The current Deputy Chairman Julian Morris established the company - initially called Oxford Metrics - in 1984 as a management buy-out from Oxford Instruments Group with some founding employees and private investors.

The primary product of the fledgling company was Vicon, a system designed to analyze human motion by tracking reflective markers, attached to the body of the subject, with an array of calibrated video cameras. In the early years, systems were primarily sold to researchers in the fields of biomechanics, orthopedics and gait analysis.

At the start of the 1990s, the company embarked upon a strategy of applying Vicon technology to specific markets, firstly in the field of clinical gait analysis for medical assessment, followed in the mid 90s by computer graphics animation for the film and computer games industry. A DTI SMART (Small firms Merit Award for Research and Technology) grant provided initial development funding supplemented by self-generated profits in each of the subsequent years of the decade. The business had grown ten-fold by the end of the decade and Vicon had become the market leader in both of these markets.

From the outset, Oxford Metrics operated globally. Many of the early Vicon systems were sold to customers in the USA and the first system in Japan was installed in 1985. There are now customers in more than 35 countries and the company has strong market positions in Europe, North America and the Far East. Queen's Awards for International Trade were won in 1996 and 2001. In 1997 the company's presence in the USA was strengthened by establishing a subsidiary operation in Southern California. This stimulated growth to the point where in 2003 almost half of the group's business was from North America.

In 2000 2d3 Ltd. was established as a new subsidiary, diversifying the business into software products based upon visual geometry technology. The first product, boujou, a camera tracker aimed at the film and broadcast markets, is now used in almost every feature film providing technicians with the means to insert virtual objects into live action footage. 2d3's automated technology has encouraged take-up in wider markets such as architectural visualization, real-estate, product design and development, and forensic reconstruction. The company received an Emmy Award in 2002 recognizing the contribution of boujou to the U.S. broadcast industry.

In April 2001 OMG went public, joining the London Stock Exchange AIM market.  Since then OMG has continued to grow - acquiring House of Moves, a Los Angeles motion capture studio, in 2004; and Peak Performance, a Colorado movement analysis manufacturer, the following year.

OMG today serves expanding global markets in science, medicine, sport, engineering, gaming, film and broadcast include major hospitals and research facilities such as Guy's Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic and Loughborough University, engineering industry leaders including Ford Motor Company, BMW, Airbus, Caterpillar, and Toyota, and in the entertainment sector, Sony, Industrial Light and Magic, The Moving Picture Company (MPC), Sega, Nintendo, UbiSoft, EA, Square

Enix and many others.