Hey all!
This is just a small PSA in which we want to provide a tool that might be useful to some biomechanists out there!
I have recently started working with and developing biomechanical models within the Vicon software world. For those of you who might not have worked with their products before let me give a quick rundown. Their currently supported main software products are Nexus (recording and processing of data), Polygon (creating reports and presenting data) and ProCalc (kinematic modeling and calculations) which offer almost endless possibilities for biomechanical modeling.
But… there used to more!
There is a Vicon legacy software product called BodyBuilder. It allows users to develop biomechanical model script files (.mod) that allow for extensive kinematic and dynamic calculations. It is a little bit tricky to get into the workflow because it requires a very specific set of files that all need to be set up correctly, but once you get the hang of it, it makes modeling very comfortable as it has a lot of helpful built in functions! Another very helpful function is that you can run the models from Nexus Pipelines.
One big downside of using BodyBuilder though is that the integrated editor exactly looks like you would expect one that has received no updates since the 90s.
And here is where this tool I have mentioned comes in handy. I have switched to developing the models in the free Notepad++ editor which in itself brings a lot of helpful functionality. What’s even better is that it allows users to define custom language syntax.
The small .XML file you can find at the end of this post, can be imported to Notepad++ via
Language > User Defined Language > Define your Language... > Import
I have tried to implement all predefined commands and custom macros (displayed in bold) can be added in the GUI under Keywords list in the 6th group. This section can also be used to define new sets of variables or commands.
Please don’t hesitate to email me for feedback or leave a comment!
