What's in the Microsoft XBox Kinect?

1. a video camera;
2. a scanning infra-red laser, the most interesting part; The kinect infra-red laserappears to project an infrared dot pattern all over the room:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKlNGSH9Po&feature=related

3. an infra-red camera;
patent: US20100118123 which explains how the 3D reconstruction works. The dots are grouped into sub-patterns, these patterns decrease in size with the distance. The 3x3 check board with different gray levels is used to calibrate the environment illumination.

(3x3 matrix of little dots with a reference dot in the middle of each matrix square. 3D is determined by the displacement of these dots, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjYoNx-4KrU)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GSc3ptePTQ

IR Modded Canon Powershot A540 looks at Kinect IR output
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28JwgxbQx8w

You can see the check box pattern difference as the board moves far away from the IR emitter.

4. a motorized tilt mechanism;
5. a noise canceling microphone system: 4 mics in an array: one on the left, three on the right.

Hack Xbox Kinect:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-microsoft-xbox-kinect-hacks-blow-mind/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect

kinect sdk will be released by MSR this summer.


http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hack-kinect-kill-zombies/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/control-windows-pc-kinect/

Kinect™ for Xbox 360: Technology + Two Applications
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jfw3x/cs4501/

http://www.primesense.com