BCoM app

A Matlab Application for Whole-Body Center of Mass Analysis

BCoM is a user-friendly Matlab application designed to calculate the whole-body center of mass (BCoM) for primates, both tailed and tailless, based on user-provided morphometrics (segment length, mass, and center of mass). Its intuitive interface allows researchers and students to explore how different postures and morphometrics influence the BCoM position.

Key Features:

- Posture Simulation: Simulate a variety of postures in the sagittal plane, including quadrupedalism, bipedalism, climbing, suspensory, and leaping. Users can dynamically adjust knee and elbow angles, as well as trunk angle in bipedalism.

- Hand and Foot Adjustments: Customize hand and foot postures for plantigrady, semi-plantigrady, digitigrady, and knuckle-walking in quadrupedalism, and observe how these changes impact the BCoM.

- Interactive Visualization: Click the "Plot posture" button to visualize the BCoM position graphically, with detailed data displayed in the right-hand panel.

- Ready-to-Use Dataset: Import a pre-formatted dataset to get started, or use the provided Excel template (including some data) to input quickly some morphometric data.

BCoM is ideal for researchers and students interested in biomechanics, primate locomotion, and comparative anatomy. Experiment with different postures and morphometrics to gain insights into how the center of mass shifts in response to anatomical and postural changes.

If you do not have Matlab, the standalone application (including the Excel template) can be downloaded on the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l3xsWORsB70eBCELTFWIon1D3GQ3Flom?usp=drive_link

Enjoy exploring the biomechanics of primate movement with BCoM!