Many faces to create new ones

AKB48 is a japonese Idol group. They have made a buzz about a new member of the group... But this new member was entirely made from face of the existing member !

Here the synthetized face :


Ok it's look almost planar... but it give a nice result.

Here the Making Of :


If you want make your own Idol :
http://www.icenomi.com/oshimen/index.html

Source : 3DVF Icenomi

Computer Vision help food analysis

Two side 3D analysis :



Optimal chicken cut :

Nice ring juggling

 Nice to see :



Source : Geeks3D

Official Microsoft Kinect SDK is out

"The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a starter kit for applications developers that includes APIs, sample code, and drivers. This SDK enables the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences by using Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7."

Source : Microsoft

They have put focus on skeletal recognition and tracking. As sample you will have a game... and more

Official samples:

"Skeletal Viewer—Capturing Data with the NUI API (C++ and C#)
The Kinect sensor includes two cameras: one delivers depth information and the other delivers color data. The NUI API enables applications to access and manipulate this data. The SkeletalViewer sample uses the NUI API to render data from the Kinect sensor’s cameras as images on the screen. The managed sample uses WPF to render captured images, and the native application uses DirectX.

ShapeGame—Creating a Game with Audio and Skeletal Tracking
Displays the tracked skeletons of two players together with shapes falling from the sky. Players can control the shapes by moving and speaking commands.

Audio Capture Raw (C++)
The Kinect sensor’s audio component is a four-element microphone array. The AudioCaptureRaw sample uses the Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) to capture the raw audio stream from the Kinect sensor’s microphone array and write it to a .wav file.

MicArrayEchoCancellation—Acoustic Echo Cancellation, Beam Forming, and Source Localization (C++)
The primary way for C++ applications to access the Kinect sensor’s microphone array is through the MSRKinectAudio DirectX Media Object (DMO). The MSRKinectAudio DMO supports all standard microphone array functionality, and adds support for beamforming and source localization. The MicArrayEchoCancellation sample shows how to use the KinectAudio DMO as a DirectShow® source to access the Kinect sensor’s microphone array. This sample uses acoustic echo cancellation to record a high-quality audio stream and beamforming and source localization to determine the selected beam and the direction of the sound source.

MFAudioFilter—Media Foundation Audio Filter (C++)
Shows how to capture an audio stream from the Kinect sensor’s microphone array by using the MSRKinectAudio DMO in filter mode in a Windows Media Foundation topology.

RecordAudio—Recording an Audio Stream and Monitoring Direction (C#)
Demonstrates how to capture an audio stream from the Kinect sensor’s microphone array and monitor the currently selected beam and sound source direction.

Speech—Recognizing Voice Commands (C#)
Demonstrates how to use the Kinect sensor’s microphone array with the Microsoft.Speech API to recognize voice commands."


An example made by a user.

Google Search by image

Google launch a service to perform web image search by similarity. It's a service like http://www.tineye.com/.

http://images.google.com/ A camera have appear in the text label. Drag and Drop an image on the text field or click on the camera.
 

AMD gDEBugger, an advanced OpenGL and OpenCL debugger

AMD have released an integrated debugger for OpenGL and OpenCL to Visual Studio.

AMD gDEBugger is an advanced OpenGL and OpenCL debugger, profiler and memory analyzer. Actually AMD gDEBugger is based on the well known gDEBugger by Graphic Remedy. This new debugger is a plugin for Visual Studio and supports all capabilities of the original gDEBugger as well as new features.

 "gDEBugger takes the mystery out of debugging OpenCL and OpenGL, allowing developers to peer into computer and graphic memory objects such as OpenCL images to view their contents as they change from write, copy, and kernel operations. Allocated OpenCL and OpenGL objects are monitored to allow detecting memory leaks and the scenarios that caused the leaking objects to be created, API function call logs can be viewed and saved and unrecommended and deprecated functions and behaviors are marked, with best-practice alternatives offered. "

AMD gDEBugger download should be available shortly.

More information on the official homepage: AMD gDEBugger @ AMD.
Source : Geeks3D

What's new in Computer Vision System Toolbox in R2011a

Matlab have updated is Computer Vision System Toolbox.
Here's the documentation.

Here’s a list of what’s new:

• extractFeatures function for creating an array of feature vectors (descriptors) based on interest points within an image

• matchFeatures function for finding the best matches between two arrays of feature vectors (descriptors)

• Visualization of epipolar geometry for stereo images using epipolarLine, isEpipoleInImage, and lineToBorderPoints functions

• estimateUncalibratedRectification function for calculating projective transformations to rectify stereo images

• Video segmentation based on Gaussian Mixture Models using ForegroundDetector System object YCbCr video format support for ToVideoDisplay block and DeployableVideoPlayer System object

Calling this product a toolbox also allows us to clarify and highlight the MATLAB capabilities in the product that we’ve had since R2010a. Some of these algorithms overlap with Image Processing Toolbox, but provide support for C code generation and fixed-point modeling. Others are unique to Computer Vision System Toolbox, including these:

• 
  
• vision.BlockMatcher
• vision.Deinterlacer
• vision.GeometricTransformEstimator
• vision.OpticalFlow
• vision.TemplateMatcher

Source : Steve Blog

Matlab Visual Sudoku Solver

After the Google Goggles Sudoku Demo Matlab have released near the same demo.
Not purely real time. But a working one with explanation. (Basis bricks are a sudoku solver, some image processing (morphological operations) and number recognition).

http://www.mathworks.com/videos/matlab/sudoku.html

The source code is accessible on the same webpage.

Kinect Graffiti

A nice initiative to make Temporary art !

Kinect Graffiti™ from Jean-Christophe Naour on Vimeo.

Thanks to Dlpnet.