Rationalizing foot and ankle measurements to conform to a rigid body model

Accurate estimation of the in vivo locations of skeletal landmarks plays an integral role in several biomechanical research techniques. Because of rounding errors caused by instruments or skin movement, the data obtained through cinematography are usually not accurate and rise to a distance matrix which, because of the data errors, may not be Euclidean. The aim of this paper is to find the best Euclidean distance matrix (EDM) that approximates the distance matrix and then, an accurate estimation of the locations of skeletal landmarks. A useful scheme for parametrizing an orthogonal matrix is also described.