GEOMETRIC MOTION ANALYSIS

A method for geometrically analyzing motion having the steps of: choosing a set of points having at least three individual points to define a single realization of a motion; sequentially collecting Cartesian coordinates of the set of points at different times during the motion from a start point to an end point; treating the collection of sets of points as a sample of the motion; and transforming the sets of points at the different times to a common coordinate system thereby defining a trajectory of the motion. In a preferred implementation of the method of the present invention, the method further has the steps of: choosing a set of points having at least three individual points to define a single realization of a motion; sequentially collecting Cartesian coordinates of the set of points at different times during the motion from a start point to an end point; treating the collection of sets of points as a sample of the motion; transforming the sets of points at the different times to a common coordinate system thereby defining a trajectory of the motion; and calculating elliptic Fourier coefficients describing the trajectory of the motion independent of any difference in the spacing of the different times.