The release of Kinect for the Xbox has been a great demonstration of what creative minds can do with the right tools. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich led by Tobias Blum have created a working prototype which displays an augmented reality 3D CT overlay of the person standing in front of the camera.
More on how it works from their website:
The Microsoft Kinect provides a color and a depth image. Using OpenNI and PrimeSense NITE we can get the skeleton of a person standing in front of the Kinect in real-time.
We register a CT dataset to this skeleton and do an Augmented Reality overlay of the CT and the person. Using context and focus visualization we only show the CT through a virtual window, while still showing the person.
The Kinect is positioned next to a big screen. When standing in front of the system, the system acts like a magic mirror that allows seeing inside yourself. Such a system can be used for educational purposes to teach anatomy.
The system is currently a prototype. It does not show the CT of the person in front of the monitor, but a CT of another person. We use the Visible Korean Human dataset that has been provided to us by Prof. Min Suk Chung.
Other than being a great educational tool, a spruced up version of the technology could potentially be a helpful low-cost adjunct in certain procedures such as biopsies. Keep the Kinect Hacks coming people!
Read more here…
(hat tip: Joystiq)