Zoomcity Budapest

Today's project provides a great example of how a Kinect NUI can be made very user friendly (i.e. the Step Here pad) and be used to provide an exploration experience unlike any other.

Zoomcity Budapest – Controlling a 7.2 Gigapixel panorama with Kinect

ZoomCity Budapest is our third Kinect project, and the first that used Microsoft’s Official Kinect for Windows SDK (Although we have upgraded our Kinect Quiz app to the official SDK, too).

The software was created in cooperation with 360World (the guys who created the world recorder 70 Gigapixel panorama of Budapest) and Aera. My company worked on the Kinect controls, the Silverlight Deep Zoom engine and the user experience. The panning is controlled by the left or the right hand, while zooming is performed by stepping forward (closer to the screen) for zooming in, and stepping backwards for zooming out.

The application is very easy to learn by following the on-screen instructions, and tuned for an exhibition scenario – it has a narrow “play area” and robust user tracking among other things. We have also created little “step here” markers to help the users.

Project Information URL: http://dotneteers.net/blogs/vbandi/archive/2012/03/28/zoomcity-budapest-controlling-a-7-2-gigapixel-panorama-with-kinect.aspx

Contact Information:

• Blog: http://dotneteers.net/blogs/vbandi/default.aspx
• Twitter: @vbandi