AUSTIN — I'm about to be "teleported" to outer space, by having my entire body scanned. A light flashes three times, my cu...
AUSTIN — I'm about to be "teleported" to outer space, by having my entire body scanned. A light flashes three times, my cue to act rather goofy for six seconds. Behind me a three-dimensional carbon copy representation of my body appears in space on a large video screen, moving in near real time as I do. I'm then swooped up off the screen.
Shortly after I don Oculus Rift, the mind-blowing virtual reality 3D headset from Oculus VR that is likely to take the gaming market by storm whenever it finally ships. For 45 seconds I watch the virtual alter ego I just created explore digital worlds. As I move my head around Oculus I visit different parts of these virtual worlds — with the scene alternating between an arctic frozen tundra, a marshy volcanic environment and a desert landscape.
I'm taking part in a pretty awesome computational photography tech demo at South by Southwest, courtesy of Microsoft Research and the guys most responsible for it, James George, a Brooklyn-based media artist and his partner Alexander Porter, an "experimental photographer." Microsoft is housing a showroom during SXSW as a way to show off something really cool, and to promote products including a new game for the Xbox One.
The reconstruction of my body in the Microsoft Research demo is made possible by four Kinect cameras that are paired with four high-end Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital cameras. My body image is captured from all sides.
The Kinect cameras provide a sense of depth; the DSLRs add the color textures on top of your virtual clone, Porter says.
"When you see yourself in the image it's not so abstract," he says. "This is sort of the digital world entering the real world and vice versa."
Every pixel is accounted for in its proper space. Porter compares the experience as a cross between Tron and the Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian. "So many of the techniques and the tools we have now were previously science fiction objects."
Still, the company has no immediate commercial plans for for the technology. But you can easily envision how this might eventually be deployed in cinema, interactive games, possibly even education.
George is mainly interested in the artistic possibilities. "Art has a practical place in the world," he says.
"It's important that we look at these technologies not as products that are coming out but how they make us feel, the stories that we tell through them, the emotions we can have when we share (these) experiences."
That still seems a ways off.
But Microsoft did demonstrate an upcoming Xbox One game called Kinect Sports Rivals that also lets you capture your likeness, using Kinect 2.0.
I have to say the effect is not nearly as dramatic or realistic-looking as was the demonstration involving George and Porter. It could be because that other demonstration was so much more intoxicating. But while Kinect Sports Rivals appeared to be fun to play, I didn't think the stylized version of yours truly in the game looked much like me.
You can customize your character's appearance (changing hair color, adding facial hair, etc.) before challenging friends in wake boating races and other competitions. The $59.99 Xbox game is expected out in about a month. My virtual trip to space is going to take longer.
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter.
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