Python C3D Processing

This package provides a single Python module for reading and writing binary motion-capture files in the C3D file format.

Examples

Reading

To read the frames of a C3D file, use a Reader instance:

import c3d

reader = c3d.Reader(open('my-motion.c3d', 'rb'))
for i, points, analog in reader.read_frames():
    print('frame {}: point {}, analog {}'.format(
        i, points.shape, analog.shape)

The read_frames method generates tuples containing the frame index, a numpy array of point data, and a numpy array of analog data.

Writing

To write data frames to a C3D file, use a Writer instance:

import c3d
import numpy as np

writer = c3d.Writer()
for _ in range(100):
    writer.add_frame(np.random.randn(30, 5))
with open('random-points.c3d', 'wb') as h:
    writer.write(h)

The add_frame method takes a numpy array of point data—and, optionally, a numpy array of analog data—and adds it to an internal data buffer. The write method serializes all of the frame data to a C3D binary file.

Command-Line Scripts

The c3d package also contains several command-line scripts.

Two of these scripts convert C3D binary data to other formats: - c3d2csv: Converts C3D data to comma-separated values. - c3d2npz: Converts C3D data to serialized numpy arrays.

The c3d-metadata script simply prints out the metadata from a C3D file.

Finally, the c3d-viewer script provides a basic OpenGL viewer for C3D data. This script depends on pyglet.

• Reference
  • c3d.Reader
  • c3d.Writer