(Left) Ken Mankoff withy a Kinect, Ubuntu laptop imagine the Rieperbreen Glacier in Norway. (Right) resulting images. (via Jason Gulley and Ken Mankoff)
Videogame hardware has infiltrated scientific applications many times. For example, Microsoft’s XBox Kinect 3D camera has been seen in robotics many times. Now, the Kinect 3D camera has been "hacked" by PhD student Ken Mankoff, from the University of California at Santa Cruz, to make 3D topographical maps
Last summer, Mankoff used his hacked Kinect camera to survey and map the floor of an underwater cave beneath the Rieperbreen Glacier in Svalbard, Norway. He did this to get a better idea of the roughness and the size of the cave floor to more accurately understand rare rock and glacier formations. These could then be used to predict how the glacier will move over a layer of water into the ocean.
The Kinect 3D camera has many advantages over conventional equipment that is used by researchers such as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) machines. One of the main advantages is cost. LIDAR equipment ranges from $10,000 to $200,000, it must be ordered and calibrated and requires maintenance from specialized manufacturers or distributors. The Kinect only costs $120 dollars, is easily attainable, and has many open source drivers available.
The XBOX camera does have technical limitations in that it can only see between three and 16 feet ahead of itself and cannot shoot high-speed footage, but it can detect waves in the visible and infrared spectrum and it can deliver 9 million data points per second.
To improve in the resolution of the camera, Mankoff records and stores the raw digital numbers (DN) from the camera without any automatic calibration of spatial coordinates. Mankoff used the LibFreenect Fakenect record program, supported by the Kinect, to store uncalibrated red, green and blue (RGB) and depth images used to make the digital elevation model (DEM) at the required 30 Hz. The DN’s can later be calibrated and turn into DEM’s by use of existing LIDAR software, custom software, or programs such as CloudCompare and Pointst2Grid, both of which he claims to have had considerable success with.
Other applications for using the Kinect have been suggested, from recording time lapses of melting ice sheets, to understanding small body impact in outer space in case we need to deflect asteroids on a collision path with Earth. Both of these applications will need further research, modifications and testing but will undoubtedly increase the value of the camera to many fields of science.
Eavesdropper
Kinect fun fact:
Due to its use of USB 2.0, the Kinect is limited to 640x480 pixels at 30Hz.
