Eventually I smartened up and moved my gear around. With the Zoom now fully functional, I was able to take advantage of all that the device has to offer. As advertised, the Zoom both reduced the space needed between players and the Kinect for proper motion tracking and allowed for some increased elbow room for multiplayer activities. As I made my way through our family Kinect library, however, I found that even under optimal conditions some titles worked better than others.
My most successful experiment concerned Kinect Adventures. The full-body tracking needed to play this game worked just as well with Zoom as without.
Moreover, I was able to stand a good two feet closer with the Zoom peripheral in place during single player activities, and multiplayer raft races were a bit more enjoyable thanks to the additional six or so inches of extra space between players. The dedicated hand tracking of my current obsession, The Gunstringer , also worked very well with the Zoom.
And although the reduced space between player and Kinect seemed slightly less noticeable, it could well prove a boon for gamers with smaller TVs. The opposite seemed true with virtual pet sim Fantastic Pets ; the distorted outer edge of the real-world segments of this game — again provided by the Zoom's unique lens — appeared to make navigating our living room less of a chore. Unfortunately, it also seemed to make the system's response to in-game activities like playing fetch with and bathing our miniature dragon significantly less responsive, particularly when my children were involved.
My final and least successful gaming experience was with addictive downloadable game Fruit Ninja Kinect. Whereas my family had previously been slicing its way through this one with the Kinect alone, the addition of the Zoom, even with it in front of the television and with an unobstructed view of the floor, made the game essentially unplayable. This is particularly frustrating as this was the title that I felt would most benefit from some additional breathing room for its multiplayer sessions.
The bottom line is that the Nyko Zoom will work wonderfully for certain gamers in certain environments playing certain titles. The sad part is that this may or may not be you. You should update the XBOX just to keep your gamers happy.
Don't hold back just to force a few of us geek programmers and specialist companies to buy the PC version! But not required for development, just recommended to support near mode of course. I guess the customer pays then :- but it would be a waste for hobbyists. PC version is twice the price! Over twice the price, and you can't even use it back on the XBOX either! An example that it is not required for working solutions.
But for development, all is okay. Some other guy managed to build an Eddie cheaper from an old hospital PC trolley and a wheelchair. Apparently the major thing here is the Windows service allowing communication with the existing Parallax boards.
There is also information how to solder-up your own Kinect battery adapter, or you could order the nicely finished one from Parallax. So what other reasons there then for hobbyists? Apart from MS holding back a firmware update. Why get the PC Kinect when the hardware is indeed the same and the near mode is not really necessary? For example, a robot roaming about does not need to see so near because it will have something like PING sensors for that.
So far I can only see commercial development or plans for desktop near usage as a reason to get the PC Kinect. Unless it really does see more in hardware not just firmware then for me it just doesn't justify the price. Then they could have rolled out better firmware to XBOX users and not have to invent silly reasons why one is better than the other. If this is wrong, then excuse me But then we need an official MS technical datasheet, including the IR ranges and effective luminescence, etc Thinker - if you know more then how about putting this together and also quoting your sources.
Actually going to fill-in the Wikipedia page for Kinect would be the best for that. In fact there it states The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, and the Kinect software is capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, accommodating for the presence of furniture or other obstacles.
Also following the reference states further that up to 48 points can be tracked. So I don't know why we should be excited about a 10 point skeleton in the new SDK version. Then I know if I missed anything. Then I will build my Eddie and tell it to go drive itself into the garden on a sunny day, then see what happens.
Will take a month or two though. Would be nice to know if anyone else does this first! But when the firmware is the only difference twice the price is just too much. Thanks for the info. It seems like you do indeed have a lot of experience with it already then. You might find this interesting, I just found an official post from MS explaining the near mode sensitivity including measurements and a comment about why it is not available on the XBOX Kinect:.
Unfortunately they still do not explicitly say the hardware is different. If the Kinect testing team had quoted real hardware issues as the reason to hold back near mode, that could be understood.
But they just talk about are production line testing logistics. The only other issue they talk about is near mode reducing longer range sensitivity, but that's fine when you want near mode! Ok we can't change that. So at this time, the fact is and I don't like to say this that we really should have Kinect PC devices and pay twice the price for potentially the same hardware. The PING sensors should stop it hitting a wall and Kinect was only added to the robot to see people not surfaces.
I would have been happier knowing I had the same "near mode" capability on the robot as the PC where I will do development for it. Then I will indeed have to buy a Kinect PC sensor for my "on-the-desk" development preparing code to download to the robot. Hopefully there are no limitations when developing with Kinect for PC but targeting the XBOX sensor at runtime, except not being able to switch to near mode. I plan to make it adjust with standard.
NET configuration settings at runtime or compiler variables if must be done at compile time. Don't know yet just getting started Someone asked on the 2. VM support is being worked on but will be available soon for the kinect too. So when VM support comes I do not have to worry about my main computer messing up and you could test your kinect app without it breaking other apps or you can do quick mass distribution. You were right Thinker, and They stated the lenses were the same, but look they are completely different!
One other actually positive point of note is the rather un-professional use of duct-tape to fix the original XBOX connector to the power adapter. Then I believe more developers would be happy to shell out the extra money, confident they were actually going to get better hardware not just tweaked firmware.
The Microsoft answer is indeed correct, they are not just trying to sell the more expensive Kinect for Windows. I do not know if the pricing will change anytime soon. I will have to post the link but its floating around in the Kinect blogs somewhere. I wish to buy a Kinect for windows after I get my current Kinect multipoint project finished. Code Chief: I have a nice project Iam in the last stages of that maps a Kinect to multiple mouse devices and will upload a new source code compilation soon.
Note for anyone interested: Can be changed for another device if you wish but need to know technical hardware details of device like report descriptors and such. I have gotten capped off a 40 virtual mouse devices because anything over that might crash someone's computer and 40 kids are not going to be in a typical classroom.
Hi Thinker. The mouse project sounds cool. But unfortunately lost their potential at the start by coming in at a much too high price point and with less hardware. Their only competitive sensor is their lesser model which although only does depth data and costs the same as an XBOX Kinect, doesn't appear to have any license restrictions. At least the Xtion is also proven to have better depth penetration. Somebody compared it with Kinect at trying to look through tinted glass for waterproof outdoor operation.
The Kinect failed when the Xtion was okay. From what I gather, neither were perfect. The competition is there, Kinect v1. I've got both devices and tested them in my own side-by-side comparisons indoors. I'll be fully testing outdoor capabilities in spring and will make the results public. Of course looking into the sun is no valid use case, that's not even considered with an optical based solution.
The issue is clearly optics so only way around it for sure is to use a different sensor technology approved for general public usage. That begs the question; are there any publicly safe alternative technologies with the same 3D depth mapping capability? I'll be looking into that too and will share my findings.
On the positive side, Kinect is great for indoor and semi-outdoor use and there are tons of potential solutions.
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