Department of Kinesiology

The Biomechanics Laboratory of Indiana University is a unit within the Human Performance Laboratories of the Department of Kinesiology. It specializes in Sport Biomechanics. The primary objective of the Biomechanics Laboratory is to gain a better understanding of the cause-effect mechanisms of sports motions. The lab is equipped mainly for film analysis. Athletes are filmed in the course of their sport activities. The films taken by the cameras are projected, one photograph at a time, onto the surface of a digitizer. The digitized coordinates of body segmental landmarks are then sent through a terminal to files in the hard disk of a computer. Software is available for the calculation of two-dimensional or three-dimensional coordinates from the digitized data. These coordinates can then be used as input for other computer programs which may calculate, among other parameters, center of mass location, angular momentum, and joint forces and torques associated with the activity being analyzed. Software is also available for graphics, on-screen animation and some forms of computer simulation. (If you are interested in Biomechanics, you may want to read more about the research projects at the Biomechanics Laboratory.)

Last updated: March 1996
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~sportbm/laboratory.html
Comments:
Copyright 1996, The Trustees of Indiana University