Develop Kinect

Although this isn't exactly Kinect related, it does fall into the niche technology that this site aims to deliver in terms of reporting on NUI advancements. Microsoft; the guys behind delivery Kinect tech to the masses, are experimenting with a new type of technology that utilizes the Doppler effect with inaudible sound waves. Think sonar for your laptop.

The tech; tentatively called SoundWave, is able to detect motion based on the Doppler effect that detects movements and gestures based on their proximity to the computer.

Since this sketch doesn't exactly have an official name - aside from Kinect Experiments - I thought I'd give it one myself. The Kinect Visual Effect Generator is a multipurpose Kinect Hack written in Processing. This Processing Sketch allows an end user to apply a wide variety of different visual effects and options such as the ability to follow your actions and have the repeat to drawing tubular like trails that are represented in 3D with depth and with rotational functionality.

The Kinect's ability to track your head and the angle at which you are looking at something lends itself to some really great perspective related applications. Take for example YOKE's latest interactive display called Digitalt.

This illusion is achieved by making an interactive area in front of the screen which allows the participant to view the digital environment at different angels, thus giving the impression that the space behind the screen is somewhat responding to real life perspectives.

As cool as that title was to write, the video is even cooler. This is one of those articles I post simply because of the purely creative and inventive end result of someones hard work. I doubt the source code will be released any time soon and providing any sort of installation instructions or DIY tutorials is well beyond my skill set.

With that being said, a game of chess between a computer AI isn't anything new. However, controlling the chess piece using natural gestures while having your opponent (who just happens to be a robotic arm) do all "heavy lifting" certainly is.

ARCADE was designed to give live augmented reality presentation over video. The software generates 3D content in space around the presenter allowing him/her to use natural gestures to convey information to their audience. No post processing is involved which makes this the perfect solution for live presentations.

I was just made aware of the great tool for creating volumetric video using DSLR cameras along with Kinect depth data. The toolkit is free to use with code available on GitHub if you'd like to take it for a spin. Tutorials and overview videos can be viewed on the official site at rgbdtoolkit.com

Just wanted to draw a little attention to one of the unsung hero's of Kinect awesomeness - Visual Effects. Using openFrameworks and a bit of inspiration from other apps, Gwen Vanhee has produced this great video of different visual settings applied to one continuous recording from his app. By changing values for different options like noise, noiseZ, spikes, hair and blowup, he's able to show us a wide range of different visual effects one can achieve using openFrameworks and a Kinect.