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noslodecoy on 30 November 2010
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Rainbird said:
Hyruken said:

Thanks for posting the full article.

Doesn't surprise me to see Destructoid only pick out the juicy bits. However he did say those things in the Destructoid article. I don't think they were taken out of context and it does seem a bit odd with some of the things he says. Like can Kinect really not see Denim?

I don't know if denim specifically is true, but he's right. Kinect uses infra red light as a way to detect depth, and the only difference between infra red light and "normal" light is that it operates at another wave length where the human eye can't see it. And like with normal light, there are "black" items, meaning things that don't reflect infra red light back. When something you see is black, it's because it doesn't reflect light back, it just absorbs it.

When there is something that is infra red black, Kinect can't see it. It's like in a normal picture, if something is black then that part of the picture is "empty" in a way. You can see the shape of this thing, but it has no details. It's just black. That's a bit of a crude way to put it, but I hope it gets the point across. 

The same goes for Kinect. It can only see the shape of this "black" thing, but it can't sense depth with it, because it doesn't reflect any light back that Kinect can measure distance with. You can try to make algorithms that take all this into account and try to calculate where you are anyway, and Microsoft seems to have done well here, but it's still a problem with the tech.

Unless I'm severely mistaken, but outside of glass and water I didn't think there are many materials that absorb infrared light at any substantial rate.  I know this guy has got to be pretty smart man, but it almost seems like he's mistaking IR with UV.  Denim and leather are very UV absorbent.

I even did a quick test with a TV remote and three pairs of denim: dark blackish, dark blue and normal lightish blue.  I pointed the remote at the denim pants and the IR beam seemed to reflect perfectly off the denim pants and turned the TV on and off.  Perhaps someone can do more tests with Kryelos's software.  Maybe that's something I'll try out.

That isn't to say there aren't several problems, and I would expect him to overstate them.  There are "holes" in the IR depth perception, but I think those are more algorithmic.