Introduction to Motion Video Analysis [modified from source from EDB] P.

Introduction to Motion Video Analysis

What is Motion Video Analysis?
MVA is a software called Motion Video Analysis. It is developed by the Education and
Manpower Bureau and the Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong in 2004.
User can use this software to capture the motion data of a moving object in a digital
video clip. Motion graphs can be plotted and the exported data can use other software
like Excel for further analysis.
This software is mainly designed for students to explore and demonstrate the principles
of mechanics in our reality.

Extract the zip file into a single folder.

Execute the MVA installer (filename MVA_setup.exe) to start the installation process
and follow the procedure step by step.

Restart the computer after the installation procedure is finished.

MVA user guide

Start a new project.
Execute the MVA.exe file to start the MVA software

Choose open video in the dialog box

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Choose the video file to be opened.

Note: The video file format allowed are mpeg (.mpeg or .mpg) or avi (with the
appropriate codec installed in the computer)

The file name, file type, frame rate, duration and pixel dimension of the video will be
shown in the dialog box. You may preview the video by the play button.
Specify the motion type to be analyzed. I.e., choose horizontal, vertical or 2
dimensional.
In this example, we would like to analysis the vertical motion of a free falling ball
shown in the video.

Click OK after choosing the type of motion.

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Input Reference Data

In the dialog box, you are request to input the reference point.

Click OK on the dialog box and click on a point on the video screen to specify where is
the coordinate origin. The coordinate axes will be shown afterward.

Here, we take the initial position of the ball as the coordinates origin. A red coordinate
axes are shown on the video screen.

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Then you are required to mark two points on the video to set the reference distance.
Here, the two end points of the meter ruler shown in the video has 1 meter distance. So
we click the two end point of the meter ruler.
A yellow line joining the two marked points will appear.
Enter 1 meter in the dialog box. And click OK.
Note: you can click on any two points on the video screen which are separated by a
known physical distance to serve as the reference distance.

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Input the mass of the object (i.e. ball) in Kg in the first box of the dialog box.
The number of frame by which the video steps forward is 1.
Click OK afterward.

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Setting Starting Frame and Ending Frame

Users usually need to set the data starting and ending time of the video.
Scan through different frames of the video by using scrollbar, move the video to the
desired starting and ending frame and press the SET button of Starting Frame and
Ending Frame accordingly.

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Click the Options button to open the Option dialog box. Click Show Axis and Show All
Points. Click Apply button to display the axes and data points.

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Capture Motion Data Points on Video

Click on the position of the moving object on the video screen in each frame step to
input the motion data points. It will record the position of the moving object at different
fimes. The time and coordinates of the motion data points will appear in the Point Data
Panel. A set of displacement versus time data are obtained.

Note: the Show Plot Panel button will only be available when all the motion data points
within the starting and ending frame have been captured.

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Curve Fitting and Graph Plotting Using Plot Panel

Pressing the activated Show Plot Panel button will the Plot Panel in a new window.
Users can do polynomial fitting of the position data and plot motion graphs.

As shown below, the Plot Panel shows the displacement-time graph obtained from the
motion data. To do curve fitting for the displacement-time graph, first choose the No. of
Sections to be fitted. Click on the No. of Sections pull down menu and choose 1, 2 or
3 sections to be fitted. For example, choosing 3 means the motion data are divided into
3 sets and each set can be fitted by a different polynomial in t.

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After choosing the No. of Sections, some Starting Points and End Points input boxes
appear. These allow you to change the data point which mark the beginning and end of
each section. In the case shown above, only one section is chosen and the total number
of data point is 14, so the Starting Point and End Point are by default 0 and 12
respectively.

The Fitting Method pull down menu allows you to choose how to fit the motion data,
which may be either a linear, quadratic or cubic polynomial in t. Click on the Fitting
Methods pull down menu and choose the type of polynomial fitting you want to do
on the motion data.

After inputting the No. of Section, the Starting Point and Ending Point for each
section and the Fitting Method, press the Apply Fitting button. The Fitting Curve,
which is the blue line on the displacement-time graph, and the Fitting Equation will
appear. The pull down menus: Plot Velocity Graph, Plot Acceleration Graph and Plot
Energy Graph will be activated and users can choose the graphs to be plot.

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To plot any of the Velocity Graphs, Acceleration Graphs or Energy Graphs, click on the
Plot Velocity Graph, Plot Acceleration Graph or Plot Energy Graph pull down
menus and choose the graph you want to plot.

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The velocity-time graph is plotted and shown below.

Note: you may use the Print Screen Key of keyboard to obtain the picture of the graphs.

Choosing to plot other motion graphs will open new windows similar to the one as
shown above.

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Save, Load and Export Functions

The Export Data button and the Save Project button are located at the lower right corner
of the window below.

The lower right corner of the above window is highlighted below.

Export Data
The Export Data button export the motion data into a text file.
Software like Excel can be used to analyze the motion data can be analyzed.
Save Project
Save the project before exit.
The Save Project button saves the project information into two files, filename.mva and
filename_setting.txt.
Information about the motion data, curve fitting and graph plotting can be saved for
later use.
Note:The files of the project should be saved in the same folder so that it can be opened
properly next time. i.e., the video file, the filename.mva file and the filename_setting.txt
file of the project must be in the same folder. If you want to move the project files to
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another folder or another computer, make sure that you keep all three files together in
the same folder as shown below.

Load a Saved Project

In order to load the previously saved project, press Open Project in the dialog box when
MVA software is run at the beginning.

Choose the project file (filename.mva) to be openned and click OK

Modified from Source reference:

MVAS [Copyright 2004 (c) EMB] http://www.hk-phy.org/mvas/

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