In the late eighties, technology was booming, especially in computer hardware and real time data acquisition interfaces, resulting in a large number of video based three-dimensional kinematic systems. Though we could collect three-dimensional data (3-D), our interpretation and understanding of human motion was still greatly limited by our analysis of each separate plane (sagittal, frontal and sometimes horizontal). At the same time, several issues related to data capture, image processing, three-dimensional reconstruction techniques, signal processing, robotics, virtual reality, etc. were being addressed and applied to biomechanical analysis.
In 1989, Paul Allard (University of Montreal) and Jean-Pierre Blanchi (Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France) felt there was a need to bring together specialists from the mother sciences of biomechanics as well as human movement science researchers to present recent advances in technology and modeling and discuss how these contribute to our understanding of three-dimensional human motion. They organized the first symposium in Montréal in 1991, and helped with the organization of the symposia in Poitiers, Stockholm, and Grenoble. The formation of the group was also strongly supported by the late Herman Woltring. The International Society of Biomechanics recognized the organization as a Technical Group in 1995. The first organizational meeting was held in Grenoble on July 1, 1996.
In 2008, the group introduced the "Whitaker-Allard Innovation Award" in recognition of its two pioneers, Tom Whitaker and Paul Allard, for their contributions to the group and the world of biomechanics. The award is now presented to the best presentation of the symposium.
Meetings
The first International Symposium on Three-Dimensional Analysis of Human Movement was held in Montreal, Canada, in 1991. This meeting was co-organized by Paul Allard, University of Montreal, Montreal (Canada) and Jean-Pierre Blanchi, University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble (France) with Ian A. F. Stokes, University of Vermont, Burlington (United-States) as Chairperson of the Scientific Committee. The International Symposium focused on Data Capture, Joint Motion, Mechanical Modeling, Neuro-muscular Modeling, 3-D Representation and Applications. The format consisted of keynote lectures, oral communications paired with discussion papers, poster presentations and a Round Table organized by Herman Woltring (The Netherlands). The meeting was recognized by both the Canadian Society for Biomechanics and the American Society for Biomechanics. About 120 participants from 11 countries attended the meeting.
First 1991 Montreal, CANADA
Second 1993 Poitiers, FRANCE
Third 1994 Stockholm, SWEDEN
Fourth 1996 Grenoble, FRANCE
Fifth 1998 Chattanooga, Tennessee, UNITED STATES
Sixth 2000 Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA
Seventh 2002 Newcastle, UNITED-KINGDOM
Eighth 2004 Tampa, Florida, UNITED STATES
Ninth 2006 Valenciennes, FRANCE
Tenth 2008 Santpoort-Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS
Eleventh 2010 San Francisco, California, UNITED STATES
Twelfth 2012 TBD - ITALY?
Past "Herman J. Woltring" Memorial Lectures
1993 Robin E. Herron, Colorado State University, USA
1994 Armin Gruen, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
1996 Hans-Gerd Maas, Zürich, Switzerland
1998 Jim Richards, University of Delaware, USA
2000 Franck “Clay” Anderson, University of Texas at Austin, USA
2002 Rick Neptune, University of Texas at Austin, USA
2004 Lotfi A. Zadeh, UC Berkeley, USA
2006 Fabio Remondino, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2008 Thomas Schon, Linkoping University, Sweden
Past keynote speakers
Anderson, Franck “Clay” - Univ. of Texas at Austin - Modeling, 2000, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Andriacchi, Thomas - Rush-Presbyterian-St-Luke's, Chicago - Orthopaedics, 1991
Armstrong, William W. - University of Alberta, Winnipeg - Neural networks, 1993
Baker, Richard - Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne - Modeling, Austria, 2004
Bayer, Horst - Imetric - Photogrammetry, 1993
Calvert, Thomas - Simon Fraser, British-Columbia - Virtual reality, 1991
Cappozzo, Aurelio - Instituto Universitario di Scienze Motorie, Italy - Bioengineering, 2008
Collins, Jim - Boston University - Motor control, 1998
Corazza, Stefano - Stanford University - Modeling, 2006
Della Croce, Ugo - University of Sassari, Italy - Biomechanics, 2006
Essa, Irfan - MIT - Virtual reality, 1994
Fua, Pascal - Swiss Federal Intitute of Technology (EPFL) - Virtual Reality, 1998
Feldman, Anatol - École Polytechnique de Montréal - Modeling, 1996
Grisetti, Giorgio - University of Freiburg, Germany - Computer Engineering, 2008
Held, Jean - University of Vermont - Rehabilitation, 1998
Herron, Robin E. - Colorado State University - Photogrammetry, 1993, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Huang, Thomas - University of Illinois - Computer vision, 1991
Goldgof, Dmitry - University of South Florida - Computer Science, 2004
Guiraud, David - INSERM, France - Neural networks, 1996
Gruen, Armin - ETH Zürich - Photogrammetry, 1994, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Lewis, Jack - University of Minnesota - Engineering, 1991
Loslever, Pierre - University of Valenciennes, France - Data Processing , 2006
Lu, Tung-Wu - National Taiwan University - Artifical neural network, 2000
Maas, Hans-Gerd - ETH Zürich - Photogrammetry, 1996, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Morin, David - Softimage, Montreal - Virtual reality, 1993
Neptune, Rick - University of Texas at Austin - Simulation, 2002, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Piatnitskiy, Eugenity S. - Institute of Control Sciences, Russia - Robotics, 1993
Popovic, Zoran - University of Washington - Modeling, 2004
Ranganathan, N. - University of South Florida, Tampa, USA - VLSI, 2004
Reid, Ian - University of Oxford - Instrumentation, 2002
Remondino, Fabio - ETH Zürich - Photogrammetry, 2006, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Richards, Jim - University of Delaware - Instrumentation, 1998, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Schon, Thomas - Linkoping University - Engineering, 2008, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Schwartz, Michael - University of Minnesota - Engineering, 2008
Seth, Ajay - University of Texas at Austin - Modeling, 2006
Singer, Georges - UQAM, Montreal - Virtual reality, 1994
Sutherland, David H. - San Diego Children's Hospital - Orthopaedics, 1993
Troccaz, Jocelyne - INRIA, Grenoble - Virtual Reality, 1996
Van Sint Jan, Serge - Université Libre de Bruxelles - Modeling, 2002
Vaughan, Christopher - Cape Town University - Biomechanics, 1996
Veltink, Peter - University of Twente - Engineering, 2008
Whittle, Michael - Chattanooga - Rehabilitation, 1991
Zadeh, Lotfi A. - UC Berkeley, CA, USA, 2004 - Fyzzy logic, Herman J. Woltring Memorial Lecture
Zajac, Felix - Stanford - Engineering, 1991