Extraction of Motion Data from Image Sequences to Assist Animators

We describe a system which is designed to assist animators in extracting high-level information from sequences of images. The system is not meant to replace animators, but to be a tool to assist them in creating the first `rough-cut' of a sequence quickly and easily. Using the system, short animations have been created in a very short space of time. We show that the method of principal components analysis followed by a neural network learning phase is capable of motion tracking (even through occlusion), feature-extraction and gait classification. We quantify the results, and demonstrate the system tracking horses, birds and actors in a film. We demonstrate a system that is powerful, flexible and, above all, easy for non-specialists to use.