MICROSOFT KINECT™ ACCURACY IN THE KINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN MOVEMENT

Resumo

The lack of low cost devices apt to collaborate both researches and clinical intervention s quality for health promotion is quite significant, peculiarly in developing countries. The objective of this study consisted in calculating the accuracy of the hardware Kinect™ by Microsoft™. Methods: anthropometric data were collected from a subject in orthostatic position, at four different distances from the optical axes of the hardware, on X, Y and Z. The normality and the variances homogeinity of the data were stated through Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Barlett’s tests, in this order. It has been adopted a significance P < 0.05 for all the statistical tests, and the size effect for all of the spatial coordinates (in the four different placements) exceeded 0.80. Results: the relative error presented no significant differences in all of those distances in the three spatial axels and the accuracy averaged 0.047m; such result allows to conclude that the hardware presents satisfactory both scientific and clinical applicability, embracing potentially human movement investigations and interventions, as well as orthopedics, physiotherapy, physical education, and sports among others.