# SeamPose: Repurposing Seams as Capacitive Sensors in a Shirt for Upper-Body Pose Tracking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.11645 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11645/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 72 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07035/) (2018)
- [Humans in 4D: Reconstructing and Tracking Humans with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20091/) (2023)
- [Disentangling and Unifying Graph Convolutions for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14111/) (2020)
- [Physical Inertial Poser (PIP): Physics-aware Real-time Human Motion Tracking from Sparse Inertial Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08528/) (2022)
- [AvatarPoser: Articulated Full-Body Pose Tracking from Sparse Motion Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.13784/) (2022)
- [xR-EgoPose: Egocentric 3D Human Pose from an HMD Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10045/) (2019)
- [IMUPoser: Full-Body Pose Estimation using IMUs in Phones, Watches, and Earbuds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12518/) (2023)
- [Deep Inertial Poser: Learning to Reconstruct Human Pose from Sparse Inertial Measurements in Real Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04703/) (2018)
- [EchoWrist: Continuous Hand Pose Tracking and Hand-Object Interaction Recognition Using Low-Power Active Acoustic Sensing On a Wristband](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17409/) (2024)
- [ManiCast: Collaborative Manipulation with Cost-Aware Human Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.13258/) (2023)
- [Selecting the motion ground truth for loose-fitting wearables: benchmarking optical MoCap methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.11881/) (2023)
- [Ring-a-Pose: A Ring for Continuous Hand Pose Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12980/) (2024)
- [EyeEcho: Continuous and Low-power Facial Expression Tracking on Glasses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12388/) (2024)
- [Computational Design of Wiring Layout on Tight Suits with Minimal Motion Resistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10226/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [ChairPose: Pressure-based Chair Morphology Grounded Sitting Pose Estimation through Simulation-Assisted Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01850/) (2025)
- [VersaPants: A Loose-Fitting Textile Capacitive Sensing System for Lower-Body Motion Capture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16346/) (2025)
- [Garment Inertial Denoiser (GID): Endowing Accurate Motion Capture via Loose IMU Denoiser](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01360/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Seams are areas of overlapping fabric formed by stitching two or more pieces of fabric together in the cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing process. In SeamPose, we repurposed seams as capacitive sensors in a shirt for continuous upper-body pose estimation. Compared to previous all-textile motion-capturing garments that place the electrodes on the clothing surface, our solution leverages existing seams inside of a shirt by machine-sewing insulated conductive threads over the seams. The unique invisibilities and placements of the seams afford the sensing shirt to look and wear similarly as a conventional shirt while providing exciting pose-tracking capabilities. To validate this approach, we implemented a proof-of-concept untethered shirt with 8 capacitive sensing seams. With a 12-participant user study, our customized deep-learning pipeline accurately estimates the relative (to the pelvis) upper-body 3D joint positions with a mean per joint position error (MPJPE) of 6.0 cm. SeamPose represents a step towards unobtrusive integration of smart clothing for everyday pose estimation.