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3D Puppetry: A Kinect-based Interface for 3D Animation

Beginner Tutorial: Adding a Skin Model

Our system must remove the puppeteer's hands from the incoming Kinect point cloud to ensure accurate tracking. To do so, we create color models of each puppeteer's skin:

  1. Execute roslaunch learnskin puppetry_launch.launch
  2. Once the program has loaded, present your (sleeveless) hands and forearms to the Kinect. Press the 's' key to capture several views of your hands in different positions and poses.
  3. Place several puppets in the performance space, remove your hands from the area, and press 'n' to save pixels that belong to puppets and not your skin. Take 3-4 captures with the puppets in different orientations.
  4. Press 'l' to create and save the color model.
  5. Go to to the kinect_tracker_dependencies/learnskin/files/data/ folder
  6. Rename the colormodel.txt file something more specific, like johndoe_colormodel.txt.
  7. Place the .txt file in the kinect_tracker/files/ folder.
  8. Edit the launch file you'll use for performance capture (e.g., all_puppets_launch.launch). Put the name of your color model in the color_model_name parameter.