Yesterday we’ve received a new Asus Xtion PRO Live device and at a first glance it looks really tiny compared to the Microsoft Xbox Kinect. It misses the engine for base tilt and does not need an external power supply. Lenses and hardware setup seems to be equal to Kinect setup, which allows us to use the same default calibration.

That said, we only needed to install the PrimeSense hardware binaries to get the ASUS device working in ReconstructMe.

ReconstructMe enables you to create a three dimensional virtual model of real world objects or scenes. Therefore, you only have to walk around with a 3D video capture device – like Microsofts new sensor Kinect  – and film the object(s) you are interested in. Filming the objects from as much different views as possible will give you a detailed model of the real world object or scene. In case you filmed the scene from 360 degrees, you will also get the virtual scene in 360 degrees. Once the virtual environment model is created, a surface model can be generated.
ReconstructMe consists of three core components. These components are Continue reading →

With the new Kinect for Windows to be shipped in February, Microsoft introduces the so called near-mode. There is a good write-up about it at the Microsoft blog. It seems as the hardware setup remains quite the same (lenses, base-offset), but the firmware changes. The near-mode can be activated through a software switch in the Kinect SDK.

I guess this all means that the OpenNI driver, which ReconstructMe is currently based on, won’t be able to switch the near-mode on and off in the near future. However, others have reported that under certain lighting conditions the Kinect is already capable of seeing objects as close as 400mm. A short in-house test revealed that valid z-depth values start as close as 405mm using XBox Kinect and OpenNI drivers.

I think that switching from OpenNI to KinectSDK won’t be a great benefit, as it would rule out other OpenNI compatible devices such as the ASUS Xtion PRO LIVE and would additionally bind ReconstructMe to the windows platform. Rather, we are considering to provide dual driver support.

Update 2012/03/22 As of today we use a dual driver model to support OpenNI and Kinect for Windows.

Folks,

http://www.reconstructme.net wasn’t reachable for a couple of hours. The problem was due to a power blackout. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Best,
Christoph

Hi folks,

we think it is a good idea to split the BETA program into multiple phases. Essentially, we will start with a naked ReconstructMe and add functionality incrementally as we move along. We think that doing it this way will allow us to break down bigger issues into manageable chunks, for which we can hopefully provide fast fixes.

If all goes well, we will end up, as promised, with a ‘full-blown’ ReconstructMe on 28th February. We will start to send out E-Mails to all participants on the 2nd of February. In case you haven’t received one by the 3rd of February, leave a reply below.

Any opinions or remarks?

In case you want to spread the word about ReconstructMe, please go ahead. We currently need as much as public attention as possible. We’ve already submitted links to a couple of platforms including Digg, Reddit, DZone, and Hacker News. Please upvote if you enjoy what we do.

Cheers,
Christoph