How Northwestern University Cuts Data-Collection Time by One-Third Using Markerless Motion Capture

November 18, 2025
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Recent Posts
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Summary

Athletic Movement Performance (AMP) Lab, directed by Dr. Yuki A. Sugimoto in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences (PTHMS) at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, is advancing ACL-injury and chronic ankle instability (CAI) research by integrating Theia3D markerless motion capture to analyze high-risk movements – including jumping, landing, sprinting, and cutting – in adolescent and collegiate athletes. With Theia3D, the AMP Lab has streamlined key components of real-world biomechanics data collection, completing sessions approximately one-third faster than before. This increased efficiency allows the team to evaluate more athletes, run more trials, and accelerate investigations into lower-limb injury mechanisms that directly inform sport-performance and sports-medicine decision-making.

Why This Matters
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Athlete performing a countermovement jump captured with Theia3D at Northwestern’s AMP Lab.


ACL injuries remain one of the most common and costly injuries in sport, often leading to early post-traumatic osteoarthritis.

Traditional marker-based motion capture systems limit the scale of research due to:

  • Long setup times
  • Restricted movement quality 
  • Risk of marker dropout or occlusion during dynamic movements
  • Limited feasibility for large cohorts or in-season testing 
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“Traditional marker-based systems make large-scale athlete testing extremely difficult — long setup times and frequent marker occlusion during fast, dynamic tasks all limit how much usable data we can collect. Markerless motion capture removes those barriers and allows us to study real athletic movement at the scale our research demands.”

- Dr. Yuki A. Sugimoto, Research Assistant Professor, PTHMS, Feinberg School of Medicine


With Theia3D, Northwestern can collect high-fidelity motion data across larger athlete populations and within more realistic training environments, supporting evidence-based movement analyses and prevention strategies that extend beyond the lab.

Learn how Theia3D aligns with the STRN Quality Framework to ensure scientific rigor and reliability in biomechanics research.

Northwestern’s AMP Lab, led by Dr. Yuki A. Sugimoto, advances ACL and ankle-instability research through real-world biomechanics.


Research Focus
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Institution: Northwestern University
Lab: Athletic Movement Performance (AMP) Lab, PTHMS, Feinberg School of Medicine
Lead Researcher: Dr. Yuki A. Sugimoto, Research Assistant Professor
Research Focus: ACL injury risk, chronic ankle instability (CAI), and post-traumatic osteoarthritis in adolescent and collegiate athletes

Dr. Sugimoto’s team investigates limb-loading symmetry using the eccentric joint loading (EAC) ratio, an emerging metric that provides deeper insights into asymmetries that contribute to ACL injury risk – including among athletes with and without a history of ankle sprains prior to ACL reconstruction.

For more on Theia3D’s accuracy and benchmarking against traditional systems, explore our research validation studies.

While Dr. Sugimoto’s published study originally used a marker-based setup, the same analyses are now being replicated markerlessly, enabling faster and more scalable data collection.

“Cutting collection time by ~33% — and eliminating issues like dropped or obscured markers — has been a major upgrade. Markerless capture lets us focus on the biomechanics instead of the setup.”

- Dr. Yuki A. Sugimoto, Research Assistant Professor, PTHMS, Feinberg School of Medicine
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Markerless motion capture and Apple Vision Pro experiments support next-generation biomechanics research.

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Inside the Lab

Northwestern’s AMP Lab captures drop-vertical-jump landing (DVJL) and other high-risk movement trials using:

  • Markerless 3D kinematics from Theia3D
  • Floor-embedded force plates (with additional portable force plates used in collaboration with performance coaches)
  • Apple Vision Pro experiments for next-gen field capture data
  • Collaboration with Olympic sport performance coaches through Project Kaizen

This blend of validated biomechanics tools and emerging technologies positions Northwestern as a leading example of modern, applied movement-science research.

Forward jump captured with Theia3D in Northwestern’s AMP Lab.


Key Advantages
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Cuts data-collection time by one-third.
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Dr. Sugimoto reports approximately 33% reduction in data-collection time, allowing the team to run more athletes through testing without adding staff hours or disrupting athletes’ complex scheduling demands.
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Fewer technical disruptions.
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Markerless eliminates common challenges with reflective markers, such as:

  • Markers detaching during dynamic movements
  • Pelvic or trunk markers being obscured by natural arm swing
  • Trial failures due to occlusion

These reductions increase the usable trial count and minimize the need for repeat testing.
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Natural, unrestricted motion.
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Athletes move as they do on the field — no suits, no markers, and no modifications to natural technique.
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Scalable, high-quality analysis.
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Theia3D supports large-cohort biomechanical studies that were previously difficult to execute within the logistical constraints of collegiate sports environments.
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Drop jump captured with Theia3D in Northwestern’s AMP Lab.


What This Means for Biomechanics Research


Northwestern’s integration of Theia3D demonstrates how leading institutions are bridging the gap between laboratory-based biomechanics research and real-world sport performance and injury prevention.

Markerless motion capture offers:

  • Faster data throughput
  • Greater ecological validity
  • Reliable, validated kinematics
  • The ability to scale studies without sacrificing precision

This enables labs to expand their research scope, from injury-mechanism analysis to applied performance monitoring, while accommodating higher participant volumes and tighter operational timelines.

Read Related Research

Eccentric Joint Loading Ratio in ACL-Injury Risk Assessment
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Interested in bringing markerless motion capture to your lab?
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Contact us today to learn how Theia3D can accelerate your biomechanics research and unlock new possibilities for real-world movement analysis.

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Recent Posts
A Decade of Sports Validation: Which Motion Capture Tech Performs Best?
A 2025 Sensors review from Auburn University compares how optical, IMU, and markerless motion capture systems perform across real-world sports environments. The findings reveal that while optical systems remain industry standard, markerless motion capture is quickly closing the gap, offering unmatched scalability, flexibility, and ecological validity for multi-sport organizations.
Concurrent Assessment of Sprint Running Kinematics Using Marker-Based and Markerless Motion Capture
A July 2025 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences evaluated the reliability of Theia3D’s markerless motion capture system for assessing lower-limb and trunk kinematics during sprint running. Researchers compared Theia3D against a marker-based optical reference system (Motion Analysis Corp. Raptor) across multiple sprint phases, including early acceleration, mid-acceleration, and top speed. Results showed good to excellent agreement between systems for most joints and movement phases, with some variability at top speed, particularly in pelvic and foot angles. The findings highlight both the promise and the challenges of measuring sprint mechanics with markerless motion capture in high-speed, real-world conditions.
Comparing Markerless and Marker-Based Gait Kinematics in Children
A new study from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) compared traditional marker-based gait analysis with Theia3D’s markerless motion capture in typically developing children aged 6-13 years. The findings reinforce that markerless systems like Theia3D can deliver biomechanically meaningful data in pediatric populations while reducing preparation time and participant burden, important steps toward broader clinical adoption.
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