Just within a couple of days after the release, Kinect is likely to gain attention for many developers and Hackers. Thanks to Hector Martin who started this feat. Recently, Oliver Kreyl from UC Davis made use of the Depth Camera to capture 3D scenes. On his website, he claimed that he didn't use any of Hector Martin's code, but the "magic incantations" that need to be sent to the Kinect to enable the cameras and start streaming. The 3D reconstruction code is entirely written from scratch in C++, using his own Vrui VR toolkit for 3D rendering management and interaction.
The captured scene is not full 3D, it only renders maximum to what the camera can see. As on the image below, when the scene is rotated, it cannot display half of the "other side" which the Kinect camera cannot see. But it does a stunning job in calculating the depth of items.
Hope there is more to come in the future. I can imagine using 2 Kinect sensors on 2 sides facing one another creating a full 3D scene. Hardware for only 300 bucks, and you even get a game.
Just after 3 hours of European release, Hector Martin released the first Kinect Open source driver, earning him cash from Adafruit contest. That's the good news for him, but many more exciting ones for developers.
Even students are waiting for this to use Kinect for their projects. It's $150 price tag will be worth it for learning purposes of robotics, science, augmented reality, or interaction projects. The OpenKinect google group is up and you can get the driver right now. Though still many To-Dos, but the guys are working on it, I'm sure. So while they are, perhaps in the meantime you folks could figure what you can make out of it for later.
Hundreds of crowds queueing in the cold waiting for the first Kinect release in UK. A video by IGN shows the excitement of the crowds looking forward to playing with kinect naked..!! Yeah.. many game reviewers tested the technology for detecting people naked, and logically if it does a good job detecting yourself with clothes it will have no problem detecting naked people and it did.
Here is a video and also stuffs you may need to know about kinect. The price tag for kinect is about €149 in Europe with a bundle of Kinect Adventures. Although some experts and gamers doubt the future of Kinect in playing hard core XBox games, Kinect will certainly gain a new audience and will have it's own marketshare.
