Making Things See: 3D vision with Kinect, Processing, Arduino, and MakerBot (Make: Books) [Paperback]

Greg Borenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2012 | Series: Make: Books

This detailed, hands-on guide provides the technical and conceptual information you need to build cool applications with Microsoft’s Kinect, the amazing motion-sensing device that enables computers to see. Through half a dozen meaty projects, you’ll learn how to create gestural interfaces for software, use motion capture for easy 3D character animation, 3D scanning for custom fabrication, and many other applications.

Perfect for hobbyists, makers, artists, and gamers, Making Things See shows you how to build every project with inexpensive off-the-shelf components, including the open source Processing programming language and the Arduino microcontroller. You’ll learn basic skills that will enable you to pursue your own creative applications with Kinect.

• Create Kinect applications on Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux
• Track people with pose detection and skeletonization, and use blob tracking to detect objects
• Analyze and manipulate point clouds
• Make models for design and fabrication, using 3D scanning technology
• Use MakerBot, RepRap, or Shapeways to print 3D objects
• Delve into motion tracking for animation and games
• Build a simple robot arm that can imitate your arm movements
• Discover how skilled artists have used Kinect to build fascinating projects

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

After a decade as a musician, web programmer, and startup founder, Greg Borenstein recently moved to New York to become an artist and teacher. His work explores the use of special effects as an artistic medium. He is fascinated by how special effects techniques cross the boundary between images and the physical objects that make them: miniatures, motion capture, 3D animation, animatronics, and digital fabrication. He is currently a grad student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Make (February 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449307078
• ISBN-13: 978-1449307073
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.7 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Computer Vision
  • #3 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Vision
  • #14 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Algorithms > Pattern Recognition

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction for anyone interested in experimenting with Kinect February 9, 2012

By Ivo Flipse

Format:Paperback

This book makes it very easy to experiment with Kinect, Processing is easy to set up, simple to write and allows for rapid iterations. Perfect even when you're not that into programming (yet).

The book has a very gradual increase in complexity, taking you from 2D, to 3D to changing the position of virtual camera and eventually scanning a 3D environment. The book starts to get really cool when you get to the Skeleton tracking part, which allows you to calculate the angles between limbs and use those to control the arm of an Arduino robot.

Another great thing about the examples is how they show you all the basic elements you need to built highly interactive programs, like a virtual drum kit, controlling a robot or 3D model.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interesting in experimenting with Kinect. I easily got through the book in 3 days and with the help of Greg's GitHub [...] you should have no trouble getting the examples to work! A definite recommendation!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in-print survey of Kinect hacking thus far February 28, 2012

By Bryan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Making Things See" contains some of the most comprehensive documentation for the Kinect that I've been able to find. The prologue interviews were a good motivation for why the book exists: to help others start to discover the full potential of this wonderful little device. As a programmer, I found the explanations of the various computer vision algorithms accurate and and helpful for my own understanding of what the Kinect was capable of. All in all a highly recommended read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for hobbyist! April 30, 2012

By Ryan Hartman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is 5 star for non-programmers. Mr. Borenstein walks the reader through the process of writing Kinect applications in a simple straightforward way that is extremely easy to follow. The code in the book is written using Processing (processing.org) which means even people with almost no background in software development and be up and running very quickly! If you are new to all of this then I recommend you read this book! You'll be amazed at how easy it is to write some really impressive Kinect programs.

The book is a 4 start for professional software developers. Still a great value for the price and it will give you a quick ramp-up into Kinect development. But after reading this you'll want to check out something more technical if you are interesting in writing applications using the Microsoft Kinect SDK or one of the several open source tool sets.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not For Me December 1, 2012

By John A. Bailo

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I chose this book because I thought it would be a good mix of the abstract engineering aspects of 3-D visual processing and some hands on programming. Well, while it did give some basic overall knowledge about the innards of Kinect, it wasn't much more than I'd expect from a web page article at About.com. Then when it finally began the programming aspect, I got worried because it kept talking about "hacking the Kinect". Why would I want to hack something that has a full featured SDK and programming templates from Microsoft? The final kicker was that not only did it not intend to use the .net libraries and hence the c# skills that I wanted to apply to Kinect development, but the installation of the open source libraries required me to uninstall the official SDK! Boing! I send this book back for a refund and in the future will stick to boring old programming guides that utilize the guidelined API.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another happy reader May 13, 2012

By hong

Format:Paperback

This is an excellent book. Readers will learn to use the Kinect in Processing including display the RGB, depth, skeleton and use the data to interact with the computer. The author explained every aspects right from the very basic and did not assume any prior knowledge. Programming techniques in Processing, dealing with vectors, 3D coordinates and everything that is required to follow the book. It was relaxing and enjoyable to follow the book. There is minimal mathematics in the book, which was great for my objective. There are a lot to learn from this book than simply the Kinect. The author has a good way to build every project from the basics. The major projects are inspirational and useful to carry further.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for non-technical people, so-so if you have more technical background November 15, 2012

By Paulo Muggler

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book is very good, well-written and covers a broad spectrum of subjects on depth cameras, the kinect and touch-free interaction. The examples are advanced enough that they will be useful even if you already understand a bit about computer programming and the kinect. If you come from a technical background like me, you will at times be skipping forward and looking over some minor inconsistencies. I still don't understand why authors are struggling so hard to make it look like Processing is a programming language on its own. It is only a Java library and I do think presenting it otherwise makes it tougher for a beginner to grasp the more advanced techniques in the future.

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book! March 13, 2013

By Quenaz Da C. Eller

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you like to develop a project using a Microsoft Kinect, you should buy it. It's helping me to understand what I can to do with a Kinect and Arduino. This is fantastic.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book February 28, 2013

By Nomad

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Of the 3 kinect programming books I got (mainly cuz each one has its own SDK/language of choice), this one got me up & running the fastest. However, the instructions are dated for installing on windows, they are meant for the original X-box kinect sensor not the one dedicated to windows. Please see Ramsri Goutham's excellent tutorial:
[...]
In case the link is taken out of the review you can g**gl* kinect sensor for openni. Basically, there is a different method to install the correct drivers for the Kinect for Windows product. All the instructions for the OpenNI software in the book likely predate the Kinect for Windows product and fail to mention that the most common problem now has nothing to do with x86 vs. x64 but that the original Kinect hacks were for the Xbox kinect, NOT THE KINECT FOR WINDOWS DEVICE!!!! You MUST use the avin2 package and replace the “default” kinect sensor mod, and you MUST force the computer to NOT use the automatic windows update drivers, and you MUST force the computer to install the primesense drivers by navigating from driver update to “choose from a list” and selecting “all devices” and scrolling to PrimeSense and overriding the driver not signed warnings!!! Whew!