Finally the Kinnect Teardown
Microsoft Kinect Teardown - iFixit
I was very interested in knowing what machine vision tech they were using since I have myself worked in the area during my college days. While I could see that they there were more than one camera on the device even in the early pre release demos, I earlier thought they were using two color cameras for depth perception using stereo vision. But this is not the case and probably for the best. There is only one color camera and the second one is an IR Camera which will work in conjunction with a IR emitter to create a depth map for the environment. Do note that using IR is nothing new to the area is rather a pretty old trick in the book.
While I think this is a much better method than just using visible spectrum, but there are cons to this method as well. While Playstation Move's accuracy is dependent on good lighting in the room, Kinnect's accuracy would be dependent on the composition of the lighting as well. I think any kind of secondary IR source (even bright incandescent/florescent light, sun light, or any IR rich light) can mess up the IR based depth map, rendering Kinnect into nothing more than an uber costly and over sized Webcam. Considering that Kinnect has an insane price tag of over 9k in India, I would suggest prospective buyers to be mindful about the room environment where they intend to use it.
Both Move and Kinnect have their strong and weak points, but purely from a tech perspective, I think Move has a much better approach and its a much more practical approach as well from a price perspective.
Microsoft Kinect Teardown - iFixit
I was very interested in knowing what machine vision tech they were using since I have myself worked in the area during my college days. While I could see that they there were more than one camera on the device even in the early pre release demos, I earlier thought they were using two color cameras for depth perception using stereo vision. But this is not the case and probably for the best. There is only one color camera and the second one is an IR Camera which will work in conjunction with a IR emitter to create a depth map for the environment. Do note that using IR is nothing new to the area is rather a pretty old trick in the book.
While I think this is a much better method than just using visible spectrum, but there are cons to this method as well. While Playstation Move's accuracy is dependent on good lighting in the room, Kinnect's accuracy would be dependent on the composition of the lighting as well. I think any kind of secondary IR source (even bright incandescent/florescent light, sun light, or any IR rich light) can mess up the IR based depth map, rendering Kinnect into nothing more than an uber costly and over sized Webcam. Considering that Kinnect has an insane price tag of over 9k in India, I would suggest prospective buyers to be mindful about the room environment where they intend to use it.
Both Move and Kinnect have their strong and weak points, but purely from a tech perspective, I think Move has a much better approach and its a much more practical approach as well from a price perspective.
