First proper tracking with the Kinect

Tracking and recording where the ball hits the table. Well my coffee table. I need to get a proper table tennis table.

This is a screengrab using Processing & Xbox Kinect.

It's running smoother than previous prototypes (see here which was colour tracking the ball with a normal camera) The depth detection is a huge bonus, now it's not just tracking a moving object and drawing, but tracking a moving object at a certain depth and only drawing when it's there.

Object detection will be something to look at. It would be good for it only to track the ball (and not my hand). Although, it would be interesting to add hand gestures, eg. clear the table and start a clean canvas with a specific hand/arm motion across the table.

 This second image was saved directly from Processing to an images folder during gameplay, by pressing a button on the keyboard. This folder would be set up to print the image automatically. There would probably need to be a timed delay. (And also it probably should be set to save as a white background to save ink)

Using the Kinect is having it's advantages, but there will be a problem when it comes to tracking faster games as the camera will not have a high enough frame rate to pick up the ball. More testing will be done!