Cheap 3D Motion Sensing System Developed At MIT 60
Al writes "Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have created a cheaper way to track physical motion that could prove useful for movie special effects. Normally an actor needs to wear special markers that reflect light with numerous high-speed cameras placed around a specially-lit set. The new system, called Second Skin, instead relies on tiny photosensors embedded in clothes that record movement by picking patterns of infrared light emitted by inexpensive projectors that can be mounted in ceilings or even outdoors. The whole system costs less than $1,000 to build, and the researchers have developed a version that vibrates to guide a person's arm movements. Watch a video of Second Skin in action."
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many small and medium sized game development houses who would love an inexpensive motion capture system in order to capture data for things like in-game cut-scenes. And to them, yes, it makes a pretty big difference whether a system cost $1000 vs $100,000. Having to rent a studio by the hour is also pretty damned expensive.
Besides which, it seems foolish to offhandedly dismiss new technology such as this before it's had even a chance to develop into a useful product.
Re:Tracking fidelity (Score:3, Insightful)
Is video too complex to allow the sort of math we do on audio? In the audio realm, most ADCs are natively 1-bit converters with a ridiculously high sampling rate (MHz). That turns out to be mathematically equivalent to, say, 24-bit audio at 192KHz.
But audio's a single waveform, and video's a collection of pixels, so I guess it's all different.