Multiple view tracking of humans modelled by kinematic chains

We use a kinematic chain to model human body motion. We estimate the kinematic chain motion parameters using pixel displacements calculated from video sequences obtained from multiple calibrated cameras to perform tracking. We derive a linear relation between the 2D motion of pixels in terms of the 3D motion parameters of various body parts using a perspective projection model for the cameras, a rigid body motion model for the base body and the kinematic chain model for the body parts. An error analysis of the estimator is provided, leading to an iterative algorithm for calculating the motion parameters from the pixel displacements. We provide experimental results to demonstrate the accuracy of our formulation. We also compare our iterative algorithm to the noniterative algorithm and discuss its robustness in the presence of noise.