ment. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics. 2014.

Abstract—The kinematics of the human hand is optimal with respect to force distribution during pinch as well as power grasp, reducing the tissue strain when exerting forces through opposing fingers and optimising contact faces. Quantifying this optimality is of key importance when constructing biomimetic robotic hands, but un-derstanding the exact human finger motion is also an important asset in, e.g., tracking finger movement during manipulation. The goal of the method presented here is to determine the precise orientations and positions of the axes of rotation of the finger joints by using suitable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of a hand in various postures. The bones are segmented from the images, and their poses are estimated with respect to a reference posture. The axis orientations and positions ar