Recovering articulated pose: a comparison of two pre and postimposed constraint methods

We contrast the performance of two methods of imposing constraints during the tracking of articulated objects, the first method preimposing the kinematic constraints during tracking and, thus, using the minimum degrees of freedom, and the second imposing constraints after tracking and, hence, using the maximum. Despite their very different formulations, the methods recover the same pose change. Further comparisons are drawn in terms of computational speed and algorithmic simplicity and robustness, and it is the last area which is the most telling. The results suggest that using built-in constraints is well-suited to tracking individual articulated objects, whereas applying constraints afterward is most suited to problems involving contact and breakage between articulated (or rigid) objects, where the ability to test tracking performance quickly with constraints turned on or off is desirable. Index Terms--Visual tracking, articulated objects, motion constraints.