Encase Yourself In Carbonite With Kinect

kinect_plastic_renders

There never seems to be a lull in the stream of new and novel hacks that people create around Microsoft’s Kinect. One of the more recent uses for the device comes from [Interactive Fabrication] and allows you to fabricate yourself, in a manner of speaking.

The process uses the Kinect to create a 3D model of a person, which is then displayed on a computer monitor. Once you have selected your preferred pose, a model of the image is rendered by a 3D plastic printer. Each scan results in a 3cm x 3cm plastic model complete with snap together dovetail joints allowing the models to be combined together. A full body scan can be constructed with three of these tiles, resulting in a neat “Han Solo trapped in Carbonite” effect.

Currently only about 1/3 of Kinect’s full resolution is being used to create these models, which is pretty promising news to those who would try this at home. Theoretically, you should be able to create larger, more detailed images of yourself provided you have a 3D printer at your disposal.

Keep reading for a quick video presentation of the fabrication process.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PWaU4u5QVo&w=470]

9 thoughts on “Encase Yourself In Carbonite With Kinect

  1. You sadly cannot just snap these together to make a full version of yourself. Not the way this current software in this form works.

    But what I want to see is the Kinect being used to “measure” people for custom fit clothing. It’s anonymous and since you already have distance data, you know the proper scale.

    This would be a WICKED cheap way of generating point cloud data then turn it into solid data, smooth it and presto. Cheap as crap FULL BODY 3d scanner.

  2. “I really hope kinect is not that hi-res it can detect your fingerprint”

    Nowhere close. But it is good at detecting general shapes of the body. Since everybody has a different shape…. this could be great for such an application. Sort of like a full sized 3d scanner.

  3. “You sadly cannot just snap these together to make a full version of yourself. Not the way this current software in this form works.”

    Correction. You could snap two or three together to make a very small version of yourself :)

  4. ‘karbonite’ is a name that is actually a registered trademark for a strong kind of plastic used by a servo manufacturer (Hitec).
    So for a moment I thought you meant that kind of plastic, but thanks to the mention of han solo that was nicely cleared.

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