The Development of the Korat Boxing Digital Museum with 3D Animation Using Inertial Motion Capture Techniques for Preserving the Ancient Martial Arts

Abstract

Korat Boxing or Muay Korat is a unique ancient martial art that originated in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Up to this point, there has been limited concrete effort to conserve knowledge of Muay Korat. Since knowledge of Muay Korat has mainly been transmitted person to person the general public has limited access or awareness. It is believed that knowledge of this distinct martial art is worth preserving before it becomes irretrievable. This research aims to 1) study and consolidate knowledge of Muay Korat in the form of digital media and 2) design and develop 3D animation of Muay Korat for a digital museum. The researcher used a inertial motion capture machine to record the movements of boxing teachers to create realistic 3D animations of Muay Korat moves, a total of 47 moves. After that, a digital museum was designed and developed which can be accessed via www.muaykorat.info. The digital museum was evaluated for usability testing, using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire with 6 aspects. The questionnaire was completed by 70 people interested in sports. The results gave excellent scores for 3 aspects, including content and language use ${{(\bar X = 4}}{\text{.65)}}$; text ${{(\bar X = 4}}{\text{.65)}}$; and the animation and multimedia presentation ${{(\bar X = 4}}{\text{.56)}}$. The assessment result for all aspects ${{(\bar X = 4}}{\text{.53)}}$ implies that the usability of the Korat Boxing Digital Museum is very good. This result is consistent with the overall satisfaction assessment also being very good ${{(\bar X = 4}}{\text{.51)}}$. In addition, an assessment of the media exposure to digital museum users revealed that Korat Boxing Digital Museum could enhance knowledge and understanding about Korat Boxing at the highest level.