Last week, we showed you how Microsoft's new Kinect API lets you use your hands to draw on a painting program. But how about using gestures to create 3D models of any shape that you can use as Kinect avatars? No problem! That's exactly what Microsoft Research's Beijing team showed early this month at the company's TechFest 2013.
In the video above, researcher Xiang Cao demoes their Kinect BodyAvatar, which lets you build a 3D avatar of any shape you can imagine, using your body as input. No need to master complex 3D modeling tools or programming, though some artistic ability certainly helps. And granted, the avatars still look like blobs of playdough, but as the researchers refine the technology, characters will start looking better.
But before you get too excited, BodyAvatar didn’t come out in Monday's Kinect for Windows SDK release. Let's hope Microsoft includes it in a future update, but even if that doesn't happen, users should be able to create their own BodyAvatar-like tool using some of Kinect's new capabilities.
In the video playlist below, you can see some of the possibilities of the new SDK: Kinect's new gesture recognition interactions; Kinect Fusion's 3D modeling feature;Â and a demo of Kinect Fusion used for augmented reality.Â
Ready for some hacking? Download the SDK here.
