Live Looping with Ableton and Xbox Kinect

Chris Vik's amazing live performance at Microsoft's REMIX11 conference is build on his Kinect/Ableton/Max setup:
• Ableton Live
• NI Massive
• Max/MSP (making useful MIDI data out of the hand coordinates from OSCeleton)
• Behringer FCB1010 (controlling Ableton, ie. looping, switching the Kinect’s instrument etc)

The Kinect was setup using OpenNI, PrimeSense NITE and OSCeleton.
Enjoy the video!

Kinect Beta SDK available

A beta version of the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) is now available.
See Demos from SDK Beta Launch CodeCamp.

Predator Outdoes Kinect At Object Recognition.

Predator created by of Zdenek Kalal as part of his PhD project using nothing but software and standard video cameras . The code is in C and based on MatLab. Predator uses a single function from the OpenCV library and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux!! The software has now been released under a GPL open source licence.

Pantomation (1977-1979)

Via Slashdot:
"30 years before words like performance capture, augmented reality, or avatars were around — let alone commonplace — experimental film and video artist Tom DeWitt created a system that features aspects of all of them. Pantomation let users interact in real-time with a digital environment and props. It was built using Apple IIe's, analog video gear, and lots of custom hacking and patching. He's currently working on a holographic 3D system that's similarly ahead of its time."

Kinect + OpenNI = Natural Interaction

"PrimeSense Establishes the OpenNI Standard and Developers Initiative to Bring the World of Natural Interaction to Life
Consortium acts as incubator and community encouraging developers to design, develop, experience and interact to drive the future of Natural Interaction" more info via: http://www.openni.org/
Examples of use OpenNI together which Kinect:
OpenNI with Kinect in Windows 7
MikuMikuDance with OpenNI (Kinect) test
also example with PSDK 5.0 sensor from PrimeSense
OpenNI-compliant real time skeleton tracking by PrimeSense
+ more in
OpenNi gallery

Kinect Hand Detection

Systems Robotics Engineer Garratt Gallagher has released a video att CSAIL where he plucks images from a reel he drags onto the screen, then enlarges, spins and casts the pictures aside a la Minority Report.. It uses the Kinect sensor from Microsoft, and the recently released libfreenect driver for interfacing with the Kinect in linux. The graphical interface and the hand detection software were written at MIT. Via: csail.mit.edu

Microsoft Kinect (Xbox 360) Teardown

Bill Detwiler at TechRepublic looking at the hardware inside Kinect.

Kinect Open Source Driver Released

Tre hours after European launch of the Kinect, Hector Martin released open source driver for Kinect with code on Marcansoft (video on YouTube). Another competitor AlexP from the NUI Group "hacked" Microsoft's Kinect earlier this week. However, the release of the open source driver from NUI Group will be available for the public after they collect $10K in donations. Read the whole story on tomshardware.com or techspot.com

Motion Bank

Motion Bank is a new four-year project of The Forsythe Company providing a broad context for research into choreographic practice. The main focus is on the creation and publication of on-line digital scores in collaboration with guest choreographers (see About). Via: motionbank.org
Photo: Screenshot from SynchronousObjects, Statistical Counterpoint

Body Navigation

"Body Navigation" is a dance installation by Recoil Performance Group, during Spring 2008 based on Infrared Tracking and Interactive Video Projection: Ole Kristensen and Jonas Jongejan
choreography: Tina Tarpgaard, music:Mathias Friis-Hansen and György Ligeti, performed by Athelas Sinfonietta . Full documentation and trailer at Vimeo. More info at 3xw.ole.kristensen

eyeSequencer creates ambient music from the human iris

"Every now and then you see some particullary beautiful eyes ... some of them inspired me to use images of eyes to create musical material. I wrote a little framework/application in Processing to help me analyse the image. "Scanners" circulate in the eye and analyse RGB and brightness values. These values are used to create OSC Messages, which then are send to SuperCollider. SuperCollider would be a great way to produce the sound, but for this example i decided to use SC3 to send MIDI events to Ableton Live, to two instances of the Alphakanal Automat Synthesizer" Patrick Cappel

The EyeWriter on Instructables

I previously mention EyeWriter in the "The EyeWriter /inspiration to share". The information on haw to build this eye-tracking apparatus is available on Instructables which is grate place to search for technical solutions of all kind.

Audio Blocks

Beat Blocks is a tangible interface for a rhythm sequencer. The user is able to create and manipulate a 4-track drum loop by physically re-arranging wooden blocks within a 4x4 grid.
More at www.beatblocks.com



Audio d-touch is a collection of applications for real-time musical composition and performance, with very special user interfaces. The collection includes a drum machine and a sampling sequencer, both are controlled by spatially arranging physical objects on an interactive table surface. More info and installers at: http://d-touch.org/audio
see video



Percussa AudioCubes are a platform for audio-visual creation and exploration. each containing its own self-powered wireless computer system. More info is available at http://www.percussa.com/

Chunky Move

Chunky Move - Mortal Engine - a dance, video, music, laser performance
Via fabrikproject.com .
More technical description on: bigambition.co.uk

Body Paint

Body Paint is impressive, funny and engaging the public to interact with the whole body movement. Work by Mehmet Akten using Computer Vision and openFrameworks: More on his blogg: memo.tv "Body Paint is an interactive installation and performance, using the body as an instrument to paint on a virtual canvas and interpreting gestures and dance into evolving compositions." Custom software analyzes live feed from infra-red cameras in real-time, and converts shape and motion into colors, drips and brush-strokes. The software was written in C++ using the open-source toolkit openFrameworks and computer vision library openCV.

Tools to play with

The last few months I dive in to the different tools searching for the best motion tracking possibility. Five days PD (pure data) workshop in Warsaw with Marco Donnarumma aka S.A.D (Thanks to Asia aka Deftoo since she organized) give me some good grounds to start of. As a part of my Screendance program at Dundee University I just have a workshop on Isadora led by Jaygo Bloom (Thanks for sharing!). Isadora is build on Pd´s framework. Both programs have a visual interfaces which apply to my way of working. Isadoras GI (Graphical Interface) is friendly constructed. For those interested in Isadora is good to mention that soon will be a conference and introduction workshop on 19, March 20 in Doncaster UK.

Motion visualization, 3d och Wiimote mm

SourceBinder är en open source projekt som Visual MINDS utvecklar för tillfälle. Verktyget har mycket visuell och tilltalande iterface liknande Max msp. Som namnet säger programmet möjliggör direkt visuell output under pågående arbete samt kopplar ihop bl.a. olika program som Flash, Papervision, 3d, ljud eller wiimote mm. För de som är intresserade finns en Alfa som man kan skriva in sig på.

Wii to MIDI Walkthrough for Windows

Tutorial från vjkungfu.tv på hur man mixar video med Nintendo Wii controller och VJ Software som Resolume eller Isadora (för PC)

Wii Drum Machine

Drum Machine från bobsomers.com
se video

Wiimote h..tracking ...och några drivers

Johnny Chung Lee är interaktions designer med masa bra tips på hur man kan använda wiimote till olika kreativa projekt. Hans projekt sajt bjuder på olika super bra hack för wii. Om man vill försöka själv så bör man nog installera wiimote driver. Mer om wii hacks på wiihacks.blogspot

En liten lista från Linux-folket på wiili.org med bra tips på "Howto" och wiimote drivers
Windows: cWiimote | GlovePIE | RMX Automation | Wiim | wiimote-api | WiinRemote | WiimoteLib. Linux: CWiid | WMD | Perlwiimote | libwiimote | lg3d-wii OSX: DarwiinRemote | Remote Buddy | The Wiinstrument Multiplatform: OpenPIE | Wiimote_Simple | WiiremoteJ | wiiuse | WiiJuce | WiiuseJ