It's remarkable how the Kinect hardware is democratizing computer vision research and development. These days anyone can acquire fast, cheap CPU time plus an affordable vision platform.
What's great about the Kinect is that it lets developers go after "3D computer vision" problems rather than "2D vision."
There's a wealth of techniques from computer graphics on dealing with 3D point clouds, whereas even basic things like background subtraction are still hard (and not completely robust) in the 2D vision world.
The parts used to build this total $330 vs. the $70 for the LEAP and it seems that this is less accurate and responsive. I'd get behind this if it was purely an open source effort to bring this to people who can't get their hands on a LEAP. It's just so much more expensive, it's only free to use during the "public beta" period.
I'm honestly a bit confused at how they expect to compete with the LEAP. I can't see anything they bring to the table that the LEAP doesn't already do better.
http://goo.gl/fYc1P <-- Directions from the LEAP offices to the 3GearSystems offices. Just for fun.
Too funny. The link doesn't work until you remove the suite. This one does. http://goo.gl/maps/VOCLl
Like that there's nothing on my desk --you should see the area under my monitor, it's like a junky drawer-- but kinects mounted on my monitors wouldn't be my first choice either, but if you were to add some object recognition and 3D scanning features I might change my mind.
Pick up the brush -> starts photoshop.
Pick up my camera -> start photo import tools.
Pick up my Project A folder (marked with a sticker, think evernote) -> opens all relevant files for project A, etc etc.
Is anyone developing a wristband/glove gyro-thingamajig yet? Seems so much simpler to me. Bluetooth, a gyro, and you're halfway. No issues with "range" etc.
I've just replied to the parent post with some discussion about how we differ in terms of features and technical approach.
We're also certainly cognizant of the price of our SDK. We hope that not too far down the road, we'll be able to spec out some cheaper hardware for our users.
It's indeed similar, but we think there are three important differences.
Because our cameras are top mounted, our system is more comfortable / ergonomic. You don't have to lift your hands very high to interact, and your arms are always supported comfortably by the desk. We can enable convenient interactions right above the keyboard or even turn the desk itself into a touchscreen. Basically, our system is designed to be comfortable enough to use all day.
The second difference is more speculative, because it's hard to tell exactly what the Leap can or cannot do based off their video. Our system captures the entire hand rather than just the finger tips. This lets you use more natural gestures. For example, you can spin a virtual object by rotating your hand as if you were holding it (like in the sword-waving example in our video).
Finally, we're starting with commodity hardware you can get at immediately. It may look a little clunky right now, but we're experimenting with different cameras and different frames right now. Further down the road, it'll be a monitor / laptop clip-on or even built-in. Today, we're just releasing an SDK to let developers get started.
Thanks for the feedback! All of us at 3Gear spend more time than we should reading HN.
I know from certain sources that the next Kinect version is going to be at least as accurate as the Leap and probably moreso. Curious if your project will adapt to providing a Mac/Linux compatible API layer for the new hardware.
We're looking forward to working with all the new 3D camera technology coming down the pipe, and as soon as we have the resources to do so, we'll start supporting Mac and Linux too.
Leap has a higher resolution, but a smaller range apparently. Leap's video shows a person using two hands close together and not apart like 3Gear's system.
It's hard to specify our exact workspace, because it's the intersection of the two camera frustums. Here's an approximate estimate: 2 feet wide x 1.75 feet deep x 1.25 feet high.
