Get Ready for the Next Level of Gaming

We have seen how new interfaces use human face, voice or even movement to trigger an action. Sensors-based on such interfaces are part of an emerging field of computing called Natural User Interface (NUI). These new technology forms not only recognize face, voice or gesture of humans, but are also adaptive to the person's mood, social context and location. The aim of natural user interfaces is not to make keyboard and mouse obsolete, but to expand the dimensions of the user experience to technology. At the exclusive media day hosted by Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corp. on the eve of Microsoft Tech Fest 2010, research work on next generation of interfaces was showcased, and for the first time the technology behind the much-talked Project Natal was revealed in detail. Project Natal is code name for the Microsoft XBox 360 add-on upgrade that incorporates face, voice, gesture and object recognition technologies into one and presents users with a new approach to interact with the XBox gaming console without the need of any controller. Microsoft expects to ship this new technology by end of this year. Nintendo's Wii with its motion-sensing handheld 'Wiimotes' was able to get the players off their couch and onto their feet but still, the user had to use a controller.

Microsoft's approach is to eliminate the controller, and power the user with the ability to manipulate game characters via body movements or gestures. Natal is an add-on device that can integrate with existing XBox consoles. The device consists of RGB depth sensor, which is an infrared projector that couples  with a monochrome CMOS sensor. This sensor allows the camera to see in 3D in any ambient light. With the monochrome camera in the image the area which is white is nearest to the device while the area that's black is at the far end, the shades of grey represent the area in between. With these different shades of grey the device can judge the proximity of the user. The system is intelligent enough to track each player and even if these players overlap, the system deciphers body gestures from a player in multi-player mode. This is achieved by the system through real-time motion capturing and by recognizing the different body poses and then rendering them onto the game space. While doing so, the system recognizes each player in front of the device by making a wire-frame scan of them, and it creates a sphere around each player. The system concentrates on the spatial skeletal joints to trace the body parts movement of the player. And if the wire-frames overlap, the system intelligence helps to discard the body posture of the wire-frame representation of the player that isn't possible. Therefore if two players overlap in front of the camera, the device through their wire-frame posture can decipher the player which represents a game character. This way even without the controller, Natal can recoginize and keep track of a player who moves around in front of the sensor camera even in a multi-player mode. The system can simultaneously track 16 players. 

Date: 7th April., 2010

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