buzzcut

The technology provided by 3dvsystems promises to revolutionize gesture-based videogaming.Like the EyeToy, the 3DV system works by observing the player and using their body motions as the source of input. What’s different about this approach is that they use some technology that can sense motion and depth.

So, in addition to doing a better job of separating the player’s actions from the background, the camera also can provide depth information, things like how far you are standing from the camera, or how far forward or backward your hands are from the screen.

Promising 60 fps depth recognition, the camera sounds pretty cool.

What interests me about this is the potential to use this sort of technology to digitize physical environments in real time.

Think about that, you average consumer still or video camera with embedded GPS and distance calculation software could allow you to do real time 3D interpolation. Or, more simply, look at Photosynth and then think about what it would be like is all that visual data that is encoded everyday came with accurate GPS and point of view data.

Strangely, it looks like this sort of technology is here. It’s only a matter of time until virtual reality is a data set rivaling the real places.