Video Game (AVG) often tagged as Exergame which look promising but they are not as exciting as Call of Duty. Well, that's about to change...

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Exercise with music

Couple of years ago I was running with a buddy and we noticed that an old guy is running with a mystic traditional Persian music. It was pretty funny because traditional Persian music is usually considered as slow tempo. Besides I believe it's better to drink a cup of Kamar-baarik (type of cup) tea while listening to that kind of music.

Now researchers at Brunel University (Professor Karageorghis is one of my favorite authors interested on music and exercise) documented* the effects of music on physiological parameters while using cycle ergometer. Their study shows that it's better to workout with synchronous music matched with your rhythm (even if it has higher tempo) rather than listening to a music lower than your rhythm. In practice, I tried it and it really helps. It gave me motivation when I imagine myself as part of the music. However, choosing the right music is crucial too. I personally suggest trance genre.

*: Bacon, C. J., Myers, T. I., & Karageorghis, C. I. (2012). Effect of music-movement synchrony on exercise oxygen consumption. Journal of Sports Medicine & Physical Fitness, 52(4), 359-365.

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Are Exergames really Exercise?

I know you have heard this question a lot. I think at first when they wanted a unique word for Active Video Game (god, this phrase is so long and in terms of word limitation, it's killing) they did not consider it scientifically. At least we did not see a lot of research on this fancy word. 

Exergames is a portmanteau of Exercise and Game and it is a shortcut for Active Video Games. At the moment, I think it may not mean exercise (planned physical activity) and gaming because follow up studies have not been performed. I believe the idea of considering exergames as a planned regular physical activity (exercise) and checking if they have the potential to be called exercise, worth doing research.

The triangle of Serious Game Design has three aspects: Theory, Content, and Game Design and each aspect has its own branches. If an exergame (O.K. Lets call it Active Video Game again) wants to be considered as a real exercise, it should be planned and be done regularly.

In "Theory" section, you have Learning, Perception, and Gender (for example). If you learn how to play the game easier with less effort, the chance of performing it again may decrease. If the game is designed for a specific gender (or mostly being performed by a certain gender), you may not be able to force the others to do it regularly (We observed this in the mostra a lot: Playing Justin Bieber's song and expecting guys to come and dance in a way that girls do).

In "Content" section, you have Social Issues, Corporate Training, Ecology (for example). Due to limitation of gaming platforms, you may not expect the same enjoyment and technique as you have in real sports and remember: Everything was designed in advance and you should follow the moves. There are some research performed to consider social playing and they also concluded that when exergames are played socially (with another opponent or through online opponents), energy expenditure is significantly higher and sometimes it's even higher than real sports.

In "Game Design" section, you have Fun, Level Design, 3D-2D (for example). Fun is an important rule in continuing performing a physical activity. I have not encountered a lot of research comparing fun side of different games but from what I personally saw in practice, they loose the fun side easily (because I believe you always play in a passive mode, you just have to follow). So even in the most interesting games, you should not expect playing forever and ever. Now consider other parameters like level design and graphics too.

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Exergame presentation

Me and my colleague, Tiago Montanha were presenting our projects at University of Porto Show (11ª mostra da Universidade do Porto). I was representing Porto Biomechanics Laboratory (LABIOMEP) and Tiago was with The Research Center in Physical Activity, Health and Leisure (CIAFEL). We were presenting the use of laboratory equipment in different domains of physiology, biomechanics, and psychology.

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wearable 3D display

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/30/sony-hmz-t2-3d-display-heads-in-video/

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Digital exhaustion

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Play Exergames, Consume less energy

Energy intake and expenditure during sedentary screen time and motion-controlled video gaming
Television watching and playing of video games (VGs) are associated with higher energy intakes. Motion-controlled video games (MC) may be a healthier alternative to sedentary screen-based activities because of higher energy expenditures, but little is known about the effects of these games on energy intakes.
Energy intake, expenditure, and surplus (intake - expenditure) were compared during sedentary (television and VG) and active (MC) screen-time use.
Young adults (n = 120; 60 women) were randomly assigned to the following 3 groups: television watching, playing traditional VGs, or playing MCs for 1 h while snacks and beverages were provided. Energy intakes, energy expenditures, and appetites were measured.
Intakes across these 3 groups showed a trend toward a significant difference (P = 0.065). The energy expenditure (P < 0.001) was higher, and the energy surplus (P = 0.038) was lower, in MC than in television or VG groups. All conditions produced a mean (SD) energy surplus as follows: 638 408 kcal in television, 655 533 kcal in VG, and 376 487 kcal in MC groups. The OR for consuming ≥500 kcal in the television compared with the MC group was 3.2 (95% CI: 1.2, 8.4). Secondary analyses, in which the 2 sedentary conditions were collapsed, showed an intake that was 178 kcal (95% CI: 8, 349 kcal) lower in the MC condition than in the sedentary groups (television and VG).
MCs may be a healthier alternative to sedentary screen time because of a lower energy surplus, but the playing of these games still resulted in a positive energy balance.
Source: http://www.ajcn.org/content/96/2/234.short

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Overcoming the truth

Be hold, they can see if you lie with the way you move the sensor.

Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & McNamara, D. S. (2010). The action dynamics of overcoming the truth. Psychon Bull Rev, 17(4), 486-491.

A convincing deceiver must act in discordance with their knowledge of the truth. To do so requires the deceiver to resolve competition between what is known to be true and what is intended to be false. We investigated the temporal signature of this competition by examining the action dynamics of arm movement while participants responded falsely or truthfully to autobiographical information. The participants answered no or yes by navigating a Nintendo Wii Remote to no and yes regions on a large projector screen. Trajectory analyses of the fine-grained arm movements show increased complexity in false responding relative to truthful responding, with the greatest difference in false yes answers. The dynamic motor movements also reveal greater strength of competition during the act of false responding, thereby extending traditional response time measures that capture latent competition alone. These results suggest that deceptive processes may be detectable when action is allowed to covary with thought. Supplemental figures and a list of the sentence stimuli may be downloaded from http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Source: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p340447766023087/

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