More Americans than ever before are participating in competitive sports, and the number of sports-related injuries has increased to about 17 million per year. For the elderly, such injuries often signal an end to vigor, productivity, and enjoyment of their lifestyle. At the same time, American performance in inter- national sports competition seems to be declining if one is to judge by Olympic medals, Davis Cup, Ryder Cup, World Cup Skiing, and the like. The field of computer biomechanics has proved useful both for improvement in athletic performance and for analysis of injury- causing motion. But application of the method in sports medicine is hampered by the lack of a basic measurement tool a general method for digitization of the entire human body which is accurate, rapid, and inexpensive, i.e. automatic. The long-range goal of this proposal (Phase II) is to provide such a method and put it on the market. In Phase I, we propose to carry out the basic feasibility studies for the video imaging method of Joint center coordinate determination, and to field test, refine, and expand our pilot 3-D BIOVISION software for computer animation and analysis of top professional golf models.
