1st IEEE International Conference on Knowledge Innovation and Invention 2018

Automatic Image-Capture and Angle Tracking System Applied on Functional

Movement Screening for Athletes
Chang H.Y.1, Hsueh Y. H.2, Lo, C.L.3, *

Department of Physical Therapy, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung City, Taiwan
1

Department of Electronic Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan
2
3,*
Department of Physical Medicine, Cheng Ching General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
[email protected]; *Corresponded author

Abstract Although the FMS system can effectively assess the

movement pattern, there are scored the movement patterns
In recent years, the Functional Movement Screen by manual observation. This can lead to differences in
(abbreviation: FMS) has been used to assess athletes’ scores between experienced and beginners [3, 4]. Therefore,
movement patterns and quality in recent years. However, the the purpose of this study is to develop an automatic
score of FMS system are assessed by manual observation. Image-capture and angle tracking system to assist and asses
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an automatic the movement pattern for athletes by comparing the results
Image-capture and angle tracking system to assist and asses the when using self-made angle tracking system and free
movement pattern for athletes by comparing the results when Kinovea motion analysis system during performing the
using self-made angle tracking system and free Kinovea FMS screen.
motion analysis system during performing the FMS screen. Methods
Twelve volleyball athletes and 12 track and field
athletes are recruited in our study. Two webcams were A. Design and development of the automatic image-capture
placed in front and on the side of FMS equipment to capture and angle tracking system
the image and body angles respectively. In addition, one of the
researchers manually loaded the recorded image into free There are three hardware and a software program which
motion analysis software (Kinovea, Vision 8.25) to capture with two webcams and a laptop with self- written LabVIEW
and mark the angle. The results were shown that a moderate to software program, and FMS equipment. The framework of the
high positive correlation of the joint angles between 2 systems software is designed and categorized into five parts. First part
in most of the FMS movement patterns (p<.05). When is classification and definition of the FMS movement pattern.
compared with the volleyball and track and field athletes, there The second part is the image captured by webcam shot. The
were significantly different in the hip and ankle angle of deep third part is calculation and recognition of angles and
squat, the hip and knee angle of the in-line lunge, and shank movement pattern. The fourth part is image operation process.
angle of hurdle step (p<.05). In conclusion, the advantage of The fifth part is angle results output by using Excel program [5,
the automatic image-capture and angle tracking system applied 6].
on FMS are included automatic image recognition and labelled,
fast and accuracy of angle tracking, data reports exported, and B. Participates
inexpensive equipment. The automatic image-capture and
angle tracking system can assist the FMS to evaluate the Twelve volleyball athletes (height: 183.9±3.8 cm, weight:
bilateral limb or torso deficit or asymmetric in various sports. 77.4±8.4 kg; age: 17.2±0.4 years old) and 12 track and field
athletes (height: 167.5±5.9 cm, weight: 57.7±7.0 kg; age:
Key words: FMS, Angle Tracking, Image Capture, Sports 19.7±2.8 years old) are recruited in our study.

Introduction C. Measured procedure (Figure 1)

In recent years, the Functional Movement Screen The FMS equipment placed in the centre of the floor. One
(abbreviation: FMS) has been used to assess athletes’ webcam placed in front of the FMS equipment and another
movement patterns and quality. The FMS was first webcam placed on the side of the FMS equipment for
proposing by Gray Cook and Lee Burton in 1995 [1]. It was image-capture and angle tracking. The distance of the front
used to observing athletes’ movement coordination and webcam is 320 cm from the centre of the FMS equipment, and
performance. There are 7 test items included deep squat, the distance of the side webcam is 195 cm from the centre of
hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, active straight the FMS equipment. Before the FMS movement patterns
leg raise, trunk stability push up, and rotatory stability. This measured, the orange-color self-adhesive Velcro fasteners
screening system applied those usual athletes’ movement were tied to the bilateral wrist, elbows, shoulder, greater
pattern to understand the movement control and symmetry, trochanter of the thigh, knee joint, the ankle of the participates.
torso and extremities stability, balance, and flexibility [1, 2]. Firstly, the participated hold the start position of each FMS

106 ISBN: 978-1-5386-5267-1

 1st IEEE International Conference on Knowledge Innovation and Invention 2018

movement patterns for 3 seconds, then executed the movement and shank angle of hurdle step (p<.05).
pattern. At the same time, the self- written LabVIEW software
program drove the two webcams to capture the final posture Discussion and Conclusion
image of the participates while executing each FMS movement
patterns. After the 7 test items are completed, the captured This study found that in addition to the shoulder angle of
images with angle tracking and analysis data are export to deep squat and shank angle of hurdle step, all of the seven
Excel program and save as JPG files on the laptop memory [5, FMS test items showed moderate to high correlation between
6]. automatic image-capture and angle tracking system and
manually labelled Kinovea software. Therefore, the
effectiveness of the automatic image-capture and angle
tracking system is high, and it has the function of automatic
image recognition. The angle tracking speed is faster than
manual marking. In order to measure the process above
convenient, it is recommended that this system can apply on
FMS for athletes. Secondly, this study observes that certain
joint angles of FMS do differ between volleyball and track and
field sports. Compared with volleyball players, the track and
field athletes have smaller joint angles in the lower limbs. This
may be due to the different movement patterns. Therefore, we
Figure 1. The experimental setting.
thought that in the future, the FMS can be used as the screening
criteria for athletes of various sports. In conclusion, the
D. Image recognition and angle recording
advantage of the automatic image-capture and angle tracking
system applied on FMS are included automatic image
The recorded image applies detection to orange-colour
recognition and labelled, fast and accuracy of angle tracking,
Velcro fasteners edge for recognizing the movement patterns
data reports exported, and inexpensive equipment. The
which processing order is arranged sequentially as HSV,
automatic image-capture and angle tracking system can assist
Sollberger calculation, expansion, erosion, filtering mixed
the FMS to evaluate the bilateral limb or torso deficit or
points and filling for recognized and calculated the angle. In
asymmetric in various sports.
addition, one of the researchers manually loaded the recorded
image into free motion analysis software (Kinovea, Vision
References
8.25) to capture and mark the angle [5,6].
[1] G. Cook, et al., Int. J. Sports. Phys. Ther., 9(4), pp. 549-563, 2014.
E. Statistical analysis [2] B. E. Anderson, et al., J. Strength. Cond. Res., 29(4), pp.
1098-1106, 2015.
IBM SPSS22.0 for windows was used to analyze the results. [3] N. A. Bonazza, et al., Am. J. Sports. Med., 45(3), pp. 725-732,
Firstly, the Pearson's correlation coefficient was performed for 2017.
the automatic image-capture and angle tracking system with a [4] M. Eltoukhy et al., Sports. Biomech., 15(1), pp. 89-102, 2016.
self-written program and the artificially labelled angle by [5] Y. H. Hsueh, et al., The 72th Acadamics Conference of the
applied the Kinovea software. Secondly, the independent Physical Therapy Association of R.O.C. Taichung, pp. 28-29,
T-test was used to analyze and compare the angle results 2016.
[6] C. Y. Wang, et al., 2017 T.S.B.S. Pingtung, pp. A25, 2017.
between the volleyball and track and field athletes. The alpha
value was set to A difference of 0.05 is significant.

Results

The results were shown that a moderate to high positive

correlation of the joint angles between 2 systems in most of the
FMS movement patterns (p<.05). The ICC value of joint
angles for deep squat was between 0.680~0.948, for hurdle
step was between 0.495~0.956, for in-line lunge was between
0.533~0.912, for active straight leg raise was between
0.991~0.996, for trunk stability push up was between
0.901~0.963, and for rotatory stability was between
0.995~0.963. Additionally, the shoulder mobility was can’t
analyze because of the Kinovea software cannot measure the
distance between the two tested wrists.
When compared with the volleyball and track and field
athletes, there were significantly different in the hip and ankle
angle of deep squat, the hip and knee angle of the in-line lunge,

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