WORK IN PROGRESS: Max MSP/ Kinect Headtracker

As we all know the Kinect is a very powerful tool for developing new and innovative software, particularly when its being controlled and developed for by Max MSP.

Click here to download the project.

This project is designed for the use of reserchers and students who require the users head position to remain stationary whilst listening to audio samples during testing. Therfore keeping the users head position as an objective variable and not tainting the results.

For example: if you are doing researcher into the directionality of a sound then a user moving their head between audio samples will change your results. The idea is that this Max MSP patch can be intergrated into anyone else's patch and run in the background, only alerting the user when their head moves.

Now as stated in the title this project is still a work in progress - It is by no means complete yet! It'd be fantastic for me to get some feedback from people that would be interested in using this software (or know a little more about Max MSP than I do!) On the right hand side of the patch there is a To Do List for myself which is where I'm aiming to take the project in the future.

Installing the neccessary drivers:

Now unfortunatly their is some driver installing to do to enable the Kinect to speak to Synapse. If you haven't used Synapse before then this is the software which tracks the users skeleton and send that information out in the form of UDP data to Max msp.

In the projects current state that data is recieved by the Kinect-Via-Synapse patch and then taken from there to my patch. It can be quite tricky to get your head round (at least it was for me) but once the drivers are installed the order goes:

Kinect

Synapse

Max MSP - Kinect-Via-synapse

Max MSP - Headtracking Patch

Now as for installing the drivers that can be a challenge in itself! Its very very important that you unistall any and all official Kinect drivers before starting. This will save you a world of headaches later on! You can do this by foing to Device Manager in the Control Panel and unistalling the Kinect drivers.

From here there is a very useful tutorial on the Synapse website here: http://synapsekinect.tumblr.com/post/6698860570/windows-install-instructions

In the project folder I've already included the drivers for 32-bit Windows however if you need 64-bit you'll have to download them yourself from the Synapse tutorial links.

It can be a little tricky to get everything up and running how with a small amount of perseverance it will all work!

Apart from that there isn't too much more to it! If you have any thoughts, opinions, points to make then please contact me and let me know! I would greatly appreciate any and all fedback you could give me.

#PROJECTS