Markerless human pose estimation for biomedical applications: a survey
Andrea Avogaro Federico Cunico Bodo Rosenhahn Francesco Setti
Markerless Human Pose Estimation (HPE) proved its potential to support
decision making and assessment in many fields of application. HPE is often
preferred to traditional marker-based Motion Capture systems due to the ease of
setup, portability, and affordable cost of the technology. However, the
exploitation of HPE in biomedical applications is still under investigation.
This review aims to provide an overview of current biomedical applications of
HPE. In this paper, we examine the main features of HPE approaches and discuss
whether or not those features are of interest to biomedical applications. We
also identify those areas where HPE is already in use and present peculiarities
and trends followed by researchers and practitioners. We include here 25
approaches to HPE and more than 40 studies of HPE applied to motor development
assessment, neuromuscolar rehabilitation, and gait & posture analysis. We
conclude that markerless HPE offers great potential for extending diagnosis and
rehabilitation outside hospitals and clinics, toward the paradigm of remote
medical care.