The untapped potential of the XBox 360 Kinect (Column)

[James]

The untapped potential of the XBox 360 Kinect (Column)

Virtual-reality HUDs and stereoscopic 3D headsets may be the progeny of the Xbox 360 Kinect

[nanonyous]

From the looks of it this compiles point cloud data for the 'models' and then works with them. You'll notice how the 'resolution' of surfaces only very gradually increases, likely not due to limitations in the Kinect module, but limitations in the processing throughpout. Detail in frames has to be skipped as points are referenced in order to assess the new relative position and orientation of the camera, and some components of any given frame will then get added to the existing data to increase resolution.

What this boils down to is that you're looking at what must be an extremely computationally expensive and even more memory-load intensive routine that has to be gone through in order to combine your real world with a 3D world for the sake of 'walking around in your own house to gun down aliens'. The more the level gets built, the more space and processing power it's going to take to store it all, the slower things will get and/or the more likely things are to simply come to a standstill.


You're more likely to meet success using a normal HMD (head mounted display) with two cameras mounted to read the position of grids and/or other visual indicators placed through an 'arena', where the grids and a top-down camera are used to determine the player's relative view orientation and position, respectively, and then use that data to overlay the virtual world's content into the display. Whichever one of these two options, whether KinectFusion or the augmented reality system, you choose to employ, you're going to have a HMD of some sort strapped to your head anyway. The latter simply doesn't require nearly as much data, let alone processing, to function, which improves performance potential and reduces hardware requirements drastically (ie: less hardware on the player's body), unless you want to tell your average geek that all that gear he's carrying is his virtual Gears of War armour+weapon and that if he's having trouble carrying it all, he's gonna have to man up...

[Leyzer]

Looks very cool small steps forward are still steps forward. future as always looks cool

[fayainz]

Very very cool. Eagerly awaiting my Minority Report HUD

[Wesley Gombard]

I was an early adopter of the Kinect and I am anticipating the day when developers fully unlock the potential of the Kinect. Steel Battalion is looking good (on rails though.)

[PatPion]

The untapped potential of the XBox 360 Kinect (Column)

Virtual-reality HUDs and stereoscopic 3D headsets may be the progeny of the Xbox 360 Kinect

Very cool column, thanks!