The improvement of virtual reality systems declares new requirements for the user immersion quality. To improve the immersiveness of the interaction process with virtual space, it is necessary to provide a realistic representation of a person in it, as well as the processes of his movement and interaction with virtual objects. In this work, the issue of using motion capture technologies to create a realistic avatar (digital shadow) and visualization of the movement process is considered. An algorithm for capturing human movements based on synchronization of various hardware solutions has been developed to create a digital shadow of the human movement process. The algorithm can be used to match the user with his virtual copy in virtual reality systems. The scientific novelty of the method lies in taking into account the position, direction and speed of a person’s movement, synchronization of the motion capture hardware tools used to create digital shadows of the person’s movement process.

The article deals with the problem of forming a digital shadow of the process of moving a person. An analysis of the subject area was carried out, which showed the need to formalize the process of creating digital shadows to simulate human movements in virtual space, testing software and hardware systems that operate on the basis of human actions, as well as in various systems of musculoskeletal rehabilitation. It was revealed that among the existing approaches to the capture of human movements, it is impossible to single out a universal and stable method under various environmental conditions. A method for forming a digital shadow has been developed based on combining and synchronizing data from three motion capture systems (virtual reality trackers, a motion capture suit, and cameras using computer vision technologies). Combining the above systems makes it possible to obtain a comprehensive assessment of the position and condition of a person regardless of environmental conditions (electromagnetic interference, illumination). To implement the proposed method, a formalization of the digital shadow of the human movement process was carried out, including a description of the mechanisms for collecting and processing data from various motion capture systems, as well as the stages of combining, filtering, and synchronizing data. The scientific novelty of the method lies in the formalization of the process of collecting data on the movement of a person, combining and synchronizing the hardware of the motion capture systems to create digital shadows of the process of moving a person. The obtained theoretical results will be used as a basis for software abstraction of a digital shadow in information systems to solve the problems of testing, simulating a person, and modeling his reaction to external stimuli by generalizing the collected data arrays about his movement.