@skulpture

Hi,

Great topic for discussion. I can only provide anecdotes from recent purchase history and wishlist thoughts. Earlier this year I created an interactive piece in Isadora for some artists based on OpenNi tracking with an Orbbec Astra Mini- this included purchase of the device. However, the current device available from the Orbbec range of Astra cameras is no longer compatible with OpenNi Tracker in Isadora. I had an original Astra Mini that I could deploy in this case and swapped it. This left me with a new camera that was not usable with Isadora - however compatible with the Orbbec Top now available in Touchdesigner for point cloud and RGB.

I also purchased a second Orbbec Astra Pro - preloved - to add to my legacy kit of OpenNi compatible cameras. This kit is now a couple of Kinect and a couple of Orbbec Astras. Even though these are legacy cameras they are important because they are an IR solution that will work in very low light levels with a functioning OpenNi solution in Isadora. 

The current development in the field of camera based body tracking is amazing and focused on standard RGB video streams. There are now OpenCV solutions for body and skeleton tracking that can be implemented in Isadora using the Pythoner environment. it works very well, but for one big problem, the RGB cameras need lots of light to capture the subject you want to track. If you work in a darkened theatre, black box or gallery where light is being kept to a minimum - then RGB cameras are not very good and OpenCV tracking is severely compromised or just doesn’t work well enough to be viable. 

The new camera systems available from Orbbec address this issue by pairing OpenCV with their IR camera technology. I am unable to review their performance as I have not seen them in action and do not know how they might interface with Isadora.

I would be happy to invest in a camera that has very low light (IR) capability and OpenCV compatibility that can be harnessed in Isadora. I am hoping this combination is not too far off in the future.

Best wishes

Russell

@woland said:

This file shows basically what Dusx was saying here.

 @ckeng I linked my file in the words "this file" so you can try my exact setup.

@dusx quick question, I’ve got a wireless artnet setup working with an entec Ethernet to dmx converter using an iPad using the lumiair app as a light desk .Could this actor work with this type of setup by substituting the iPad control for isadora? 
I've a feeling I’m over simplifying the process once again.

@lighting273

Have you checked out the Body Tracking Guru Session? It comes with a set of files that may prove useful.

The OpenNI Tracker Tutorial file (for the OpenNI plugins) may also be helpful as a starting point.

This forum thread has some helpful work from @bonemap you could try to incorperate. 

From the TroikaTronix Add-Ons page, there's also this 3d lines puppet for the OpenNI actors, which is also from the fabulous @bonemap.

You could probably also adapt the work that @mark posted in this forum thread.

Searching the forum for "3D particles" may also turn up other treasures for you :)

Best wishes,

Woland

@elena said:

I would also love to know if there is a way to modify the anchor point of a shape. 

 Take a look at my answer in this thread, you may find it, and some of the methods I discuss, to be helpful. There's also a Guru Session that Mark did which covers this topic.

You may also find this (as of yet unreleased) motion tracking mini-tutorial I've made to be helpful. (It's bundled with another mini-tutorial on alpha masks, but the motion tracking one will be the one you'll want to look at for this particular topic.)

@Elena said:

I am researching around and intuitively I would use OPENNI tracker to track my hand and then hook up the motion to the width and height dimensions but, because I don't have a Kinect compatible with the plugin, before I buy it I would like to know if there is a better way, and even if this method can be successful.

If you do end up going the Kinect and OpenNI route, you will want to check out the OpenNI Tracker Tutorial and download the OpenNI Plugins from our Plugin Page.

@jfg said:

to change the anchor point of a shape you can use the FFGLPanSpinZoom actor (spin ctrl x and spin ctrl y). It is not a real anchor point but could simulate it.

This plugin doesn't come with a fresh install of Isadora. You'll need to download the TroikaTronix FFGL plugins from our plugin page and install them if you want to use them. Personally, I use FFGLPanSpinZoom all the time because it's more convenient than using both a Zoomer actor + Panner actor + Spinner actor.

Best wishes,

Woland

@mark

Hi Mark, thank you for the info.

Have a nice weekend,

Hendrik

Ha okay ;) thanks!

@smoon

No problem :)

...sorry and the last thing for today,

in the software toolkit from ms for the 1414 (1.8.0) , is a very simple example where you can see from where( in degree from -90 to 90) and with what beam angle and i think how far away? or how loud a sound is. all in numbers. this coud be a very unique feature. we can't find it in any software, to easy get this data to osc or midi. also nimate can not do it, we think.

thanks.

r.h.

Just came across this article on the development of the Kinect.  Pretty interesting deep dive into the little piece of hardware that we know has taken on a new life of it's own outside of gaming...

@goddessmoon2017 so far the skeleton tracker needs NVIDIA cards for cuda acceleration and it is windows and Linux only.

It is early stages and resource heavy right now, and also still only available in the US and china. I had to get one forwarded from the US to develop with.

For sure it will get better and cross platform support but this is going to take quite a while to get there and then to stabilise (SDK wise)

@dako-ark said:

So as far as I understand everything is useless ... thanks for informing me

 Hi,

With NI mate, using it successfully will depend on what specific hardware pairing you are attempting to use. There is a known issue trying to use a Kinect for Xbox 360 (1414) with NI mate 2.14 on OSX Mojave or Kinect for Xbox (1473) with any Mac OS. I started a thread on the NI mate forum indicating the issue with OSX Mojave about 12 months ago. The most recent response from the NI mate developer Jesse (Sept 2019) on that thread suggests that there is no fix for this particular configuration coming any time soon ...

After this response from Jesse, I think we can assume that anything that is currently broken in NI mate is going to stay broken.

Best Wishes

Russell

@goddessmoon2017

Hi,

You will need to submit a support ticket making the request to join the OPenNi beta testing program. I am assuming that you have a Isadora 3 license because it will only work if you have that?

Best wishes

Russell

@ril Yo vivo en Bilbao pero ahora estoy con la furgo por las playas del cantabrico despejandoooo!!

@Woland 

Thanks for this follow-up. This is a great article.

No need to apologize. Now that I know that those features will come soon I will not search for them thinking I'm not looking at the right place 😄.

Again, good work Isadora's team!

Hi Armando, I am using a setup with a 2010 MacBook pro running NI mate and a PC running NI mate for 2 kinects with a 4K Isadora patch and I am getting 30 fps on the three Kinects.

Don

@armando

Sometimes sleep is good 😛

@woland

Hi woland,

I got the dropbox files. Thank you so much!

Just to clarify for anyone who reads this thread in the future, the demo version's only limitation is that one cannot save; it is not missing any actors.

@jxq

Just checking in again if the Syphon library I posted above solved your issue. It did for a number of other people previously.

Best wishes,

Woland