Estimation of the finite center of rotation in planar movements.

The finite center of rotation (FCR) is often used to assess joint function. It was the purpose of this study to compare the accuracy of the procedure of Crisco et al. [4] for estimating the FCR with a procedure which uses least-squares principles. The procedures were evaluated using noisy data rotated about a known FCR. Both procedures demonstrated increasing accuracy of FCR estimation with increasing rotation angle. As the centroid of a pair of markers was moved further from the FCR, accuracy of its location decreased. Noise levels had a strong influence on FCR estimation accuracy, with the least-squares procedure being better able to cope with noise. Increasing the number of landmarks increased FCR estimation accuracy. The accuracy of the procedure of Crisco et al. [4] increased when multiple estimates of the FCR were averaged. On all of the evaluations performed, the least-squares procedure gave small improvements in the accuracy of estimating the FCR, but was not able to circumvent the inaccuracies which arise when landmarks are not appropriately positioned, numerous, or if the rotation angle is small.