Is it possible to record a 5 second walk cycle with the Kinect. I will try this at my university tomorrow in a large area but I am not sure whether it is possible? Since I have a small area to work in my house i am asking this question here. Can iPiRecorder record me 20 m distance?

Thanks

I'm not a Kinect user, I use 6 PS3 cams. However, I can say that it all depends on the walk you're doing. If you want to walk in a circle Kinect may have a difficult time giving an accurate capture. If you're walking in a straight line with slight curving (about 45 degrees probably) you'll be okay. You shouldn't have a problem at 20 m, but you may want to take the advice from those you have worked with Kinect. :)

Having used the Kinect, I don't believe it has a range much beyond 5 meters or so. Under absolute perfect conditions (not sure what those would be) you might get 10 m. I don't think 20 m is possible.

Well, even if it could, in theory, track you from 20 meters, at least according to my quick calculations one pixel at that distance equals to about 33 mm. Now, if you happen to be, lets say 1.65 m tall, that would make you only about 50 pixels vertically. I'm not starting to guess other dimensions, I'm pretty sure you got the idea...

For 5 second walk you'll need about 7-10 meters free space. As a rule of thumb, I would say that you need the same distance from Kinect. Since the horizontal FOV is 57 degrees, it's quite neatly nearly the same (2*tan (57/2) = 1.086) value. If, however, you are planning to walk directly towards (or away) from Kinect, it becomes more problematic since it cannot see your whole body until you are about 2 meters away from it. Even so, I don't see why you would need to be 20 meters away, half of that should be enough.

thanks everyone! you have been very helpful. thanks again!

You can record a few steps and loop them in another application. Motion Builder is the obvious program for this technique but you should be able to create continuous loops of captured steps in any program that features a non-linear animation editor. In Lightwave, for example, that would be a tool called Motion Mixer. The trick is in seamlessly blending the ends of the animation before you loop it, which these programs can do. In Animeeple I think you might be able to combine the Join and/or Loop blocks to make a continuous cycle. It's been a while since I used Animeeple so I'm not 100% sure if that's how it works, but Join is used to seamlessly blend the ends of two motion files and Loop will repeat the animation.

Hope this helps.

G.

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That's right. Kinect range is limited to 5 meters (a hardware limitation).

So a 5 second walk cycle is not possible with Kinect, unless you use a treadmill.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. In my film, there are a few scenes that have longer running sequences, for example, the main characters running through a jungle. I'm getting a manual treadmill because they will follow the speed of your body, unlike a digital treadmill. Just remove the side hand rails and you're good to go!