jicx:
Someone suggested me to use 2 Kinects at once. Each one is connected with one computer. Instead of fixing it on the ceiling, these are placed on the ground. One is from the front, and another is from the side.
Each one detects only X axe and Y axe, without Z axe (since Kinect does not allow to detect an accurate depth). The two computers communicate with ex. OSC, and the combination of data would be X, Y and Z for the real space.It is only the idea, though. I know it is not the scope of Arduino Forum, but any ideas or any suggestions?
How about a normal webcam? We only need the position of the dancers' feet, so, instead of mounting the cameras at the ceiling, we only need to mount them high enough to see the whole stage (say 6 feet). The camera will probably see something like this:
- The viewing angle skews the rectangular stage into a parallelogram.
- We only need to concern ourselves with the dancers' feet (shown in green) and/or body center.
- Instead of tracking absolute distance, we can figure out the ratio of distances from different sides of the stage.
- We can track multiple dancers if needed.
If the camera is kept at 6 feet, it is likely that it will be unable to see the whole stage. In that case, some markers (shown in blue) can be used as references for distance/position. This way we can use multiple cameras to cover the stage. As a bonus, you also get a (crappy) recording of the dance!