Kinect For XBOX360 and hand tracking - kinect

I have a question about Kinect Xbox360: it can track the hand movement and fingers? I am searching on the web and I dont found any interesting about this. Another camera that I am thinking to use is the Asus Movement Sensor, but I dont know if this is better than Kinect (more options, I know that both uses OpenNI) or if both are the same.
Thanks for your time!

I would see these links:
Finger tracking in Kinect
http://www.kinecthacks.com/kinect-hand-tracking-gesture-experiment/
http://makematics.com/code/FingerTracker/
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c128197f-6925-49c6-bedc-d7692d03c0a9/fingers-tracking-using-kinect
http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Finger-Tracking-with-Kinect-SDK-and-the-Kinect-for-XBox-360-Device
These should get you started and give you many options. You can use the SDK or OpenNI, however my personal preference is the SDK, OpenNI or OpenKinect may be better in this case, expecially because of the FingerTracker API (3). Although the sdk has source code for finger tracking with an xbox kinect (5).

Related

Finger Position Detection using Kinect

Are there any open libraries or opensource codes available for finger position detection using Kinect ?
I have tried searching OpenNI and other libraries for Kinect but could'nt find one.
I was looking into this a few years ago, you can check out this post from then which includes a few options.
Links may be a bit outdates, for example Apple bought OpenNI, so the Forth ICS project can now be found here
You didn't mention which version of the kinect, so I'll assume it's the original kinect for xbox 360.
If you're not constrained to using kinect only, you might actually want to try the Intel RealSense SDK as it already includes hand tracking(pdf tutorial link) and the c++ sdk has wrappers for c#/java and makes the data available through websockets.

Opening Kinect datasets and/or SDK Samples

I am very new to Kinect programming and am tasked to understand several methods for 3D point cloud stitching using Kinect and OpenCV. While waiting for the Kinect sensor to be shipped over, I am trying to run the SDK samples on some data sets.
I am really clueless as to where to start now, so I downloaded some datasets here, and do not understand how I am supposed to view/parse these datasets. I tried running the Kinect SDK Samples (DepthBasic-D2D) in Visual Studio but the only thing that appears is a white screen with a screenshot button.
There seems to be very little documentation with regards to how all these things work, so I would appreciate if anyone can point me to the right resources on how to obtain and parse depth maps, or how to get the SDK Samples work.
The Point Cloud Library (or PCL) it is a good starting point to handle point cloud data obtained using Kinect and OpenNI driver.
OpenNI is, among other things, an open-source software that provides an API to communicate with vision and audio sensor devices (such as the Kinect). Using OpenNI you can access to the raw data acquired with your Kinect and use it as a input for your PCL software that can process the data. In other words, OpenNI is an alternative to the official KinectSDK, compatible with many more devices, and with great support and tutorials!
There are plenty of tutorials out there like this, this and these.
Also, this question is highly related.

Does KinectChangedEventArgs.OldSensor mean Kinect for XBox and KinectChangedEventArgs.NewSensor mean Kinect for Windows?

I am trying to figure out what is KinectChangedEventArgs.OldSensor and KinectChangedEventArgs.NewSensor. I looked into MSDN, but it does not give much information.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.kinect.toolkit.kinectchangedeventargs_properties.aspx
If KinectChangedEventArgs.OldSensor is not null, does that mean the kinect you are using is kinect for xbox?
Thanks!
This property is used in case you plug/unplug your kinect while the application is on or also if you have multiple Kinect plugged in the same time.
Here's a pretty clear link

Does the Sony Remote Camera API control HDR modes, ISO, shutter speed, aperture and other "manual" settings?

I just bought a Sony A7 and I am blown away with the incredible pictures it takes, but now I would like to interact and automate the use of this camera using the Sony Remote Camera API. I consider myself a maker and would like to do some fun stuff: add a laser trigger with Arduino, do some computer controlled light painting, and some long-term (on the order of weeks) time-lapse photography. One reason I purchased this Sony camera over other models from famous brands such as Canon, Nikon, or Samsung is because of the ingenious Sony Remote Camera API. However, after reading through the API reference it seems that many of the features cannot be accessed. Is this true? Does anyone know a work around?
Specifically, I am interested in changing a lot of the manual settings that you can change through the menu system on the camera such as ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. I am also interested in taking HDR images in a time-lapse manner and it would be nice to change this setting through the API as well. If anyone knows, why wasn't the API opened up to the whole menu system in the first place?
Finally, if any employee of Sony is reading this I would like to make this plea: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep supporting the Remote Camera API and improve upon an already amazing idea! I think the more control you offer to makers and developers the more popular your cameras will become. I think you could create a cult following if you can manage to capture the imagination of makers across the world and get just one cool project to go viral on the internet. Using http and POST commands is super awesome, because it is OS agnostic and makes communication a breeze. Did I mention that is awesome?! Sony's cameras will nicely integrate themselves into the internet of things.
I think the Remote Camera API strategy is better than the strategies of Sony's competitors. Nikon and Canon have nothing comparable. The closest thing is Samsung gluing Android onto the Galaxy NX, but that is a completely unnecessary cost since most people already own a smart phone; all that needs to exist is a link that allows the camera to talk to the phone, like the Sony API. Sony gets it. Please don't abandon this direction you are taking or the Remote Camera API, because I love where it is heading.
Thanks!
New API features for the Lens Style Cameras DSC-QX100 and DSC-QX10 will be expanded during the spring of 2014. The shutter speed functionality, white balance, ISO settings and more will be included! Check out the official announcement here: https://developer.sony.com/2014/02/24/new-cameras-now-support-camera-remote-api-beta-new-api-features-coming-this-spring-to-selected-cameras/
Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback. Great to hear, that the APIs are used and we are looking forward nice implementations!
Peter

Can the Kinect SDK be run with saved Depth/RGB videos, instead of a live Kinect?

This question relates to the Kaggle/CHALEARN Gesture Recognition challenge.
You are given a large training set of matching RGB and Depth videos that were recorded from a Kinect. I would like to use the Kinect SDK's skeletal tracking on these videos, but after a bunch of searching, I haven't found a conclusive answer to whether or not this can be done.
Is it possible to use the Kinect SDK with previously recorded Kinect video, and if so, how? thanks for the help.
It is not a feature within the SDK itself, however you can use something like the Kinect Toolbox OSS project (http://kinecttoolbox.codeplex.com/) which provides Skeleton record and replace functionality (so you don't need to stand in front of your Kinect each time). You do however still need a Kinect plugged in to your machine to use the runtime.