Eight video cameras and two fast computers are all it takes to turn a human being's motions - a walk, a back flip - into clinical data.

Like a more accurate version of the motion capture technology that makes your Grand Theft Auto character's movements more realistic, researchers here at the Stanford Biomotion Laboratory have perfected a system that allows them to quantify how humans move.

"Each camera cuts out a silhouette in 3-D space," said Tom Andriacchi, the head of the lab and a mechanical engineer and orthopedic surgeon at Stanford University. "It's like doing slices. And the more slices you have of the three-dimensional statue in time, the more accurately we can fit that model."

A pair of NBA center Adonal Foyle's supersize shoes hanging by the door testifies to the occasional visits that high-level athletes pay to the lab. But most of the time, lab employees use their extremely accurate knowledge of the human body to study injury and disease.
Video: Biomotion Lab Turns Bodies Into Data | Wired Science