This is a pretty impressive demo from esimple showing Microsoft Kinect being used to control an avatar in Unity3D. This hack, and the eventual development of technology like it, will soon remove one of the last remaining objections to virtual interaction – the ability to portray the subtitles of human gestures in realtime.
When you combine this with other Kinect hacks – such as the one shown below showing how a room can be scanned dynamically into a 3D model using a Kinect, the potential for use in architectural practice becomes pretty clear.
This could be quite useful for troubleshooting problems on-site during construction as well. I can imagine a contractor scanning an area in question, enabling the architect to open a 3D model of the structure from a computer back at the office, and being able to rotate and orbit around the model to better understand it’s context, then suggesting solutions by mapping additional 3D information into the model, or folding it into the project’s Building Information Model and doing a differential comparison to find possible solutions.
However, the real innovation here isn’t the technology itself. In fact, most of this had been done before – in some cases, many years ago. The real power of this technology is the fact that it only costs $130.
Hat tip to @BevanWhitfield for sharing the Kinect + Unity3D video!
