Abstract: Motion data retrieval is used to get the proper data from the existing motion database for motion editing
and reusing, the hierarchical retrieval based on posture feature coding improves the retrieval speed and quality.
We divide major bone into nine segments, and the angles of these bone segments can response geometric relations
of motion posture, can used as feature vectors, encode posture features, create database index based on the
motion features, in the retrieval process, carry out the similarity comparison from motion feature, data index and
motion data value. The experimental results shows, in the motion database that contains walk, run and dance
postures, compared with the other method, the method has high retrieval speed and satisfactory retrieval results,
and realize the effectively retrieve of the logical similarity motion data.

Key words: motion retrieval, hierarchical retrieval, motion data, pose feature coding