Programmer Creates Kinect Lightsaber Hack

[Logan Westbrook]

Programmer Creates Kinect Lightsaber Hack

​

A new Kinect mod allows you to turn any object into a lightsaber, complete with lights and sound. Jedi powers not included though.

It's a cruel twist of fate and physics that puts the finest hand-to-hand weapon ever dreamed up - the lightsaber - forever out of reach. That's where the technical wizard known only by his YouTube handle, "Yankeyan," steps in, with a lightsaber Kinect hack that lets you at least pretend that you're a laser sword wielding space wizard, if only for a little while.

Built using open source image processing software and drivers, the hack allows the Kinect sensor to track what looks like a broom handle and add the iconic glow and sound effects in real time. The sensor isn't actually tracking the handle itself per se, but rather some colored markers on it. In order to demonstrate that it was working, Yankeyan placed a mirror by the screen so that we could see the handle was just wood as he moves it around. When he first picks up the broom handle, you can see the marker reflected in the mirror, just above where he grips it.

It isn't perfect just yet, obviously, but as a proof of concept, it seems pretty successful. Considering how much ingenuity the Kinect hackers are showing and the speed that they're creating new hacks, I can't wait to see what this becomes with a little more refinement and a little more time.

Source: Dvice [http://dvice.com/archives/2010/11/kinect-hack-plu.php]


Permalink

 

[Evilsanta]

OMFG! Someone needs to perfect this NOA!!

...Erhm, Very cool. The only thing left is the real deal.

 

[Simalacrum]

Tracking an object rather than the person eh?

...Wasn't that the transition that Sony made from the Eye Toy to the Move? XD

 

[Gerrawn]

I can't wait to see how someone will top this.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I hope Microsoft hear about this.
We need some hardcore games for Kinect, stat!

 

[GiantRedButton]

Didn't microsoft drop the promised feature to scan in objects from kinect?
If you followed what microsoft showed after announcing kinect (well natal back then)
you will probably remember them showing a kid scanning in his skateboard into natal and using it like a well skateboard ingame.

 

[Jandau]

Funny how random people on the net manage to make better use of the Kinect technology than a multibillion dollar corporation...

 

[Something Amyss]

That was pretty neat. Still a novelty, but....

 

[John the Gamer]

In a little while we'll be juggling minature-deathstars whilst they're blowing up your room...

 

[Psychemaster]

Funny how random people on the net manage to make better use of the Kinect technology than a multibillion dollar corporation...

Well, random people on the internet aren't bound by the need for multi-million dollar budgets to build teams to write and distrbute their software - so there's far more room for experimentation.

It's the same reason that indie devs can make more unorthodox games - they don't stand to lose as much from failure as those big AAA developers.

 

[Jandau]

Funny how random people on the net manage to make better use of the Kinect technology than a multibillion dollar corporation...

Well, random people on the internet aren't bound by the need for multi-million dollar budgets to build teams to write and distrbute their software - so there's far more room for experimentation.

It's the same reason that indie devs can make more unorthodox games - they don't stand to lose as much from failure as those big AAA developers.

But this modification didn't require multi-million dollar budget. It required one guy. That's all it took.

 

[EHKOS]

Now hold on, a weapon like that is not out of reach. It could very well be made....just the light wouldn't stop until it hit something...

 

[SpAc3man]

This guy wins Kinect.

And someone give him the Nobel Awesome Prize.

 

[Buizel91]

And people said Kinect would fail...

How when you can do awesome things like this!!!!!!!!!

Must...Resist...Kinect... >.<

 

[Josdeb]

Tracking an object rather than the person eh?

...Wasn't that the transition that Sony made from the Eye Toy to the Move? XD

That's kinda what I thought as I read the article.

I mean, it's great that Kinect can do tracking and stuff, but if at the end of the day you're going to be holding something in your hand, it seems YOU aren't the controller anymore?

 

[Adzma]

It's just like the Wii. The only people who use it to its full potential are those in the homebrew crowd. What a waste.

Kudos to Mr. Yankeyan.

 

[Therumancer]

Stuff like this does show potential, but then again I think that's the point of why people are doing it.

That said, I think we will see "energy swords" that are a handle attached to a stick at some point. The big issue is the power supply (like with most science fiction technology). Generally speaking we already have the tech to prevent particles and molecules from moving, or to move them where we want them. It's simply requiring a ridiculous amount of energy and equipment. Things like "atom smashers" and "Large Hadron Colliders". If you think of that kind of thng as equivilent to a babbage-engine computer filling up rooms, imagine when it gets down to the equivilent of the "Iphone". I suppose you could make a handle that generates a field that freezes particles in a blade shaped form radiating from a handle as long as it has the energy to maintain it. Now granted this wouldn't be a "light saber" or "laser sword" but it would be a forcefield with a molecular "edge" that could slice through just about anything. A few science fiction authors have used "Force Blades" as a staple.

Just some rambling to prevent people from getting TOO disillusioned. People like the idea of energy swords too much, like the "laser pistol" we're slowly moving towards the nessicary technology and we'll eventually get there.

This is incidently one of the reasons why I always talk about how space aliens are not nessicarly going to be more advanced in every conceivable way. Scientific research is guided by imagination (finding a way to make somehting happen), and a lot of discoveries happen by accident along the way. In the quest for laser guns, I doubt anyone ever expected us to find ways of performing laser surgery (correcting eyes and such), or using lasers to read or even transmit information.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

A new Kinect mod allows you to turn any object into a lightsaber, complete with lights and sound.

Any object eh?
*looks down*
Excellent.