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Kinect Tangible Table Prototype
baxpace writes "The first open source prototype of a tangible table using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. The hack is essentially a proof of concept that can serve a multitude of purposes including a real-time analysis on urban models. The program uses the Kinect point cloud which is mapped onto a flat surface. The upper layer of the point cloud will apply a colour to anything that is placed on the table and is recognized by the Kinect depth sensor. Every object that is placed on the table is detected automatically and in turn becomes trackable."
What's a tangible table? Neither TFA nor TFS say. Also, what makes a tangible table more so than the wooden one in my living room?
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
it's not that big of a deal, as the technology has been around for a while. the great aspect of kinect is that the technology is now a household item, is cheap, and is accessible to home tinkerers. the games are also pretty novel.
I'm sorry to say your comment sounds like "i didn't like this, so others shouldn't either" , I know you didn't intend that, but this is STILL news-worthy, perhaps not /. "perfect" b/c it doesn't have any....technology... ...computers.... ...futuristic vision tech... oh... wait.... I Was still impressed with this demo. Like all research, it is built upon the work of others and incrementally tweaked/improved/etc. Just because this "could" have been done before, doesn't mean it has been, and even if it has been, this is a nice presentation of what could be done with a table-top presentation.
Maybe this isn't "good enough" for you for it to be on the front of /. but my reply to that is, then do something better. Just because others happened to do some work and some others thought it was thought provoking/cool/anything doesn't mean your opinion should out vote theirs.
< end of /. rant > Been on this site for many a year and just never registered, posts like this have always irked me
I didn't really read it like that. The GP makes a coherent argument for why this doesn't seem newsworthy - more than "I didn't really like it, meh".
The summary sounds pretty cool and grabbed my attention straightaway. If the article was actually about a hack that used the depth buffer to cluster points that move together (have consistent depth) into objects and then track them then it would be pretty cool. But really all he is doing is what the GP says - quantising the depth and projecting colours.
I would really like to see a hack that segments and clusters the depth buffer - that would be newsworthy, cool, useful and new.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
...but my reply to that is, then do something better...
Dude! you sure whom you are talking to? Marcan was the first person to hack the kinect and come up with libfreenect. In fact, he was the winner of the competition sponsored by Adafruit for opensourcing Kinect drivers.
This could be cool if you had a clay model of a landscape and were to simulated floods, tsunamis, etc. You could quickly mold new landscape modifications to try out. Or with a detailed enough sensor you might be able to simulate a wind tunnel (ie this pic of the Tesla Model S - http://bit.ly/Tesla_Model_S) - of course the model could only be reduced in one direction, with a single sensor (the typical drawback of a topographical map).
Sure the code may be open but the framework, the hardware and SDK behind the whole Kinect is NOT open source in either spirit or word.
What framework? What SDK? So what if the hardware is not open source?
There is no way to implement the Kinect without blessing or buying from Microsoft or adhering to their patents or whatever limitations they want to apply to the system and software.
Yes you have to buy the hardware from them, who cares? They haven't applied any limits to the system and the software you use with it (the libfreenect driver) and anything you build on top is/can be open source.
The whole SDK expects you to have Visual Studio in order to develop for it. Let me know if there is a truly open source and cross platform implementation of both drivers, hardware and software that I am free to implement in my own package without getting sued.
WTF are you on about? You don't need an SDK and the libfreenect drivers were originally linux-only in fact. Seriously have you go any idea what you're talking about or are you just an anti-MS crybaby looking to have a rant?