The question of encoding movements such as those produced by human gestures
may become central in the coming years, given the growing importance of
movement data exchanges between heterogeneous systems and applications (musical
applications, 3D motion control, virtual reality interaction, etc.). For the
past 20 years, various formats have been proposed for encoding movement,
especially gestures. Though, these formats, at different degrees, were designed
in the context of quite specific applications (character animation, motion
capture, musical gesture, biomechanical concerns...).