Some handy resources for BVH stuff

Hi. This page pulls together some resources I have found useful, for reading/viewing/editing BVH motion capture files.

It isn't intended to be at all inclusive – an impossible task! – but I hope what I've collected here might be helpful to others.

I'd welcome your comments, so please drop me a line.

About the file format

BVH file collections

Free BVH readers and viewers

BVHViewer (Win only, source code not available).
Bioviewer (Win, Linux, source code available). C++/SDL/OpenGL player, with three different render styles.
Blender (Win, Linux, Mac, source code available).
BVhacker (Win, no source code). A good-looking and robust player, also supporting editing of animations.
BVH Motion File Player (win, source code available). C++/OpenGL, code packaged as Visual Stidio 2007 project.
BVHplay (Win, Linux, Mac, source code available). A robust player that seems to handle any BVH thrown at it. Implemented in Python/TCL, no OpenGL. Unsophisticated camera control, and inability to loop the animaton.
BHV Viewer (Win, Linux, source code available). A simple viewer with basic keyboard camera control. OpenGL/C. Confusingly, the program is actually called bvhreader
SBVH "A simple BVH file viewer" (Win, no source code available). OpenGL viewer with simple keyboard camera control.
BVH Web player (Java applet). Plays a wired-in bvh.
WXMV (Win, source code available). C/OpenGL. Multiple BVH's can be loaded and animated at the same time.
QuickMOTView (Win, source code not available)
Motion Capture Viewer (Win, source code not available). "Displays and animates the biovision bvh file format. parses bvh using an ll(1) grammar inspired by "sign language using motion capture based animation" cadiz, salvador 2000. motion looping done using a linear angle blending technique and quaternions."
Gypsy (Win, source code not available).
A University of Wisconsin student project from 2002 (Win, source code not available)

Commercial BVH readers and viewers

  • Carrara.

Handy links


This page is maintained by Toby Howard. Last update: 19 October 2016.