Kinect Hacked into Real-Time 3D Video Camera

Following the Minority Report-like multitouch we saw at the end of last week, a new challenger surfaces for “neat Kinect hacks”: UC Davis researcher Oliver Kreylos has figured out how to use Microsoft’s Kinect as a 3D video camera. To achieve this, he has both of the Kinect’s inbuilt cameras working in sync: One captures color information, the other captures depth information, and the two combine to “project the color image back out into space and create a ‘holographic’ representation of the persons or objects that were captured.”

(The real mind-blower in the video above comes at about the 44-second mark.)

Next up: Augmented reality:

“There’s more to come,” said Kreylos. “I’ll try next to see if I can use the 3D views and put them into another 3D environment, in order to mix realistic people captured with the Kinect with computer generated imagery.”

In a techier demo below, Kreylos illustrates how to accurately measure the 3D objects’ dimensions:

(via PC World. Thanks, Scott!)