You can now use interpolation to animate objects and bones. This means that you simply add your target position for a vector or quaternion for a specific point in time. The actual position or rotation is than calculated between the last and next target. Additionally all capabilities from the basic animation class are inherited:

Engine status

The Framework now compiles with the latest LLVM version. The memory management was reimplemented with ARC. I’m actually working on improved methods for user interactions and object modeling.

Using microsofts kinect device for motion tracking

The kinect device was originally developed for gesture recognition in games. Because of its capabilities to record 3D body poses in real-time I checked the possibilities for motion tracking. Therefore I developed a small program written in Scala. My recorded data looks promising but at the moment certain work has to be done in post production to create a professional skeletal animation. There are at the moment much better solutions available like Brekel Kinect.

Using a kinect is very straightforward with the latest OpenNI library. Here is a Scala example:

package de.yousry.motiontracker

import scala.actors.Actor
import org.OpenNI._
import de.yousry.motiontracker.observer._
import scala.collection.mutable.HashMap

object OpenNIHandler extends Actor {

  var quit = false;
  var listeners = List[OpenNIListener]()

  var context: Option[Context] = None
  var depthGen: Option[DepthGenerator] = None
  var userGenerator: Option[UserGenerator] = None
  var skeletonCap: Option[SkeletonCapability] = None

  var width = 0
  var height = 0

  val activeUsers: HashMap[Int, MetaFile] = new HashMap[Int, MetaFile]()

  init

  def act = loopWhile(!quit) {
    react {
      case ReceptorDimensions => reply { ReceptionResult(width, height) } 
      case ConnectOpenNI(listener) => listeners ::= listener
      case DisconnectOpenNI(listener) => listeners = listeners.filter(x => x != listener)
      case Quit => {
        println("Quit OpenNI handler")
        context.get.stopGeneratingAll
        context.get.release

        activeUsers.values.foreach(_.out.close)

        quit = true
      }
      case Loop => loop
    }
  }

  def init = {
    println("Initializing Openni")
    try {
      val SAMPLE_XML_FILE = "../../data/OpenNIConfig.xml"
      val scriptNode = new OutArg[ScriptNode]();
      context = Some(Context.createFromXmlFile(SAMPLE_XML_FILE, scriptNode))

      depthGen = Some(DepthGenerator.create(context.get))
      val depthMD = depthGen.get.getMetaData()
      width = depthMD.getFullXRes()
      height = depthMD.getFullYRes()

      userGenerator = Some(UserGenerator.create(context.get))
      skeletonCap = Some(userGenerator.get.getSkeletonCapability())
      val poseDetectionCap = userGenerator.get.getPoseDetectionCapability();

      val calibPose = skeletonCap.get.getSkeletonCalibrationPose()

      userGenerator.get.getNewUserEvent().addObserver(new NewUserObserver(skeletonCap.get, poseDetectionCap, calibPose));

      userGenerator.get.getLostUserEvent().addObserver(new LostUserObserver(activeUsers));
      skeletonCap.get.getCalibrationCompleteEvent().addObserver(new CalibrationCompleteObserver(calibPose, activeUsers, skeletonCap.get, poseDetectionCap))

      poseDetectionCap.getPoseDetectedEvent().addObserver(new PoseDetectedObserver(poseDetectionCap, skeletonCap.get));

      skeletonCap.get.setSkeletonProfile(SkeletonProfile.ALL);

      context.get.startGeneratingAll
    } catch {
      case ex: Exception => println("Could not read OpenNI Config:  " + ex.getCause()); sys.exit
    }

    OpenNIHandler ! Loop
  }

  def loop = {

    if (!listeners.isEmpty) {
      try {
        context.get.waitAnyUpdateAll

        val depthMD = depthGen.get.getMetaData()
        val sceneMD = userGenerator.get.getUserPixels(0)

        val oniUsers = userGenerator.get.getUsers.toList.par
          .filter(Id => skeletonCap.get.isSkeletonTracking(Id))
          .map(userId => new OniUser(userId, skeletonCap.get, depthGen.get, activeUsers.get(userId).get))

        listeners.par.foreach(_.updateNI(depthMD, sceneMD, oniUsers.toList))

      } catch {
        case ex: Exception => println("OpenNI Hanlder loop: " + ex.getMessage())
      }
    } else {
      Thread.sleep(100)
    }

    OpenNIHandler ! Loop
  }

}

trait OpenNIListener {
  def updateNI(depthMD: DepthMetaData, sceneMD: SceneMetaData, users: List[OniUser])
}

case class ConnectOpenNI(listener: OpenNIListener)
case class DisconnectOpenNI(listener: OpenNIListener)
case object Loop
case object Quit
case object ReceptorDimensions
case class ReceptionResult(width: Int, height: Int)
case class MetaFile(userId: Int, startTime: Long, out: java.io.FileWriter)