Spherical Frame Projections for Visualizing Joint Range of Motion

Herbst, Eva C; Eberhard, Enrico A; Richards, Chris T; Hutchinson, John R

Abstract

Quantifying joint range of motion (RoM), the reachable poses at a joint, has many applications in research and clinical care. Joint RoM measurements can be used to investigate the link between form and function in extant and extinct animals, to diagnose musculoskeletal disorders and injuries or monitor rehabilitation progress. However, it is difficult to visually demonstrate how the rotations of the joint axes interact to produce joint positions. Here, we present a new 3D visualisation method, which we call the spherical frame projection (SFP). SFPs are intuitive to visu-alise in relation to the joint anatomy because they "trace" the motion of the coordinate system of the distal bone at a joint relative to the proximal bone. SFPs incorporate the interactions of degrees of freedom, which is imperative to capture the full joint RoM. We also present a new experimental motion capture rig to capture joint RoM data.

Citation

Herbst, E. C., Eberhard, E. A., Richards, C. T., & Hutchinson, J. R. (2022). Spherical Frame Projections for Visualizing Joint Range of Motion. Journal of Experimental Biology, https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.xxxxxx

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 6, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2022
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 7, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2022
• Print ISSN: 0022-0949
• Publisher: The Company of Biologists
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.xxxxxx
• Keywords: joint mobility; range of motion; movement visualiza- tion; spherical frame projection