Some of you might think that the “art” of air guitar playing is a silly idea. The Kinect community however, has taken the first step in integrating the air guitar to possible virtual instruments. Using the Kinect as the input device, Chris O’Shea created the Kinect Air Guitar, granting users a visual image of a guitar which, with their hand gestures, can play music. Spectators need not rely on their imagination when looking at air guitar musician. The virtual instrument serves as a guide for the user, guiding their gestures in the proper place in order to simulate a real guitar.
Here is a description by the developer:
“First it thresholds the scene to find a person, then uses a histogram to get the most likely depth of a person in the scene. Then any pixels closer than the person to the camera are possible hands. It also uses contour extremity finding on the person blob to look for hands in situations where your hand is at the same depth as your body. It only works if you are facing the camera front on. Then it uses one hand as the neck of the guitar, drawing a virtual line from the neck through the person centroid to create the guitar line. The other hand is tracked to see if it passes through this line, strumming the guitar. The neck hand position controls the chord.”
For more information about the Kinect Air Guitar, visit the project’s website.