

Hacked Kinect is now a 3D video capture tool - epiphany47
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/14/hacked-kinect-is-now-a-3d-video-capture-tool/

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ElbertF
Here it is on the creator's website instead of a lame blog post:
<http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/Kinect/>

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melvinram
I'm not in this space or planning on investing time into this but I just
wanted to say Kudos to Microsoft for creating something that developers are
excited about again... even if they didn't indent to do that. I'd start
hacking on this if I wasn't invested in a different direction.

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eyeareque
I wouldn't give MS too much credit. They bought the hardware from the company
that created it.

~~~
joezydeco
Yup, here's the reference design in case anyone is curious:

<http://www.primesense.com/?p=514>

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jakevoytko
If money is no object, commodity stereo equipment exists with better range
than the Kinect. From Wikipedia:

    
    
       The Kinect sensor has a practical ranging limit of 1.2–3.5 metres 
       (3.9–11 ft) distance when used with the Xbox software.
    

The Kinect was limited by cost, size, and the need to work in poor lighting
conditions. But by spacing your higher-quality cameras out (increasing the
baseline), accurate depth at 10 meters is a reasonable goal.

One such device: <http://www.ptgrey.com/products/bumblebee2/index.asp>

Accuracy chart: <http://www.ptgrey.com/support/kb/data/stereoaccuracy.xls>
[XLS warning]

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shasta
Money is always an object. Any idea roughly what these go for?

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tlack
I hope he links up two or three of these to form fuller 3d models of a room.

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Devilboy
The Kinect works by projecting an infra-red grid on to the room so you can't
use 2 of them in the same space (unless you modify the hardware somehow)

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charleso
Could you synchronize two Kinect devices on one clock and then toggle the
display/capture of that grid every odd or even 10ms span? So, only one grid is
displayed and processed during its 'slice' of time, with the grids strobing
rather than continuously projected.

Software-only, or would that result in too jerky of a motion capture?

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ramidarigaz
10ms seems like a reasonably small period of time. I believe it is considered
to be effectively instantaneous in UI.

Edit: Although, I suppose the "refresh rate" of the entire system would then
be 20ms, which might be noticeable. Chop that down to 5ms per Kinect, and it
might be viable.

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derefr
Only one "eye" [Kinect] has to notice/process the movement; the other can
infer, during the integration step, that the "rest" of a moving object comes
with it, rather than stretching out.

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aresant
Don't miss:

a) His other video of the system where he shows that measurements of 3d
objects exactly match real counterparts:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ieKe_ts0k>

b) His homepage of other experiments:
<http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/index.html>

~~~
jrmg
It's implied in the measurement video that he's feeding his captured data
through a realtime 3D modelling/rendering tool. Does anyone know what that
tool is?

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phreeza
On his page[1] it says "The 3D reconstruction code is entirely written from
scratch in C++, using my own Vrui VR toolkit[2] for 3D rendering management
and interaction."

[1] <http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/index.html> (frame navigation?? ugh)

[2] <http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/Vrui/MainPage.html>

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quux
Wow, this reminds me of the holographic home movies in minority report. We
have the camera, now all we need is the projector.

~~~
biot
Exactly what I thought. Also, someone's made a side-by-side video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da3iq9fnyWs>

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Seth_Kriticos
For the frequency of the news about Kinect hacking I get the feeling that the
homebrew software for Kinect will soon boost with much more professional
features than the official software, esp. since it's pushed with games.

As Microsoft sells these things highly subsidized to claim profit with on the
games I see lot's of conflict potential.

~~~
patrickk
I can see indie game developers using Kinect to do realistic motion-capture in
games.

I recall seeing this issue pop up in the 'making-of' DVD for Alan Wake by
Remedy. When they made their first big game, Max Payne 1, they did the
storytelling in the form of a comic due partially to budget constraints. Using
a hacked Kinect and cheap PC hardware, game developers could capture a huge
range of motions and use video editing software to overlay the required
graphics onto the captured motions.

~~~
ErrantX
The problem there, I worry, is once someone starts selling an indie game with
third party support MS will go after them legally.

They don't have much standing with the hackers atm, but a commercial indie
game is another matter.

Which is concerning :(

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Kliment
The point of the parent post was using these things in creating games, not as
a game interface. That is, to make animation more realistic. Then again, given
commercial motion capture systems are in the 5-10k range for pretty good
stuff, I don't suppose that's a major concern for a game studio.

~~~
ErrantX
Bah, my comment was something I had in the back of my mind... so I looked at
the parent and misread it as being on the same topic, sorry :)

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MarkNederhoed
It's rough but still pretty damn cool. Software that does this from footage
can easily be in the thousands of dollars. Image the results if you pair a
kinect with this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOmzjImsVc>

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barredo
Idea: Please, someone somehow need to attach via software a Kinnect and a 3D
printer.

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Kliment
I have a 3d printer, but not a Kinect. Range data is not very good at all at
creating 3d models. What you really want is that plus a turntable so you can
get multiple views. To get a printable model, you need a mesh with no holes. A
single range image has lots of holes, so you can't really print the image
without filling them by taking multiple images and matching them. That said, I
do think I'll make a 3d scanner based on this thing.

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konad
Hi, I'm thinking of getting RepRap. Do you find your printer brings you any
business opportunities ?

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Kliment
Well, I have been selling some parts, but mostly to other Reprappers. I'm
looking for ways to develop something more extensive with it, but it's one of
a stack of fabrication-related ideas I'd like to play with, each more
attractive. The main problem is that printing is slow, and linear. You can't
easily scale it. Some people are building botfarms, but even then their supply
is linear, and limited by space.

Pop over on the #reprap channel on freenode and meet the rest of us if you
want to know more.

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borismus
Take 3 cameras and you get full 3D. Then project on a 3DTV, and you have a
much more immersive video conference!

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almost
While that would be very very cool I don't think it would work with the
current hardware. It works by projecting a bunch of dots on the scene in IR
(so you can't see them) then tracking them with a camera. So multiple Kinects
are going to confuse each other (probably, I assume so anyway).

Just got my Kinect in the post this morning, very excited about what I can do
with it!

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Devilboy
I expect to see a lot of homebrew robots using Kinect for vision in the near
future!

