3D Scanning and Motion Capture.

Fun with the Xbox 360 Kinect

So we've finished with all the group projects this term, yah! I really enjoyed all the projects we did this term, my favourite was the brain waves feed project, were I put to my music writing and mixing to the test, I found the project to be really fun.

So today we had a lecture on 3-D scanning and motion capture using the Kinect, we were taught by a guy called Musaab Garghouti, he was a pretty cool guy who taught us quite a bit.

The Xbox 360 Kinect us a pretty neat device, it uses 3 lenses which emits a infrared to capture anything in it's viewing vicinity, it also uses a laser grid to calculate depth. 

Specifications- 

• Frame rate of 30 Hz.
• RGB video stream uses 8-bit VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) 
• Angular field of view of 57° horizontally and 43° vertically
• monochrome depth sensing video stream is in VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) with 11-bit depth, which provides 2,048 levels of sensitivity

Projects with the Kinect

3-D Mapping

We had two projects we had to work with, the first we played with was motion capture. One of us had to stand in front the Kinect in a T shape so the device could capture all of the body, and then we could move about, do a little dance. The Kinect then captured all of the movement, (but the device was pretty limiting though as too fast movement or quick bursts, the Kinect wouldn't pick it up. 

After it had recorded someone's movement, we then put their body on a skeleton mesh then rendered it in 3DS Max. We then put the skeleton on a pre-rendered  skin and had the character act out the body movement of the person who the Kinect recorded. 

3-D Scanning

The second project we looked at was 3-D scanning with the Kinect, this was a pretty fun. The device we used to visualize the scan was  full of bugs and kept crashing so we couldn't do much else with it. There isn't much of an explanation to this as it broke too much and took so long to reboot, that we ran out of time. But the main jist of this device and software is that it will determine the angles of the objects or shapes in front of it using a laser grid. Then will render the image in 3-D and output it onto the tablet in the picture below. We got a few images with it before it gave up completely gave up.

Taken by Natalie Williams

Infrared Technology

Infrared technology has much potential and is a really useful technology. It is mainly used for its motion detection capabilities such as security or game play, two different areas but those two are the main areas infrared technology is used in. 

• Affordable
• Reliable
• Works easily with most other technologies
• No warm up time
• The future potential is massive
• Easy to use and adapt