Willy Dobbe - microsoft

A great video with Kinect , ni-mate and blender

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:50:23 +0000

A great arty video using Kinect and raytracing

Kinect Project /// I Dieci from Alkanoids on Vimeo.

It is using the opensource Kinect drivers I have been using, ni-mate (a Kinect to 3d rending engine) and the engine blender.

More information including a "making of" onbehance.com

Kinect Dance with curtain

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:00:26 +0000

Too bad there is not much information online about how they build this... Cool technology though, lame dancing :-)

Webapps ftw

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:09:16 +0000

I am, not the biggest fan of "Native Apps", e.g. applications that one has to install on you phone or tablet that are nothing more than a browser reading an RSS feed and displaying the results in a fancy way. Silos.

And ... without letting the user know, send lots of data of the tablet (location, contacts etc) to the mothership. Think about it, would you install "cnn.exe" on your windows host just to access one site? Would you download "microsoft.dmg" to see the website from the other side? Hell no, native apps must die, silos will fall down. I have been ranting about this for a long time, 2008, again and recent in my famous there is an app for that, it is called a browser post.

With progresive design being the standard and with modern mobile browsers honering the tags like VIDEO, a "HTML-Apps" will crush native apps. Not everybody shares that vision, but in broader sense it is clear that webapps will dominate above native apps in the mobile space; they are easy central to update and by definition cross platform.

As stated before, the browser is the OS.

If this is true, there is no reason to stop at a specific devices like a mobile. And indeed, Google docs replaced the office suite and as can be sen below, with pure HTML you can even do photobooth alike effects.

And now garageband is having a hard time with a browser based -less UI more interaction with friend- tool called jamwithchrome.
.

One day, the browser will be the OS and we will all have big fat thin clients again with a mixture of local data and apps and remote data and apps. Al I wish for is that -despite the fact that I wish every company as much sicess as they can get- Google will not be the new Microsoft and Chrome not the new IE.

3D scan of my head and realtime tracking and rendering using a kinect

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:16:07 +0000

I used the kinect to scan my head and made some real time tracking and rendering as can be seen in the videos below.

setting up Kinect:

3D scan of my head:

Tracking / rendering using my head:

XBOX 3D CAVE: Xbox Kinect

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 18:17:44 +0000

I like this work, using the xbox kinect to navigate in a 3d environment:

In this video Carl demonstrates how we are using the Xbox Kinect to navigate around the 3D CAVE at CASALA.

However, THIS is even cooler:

For our archeology department at the university of Groningen, we made this 3D stereo reconstruction of an excavation in Crustumerium, an Iron Age settlement in Italy (800-450 BC).

It is so cool to see that Universities and artist are using the cheap Kinect to make interaction between the Real and the Virtual world possible. BTW: Groningen FTW! :-)

NumHop, Kinect learning game

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:47:07 +0000

Nikos Poulios has been working for the Waag / VU Amsterdam on NumHop, a Kinect learning game.

See it in action:

NumHop - A multi-sensor interactive playful learning game from Nikos Poulios on Vimeo.

NumHop is a prototype game of physical interaction,developed around the concept of embodied learning.

Aim of the prototype is to study the potentials of modern motion capture and body sensors technologies in educational games, involving human body in the learning process, and assisting the development of basic social skills like self and others awareness.

The prototype was developed as part of my master thesis at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and my internship at Waag Society.

NumHop features the Microsoft Kinect, Neurosky Mindwave EEG sensor, and Zephyr HxM ECG sensor. It was developed using Unity, cinder, OpenNI and OSC

Eurocup 2012 Game with the Kinect

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 19:33:37 +0000

A bit late, but still good to see:

Because of the Euro Cup, Paradox D&D, in conjunction with BHB Group, has developed an application that exploits Kinect technology. This is a game that allows the user to become a goalkeeper whose objective is to stop as many balls as possible. Then, the player receives his deserved award. Euro Cup appears in his hands.

The system recognizes the user height and uses this information to adapt the dificulty of the game to the age of the player. Among other surprises, the application takes two photographies of the user. The first one while playing as the goalkeeper and the other when showing the Euro Cup. Such photographs may be downloaded from facebook at the end of the day.

Kinect Finger Recognition For Games

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:26:48 +0000

I have been hacking my kinect recently to be able to mix reality and virtual words.

By distinguishing between an open palm and a closed fist, we are able to recognize a “grab” gesture that can be used to control games which involve a drag-and-drop mechanic. In this video, we describe the approach and show how it can be used in games, including drawing shapes and controlling the puzzler World of Goo, in which you drag-and-drop balls of goo to build a structure.

More on kinecthacks. Will this be like the leap (due feb 2013)?

Animating Using the Kinect Point Cloud as Reference Shuffle

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:12:39 +0000

As always, digging everything Kinect hacking related.

My research using the Point cloud generated by kinect as a reference to animating.

As you probably know, already exists some motion capture softwares using the kinect on windows, they are quite interesting once the capture is made without needing marks, and it can be exported to many compatible formats, like the BVH and the FBX.

Animating using the Point cloud generated by kinect as reference from Jomario Murta on Vimeo.

My research using the Point cloud generated by kinect as a reference to animating.

See behance.com

Seethrough pixel display with Kinect

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:34:38 +0000

I love everything that connects the real world with the virtual world. And the kinect (or generic, gestures) are a great way to make this connection.

Do checkout this article on creativeapplications,

Created by Korean collective HYBE, IRIS is a media canvas with matrix of conventional information display technology, that is a monochrome LCD.Through the phased opening and closing of circular black liquid crystal, IRIS can create various patterns and control the amount (size) of passing lights.

Gestures Kinect to the rescue for people with a handicap

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:39:30 +0000

As you might know, I like integrating stuff. Integrating analog and digital. Augmented Reality. Kinect and my computers. And here are dozens of oppertunities there. see for example the posting at dadhoc.omc

My mom has lived with aphasia ever since she suffered a serious stroke twelve years ago. In the meantime, there’s been a revolution in communication – powered by social media. Like a lot of people, I use the phone less. One of my areas of interest has been bridging the digital “keyboard gap” for people like my mom.

Gestures ftw.

Lego Batman 2 XBOX crash help

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 19:02:22 +0000

I recently bought an Xbox game for my kids, Lego batman 2. They LOVE it. Really LOVE it. Fine. It is just that the game has some serioud flaws. Flaws that are widly documented on the net. And that this hurts imho the brads Lego and WB Games. caus it is not like I am the only one suffering from this problem: as 2.5 M results show.

The maker knows about that the game freezes during many cut scenes, though says it happens "occascially".

See this message

Occasionally, a crash occurs while Batman and Robin are hopping into a car. The rain and ambient noises continue like the game is loading but the game freezes.
If this occurs, try the following:
· Pause the game and click Extras. In Extras there will be an option to enter a code. Enter the code ‘n0cut5’ and resume play. Doing so will allow you to skip the cutscene and continue progress.

It lists a number of other "solutions". Dont bother. Just use the "no cutscene. Despite it's name you still see the movies, but can skim them, do so in level in 9 and 12:-(

Video maping on a person using the Kinect

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:09:42 +0000

Video mapping a human face is not entirely new—we’ve seen Zach Lieberman and friends do it using a Kinect and an LED projector in the video for BELL’s “Chase No Face.” But this video ups the game a little and completely immerses the actor in the projected visuals, covering the whole head and upper body so he becomes a human chameleon. Turn him into a cyberman, a bearded metaller, even a human Google map, making it a great tool for Halloween, if you had the spare cash—and you sat still, in a room, while people stared at you.

See thecreatorsproject.

A bit out of my league, but still. Cool to see the use of the Kinect this way.

never miss a beat, be the beat (gestures based DJ)

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:06:18 +0000

One of the reasons I bought an XBOX and not a PS3 was the Kinect. "gestures are the new touch" and all that jazz. And it when comes to a cheap household device that can do wonders in Augmented Reality, the Kinect is -no pun intended- a Game Changer.

For example, coverflow is one of the first things one imagines when one talks about gestures, ever since iOS 3 or so it was on the wanted list. And windshield Augmented Reality is what everyone comes up with. Both are however not the best candidates. In the coming weeks, I'll give some examples of real use of the Kinect beyond those two.

My favourite and still working on it myself? Be a DJ, never miss a beat, be the beat. Take a look at this video:

I am still in the proces of getting all this to work on my Macs but will post before I am done some more Kinectar implementations.

Kinect sends video to watch.

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 19:39:32 +0000

As you might know, I am hacking my Kinect for fun and profit. So far lost of fun, no profit. :-) But still.

This hack looks rather cool, use your Kinect to send a picture to your android Watch...

This projects streams the image and depth data from a Microsoft Kinect to a Wimm Watch. When motion is detected, the watch vibrates to notify there is something to see, and if the Kinect detects a face it zooms in on that face, so you can see who it is. By tapping the watch face, an alarm can be triggered to scare the intruder away. It's super cool!