Scratch

<say[ awesome ]for( ever )secs>

Last edited by jcml (2011-03-27 13:49:01)

I CANNOT WAIT TO TRY THIS.

If only I had a Kinect...

SHowell wrote:

markyparky56 wrote:

If only I had a Kinect...

Can't help you there I'm afraid, Santa Claus brought one to my 7 year old boy.
However you don't need the XBox 360 for Scratch & Kinect to work, so it might be more affordable to get a Kinect on its own without the XBox bundle.

True, I saw a thing on the internet similar to this, but it used a wii remote and infrared lights to track the person, I see the kinect is a far more efficient way to do this.

Btw, how would you make the Kinect track two people and give it to scratch?

SHowell wrote:

markyparky56 wrote:

SHowell wrote:

Can't help you there I'm afraid, Santa Claus brought one to my 7 year old boy.
However you don't need the XBox 360 for Scratch & Kinect to work, so it might be more affordable to get a Kinect on its own without the XBox bundle.

True, I saw a thing on the internet similar to this, but it used a wii remote and infrared lights to track the person, I see the kinect is a far more efficient way to do this.

Btw, how would you make the Kinect track two people and give it to scratch?

Well, currently, I only send the current (single) user, and ignore the others. I could send multiple skeletons, but there are 2 options: Send all the joint data for a given skeleton and then broadcast 'update skeleton 1' or 'update skeleton 2' etc. OR duplicate the head_x etc. variables to head1_x.

I could do it either way if there is interest in it. What do you think, would people be interested in 2 user scratch-kinect programs?

Regards,

It would show them how to have multiple players/users and allow them to expand from there if they wanted.

Stephen,

Thanks a ton for your posting and examples. I was able to load your programs on both Windows XP (32-bit) and on a Windows 7 (64-bit) machine.

It works like a charm.

I added some of the steps I took (copied from the OpenNI forum and edited):

Installation steps
-------------------------------
1)      Install OpenNI:
http://www.openni.org/downloadfiles/2-openni-binaries

I tried both "stable" and "unstable" versions, not sure which is better.

OPENNI-Win32-1.0.0.23.exe

2)      Install the Kinect sensor plugin:
https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect
             Run the precompiled SensorKinect-Win32-5.0.0.exe file from the
Bin directory

3)      Install NITE:
http://downloads.primesense.com/NITE-Win32-1.3.0.17.exe
Use the key: 0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4=
(note: the "=" at the end matters. Also, put it in a font that lets you see the difference between uppercase i, lowercase L and the number one; if you are typing it in, and not cut-and-pasting

4)    Copy the XML files from
"c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\Sensor\SampleXMLs\NITE\Data"
into
"c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\NITE\Data"
(overwrite files)

5)    Copy the XML files from

"c:\Program Files\Prime Sense\Sensor\SampleXMLs\OPENNI\Data"
into
"c:\Program Files\OpenNI\Data"
(overwrite files)

Then I loaded your openni2scratch program.

A few notes:

It was a little tricky getting the Kinect drivers to load on Windows XP. Easier on Windows 7.

For those wondering, no compiling or programming was necessary to get the Scratch environment to work. I am running Norton Security Suite and did not have to make any changes to the settings.

I ended up with three Devices in the Device Manager:
Other devices
  Xbox NUI Audio - with an error icon
PrimeSensor
  Kinect Camera
  Kinect Motor

The Kinect green light will blink slowly once the drivers are loaded properly. It never goes solid green.
I didn't succeed in getting the Kinect audio drivers loaded, I'll leave that for another day.
I find calibration faster if I make fists, instead of open hands.
It runs slow on an old Windows XP (and I mean OLD). However, on a quadcore Xeon system with Windows 7, it's pretty responsive.

I would definitely be in favor of a two-person version.

My kids (2, 4, 6, 8) already love it - and with Scratch, the 6 and 8 year olds can program things themselves. A far cry from the msbasic that I started with.

-Rich

if i am correct the kinect also has a voice recinization feture ,would it be possible to allow scratch to "hear" commands too?

that would be awesome
,jcml

  thats amazing

could you do something similar with the ps2's "eyetoy"?  I have it working as a cheap webcam with good quality... at the moment

I assume the Kinect has a usb plug?

Awesome!

In terms of the Kinect plug:

As far as I know all Kinect's have a specialized plug (which I will call "fat" USB).

The Kinect's motorized tilt mechanism needs more power than USB provides, and to avoid needing a separate power cord, Microsoft made a new "fat" USB plug that has a USB signal and also more power. I think it would have been easier if they just had a separate power cord (like many external USB hard drives), but I guess they thought it was worth having one less wire/plug. Wikipedia described the Kinect in more detail.

So, you always have a "fat" USB plug, which will not fit into a normal USB slot. The end of the cable that attaches to the Kinect appears permanently attached, so you cannot change cords.

If you buy the new Xbox with Kinect, you just plug the "fat" USB plug into your new xbox, which has a special "fat" USB plug location.

If you buy a separate Kinect, it comes with an adaptor that you plug the "fat" USB plug into. That adaptor is a "Y" adaptor, and has a regular USB plug and a power cord as outputs.

So, if you just want to use a Kinect just on your PC, you can buy the Kinect separately and you'll get the "Y" adaptor. (retail around $150)

If you buy a new xbox with Kinect, you will need to separately buy the "Y" adaptor. At this point Microsoft sells it, but I haven't seen it anywhere else ($35 I think). I presume cheaper ones will be coming out.

I couldn't wait, so even though I had a new xbox with Kinect, I just went out and bought a separate Kinect for my PC. Now I have two, and at least I save the hassle of switching it back and forth between my PC and my xbox. I might order the "Y" adaptor - then I could use two PCs, two Kinects, and MESH to have a multiuser Scratch game.

-Rich