ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at motion capture (mocap) data generation, data types and formats commonly used in mocap, and mathematical definitions and concepts that frequently appear in mocap and other areas of three dimensional computer graphics and animation. It covers different mathematical topics such as coordinates and coordinate systems, order of transformation, Euler angles, gimbal lock, and quaternions. Artists can take full advantage of motion capture technology without knowing how mocap data is stored in a file format or mathematics involved in the technology. A three dimensional coordinate system is used to specify locations in three dimensional space. Users of three dimensional animation packages and three dimensional game developers are familiar with this type of coordinate systems. Users of the three dimensional graphics applications that rotate objects using Euler angles experience gimbal lock. Gimbal lock does not occur in the application that uses quaternions instead of Euler angles.
