For all those interested in robotics in general I thought I would point out the new Kinect.
So the kinect is cool because it provides a 3D depth image from 0.5 - 4m for ~$200. This has been unheard of in the robotics community with most people using laser scanners. (The cheapy on the robot sitting next to me is $1200) This has kept most home robotics work to the domain of microcontrollers and not really doing too much useful. Vision has been a promising aspect for many years in the low cost domain but its still not really there yet.
The kinect has been hacked and there is a linux driver 6 days after its release. There is also sever ROS (Robot OS. www.ROS.org) nodes which look like they should be semi complete in the next few days. With this and the packages currently available in ROS I think most enthusiasts with programming knowledge should be able to get some stuff up and running in a few weeks. By this I mean a robot which is able to map and drive around your home which opens up all sorts of possibilities for cool projects.
Anyway it won't be too long before Microsoft releases a firmware upgrade to encrypt the data on the USB protocol not sure whether this will permanently disable the functionality so I would encourage everyone who is interested to look at early adoption.
I have bought one from the US ebay ($170AUD) and will prolly get a second one on release date 18th. ($200 AUD) So I will let you know how I progress. I think we are heading towards an exiting time for robotics and hobbiests.
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Hehe, yes I read about that the other day.
Props to AdaFruit.com (who make Nifty Arduinos and Widgets) for giving the finger to Microsoft and putting up a prize for the first to reverse engineer the protocol, *and* donating to the EFF to help them stop <Evil Corporations> from trying to tell you what you are allowed to do with equipment that you paid for, but they dont think you "own"
Should cause some nice Robot stuff, although It still puts me in mind of that video that Mr Kero posted the other day about "Robot Eyes" _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
Got my kinect yesterday. Found few hours to play with it at CSIRO, yes playing with the kinect is counted as "research".
It is really cool the images you can get off it and it should be great to get some homebrew 3D slam going. Could prolly do a robot for < $500 which can map your house in 3D.
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide
ive noticed a few interesting hacks on the webs about it looks good.
wish i could play with such a thing and it counted as research _________________ Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.
Primesense have released opensource drivers which link to their body tracking library (closed source) these are unofficially compatible with the Kinect. So no need to even reverse engineer anymore.
Is some pretty cool demos out there. Also base on ROS stuff there is minority report style interface.
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide
good news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12531127
not that anyone needed MS to provide such a kit but still it is good they are not as clossed off as some other software companies. If it becomes more then just personal use could see some interesting commercial aspects. _________________ Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Heh, yes nice PR backflip there by Microsoft
When Adafruit first offered the bounty for the first person to reverse engineer the protocol, MS spat the dummy and made all sorts of comments about "we do not encourage or support people using our products for unintended purposes".
Adafruit increased the bounty in response and Microsoft sulked more with some other nasty comments
6 months down the road with Kinects selling far more than they would have otherwise, thanks to all the hackers using them for all sorts of non-Xbox apps, and suddenly MS gets all "open-friendly" and decides to release a SDK, conveniently forgetting about their earlier dummy spits and acting like they are such a nice company for "helping" people do all this creative stuff..
lies, damn lies, and corporate PR. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:01 pm
Valen Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Posts: 4436
Location: Sydney
they probably just didn't want people pirating the kinect.
Then they realised it was hardware. _________________ Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets
Wed Feb 23, 2011 7:03 pm
dyrodium Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 6476
Location: Sydney
Probably now a good time as ever to show peoples what i've been working on this summer break... new head for the Autonomous robot platform 'robotassist' at uni... Houses a kinect amongst other things, stripped from its case.
The kinect replaced this - valued at 5000 euro.
http://www.mesa-imaging.ch/img/SR4000.png
And the kinect has higher resolution, too. _________________ ( •_•)
johnny 5 - soon to be alive _________________ <Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls
Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:19 pm
Forum Jump:
Page 1 of 1
Forum Rules:
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
RoboWars Australia Forum Index
-> Off-Topic
