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Microsoft Hardware Hacking The Military Build

Marines Put Microsoft Kinect To Work For 3D Mapping 37

Posted by samzenpus from the quick-map dept.
colinneagle points out this article about how the Marines are using a Microsoft Kinect to build maps. A military contractor has come up with something that has the U.S. Marine Corps interested. The Augmented Reality Sand Table is currently being developed by the Army Research Laboratory and was on display at the Modern Day Marine Expo that recently took place on Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. The set-up is simple: a table-sized sandbox is rigged with a Microsoft Kinect video game motion sensor and an off-the-shelf projector. Using existing software, the sensor detects features in the sand and projects a realistic topographical map that corresponds to the layout, which can change in real time as observers move the sand around in the box. The setup can also project maps from Google Earth or other mapping and GPS systems, enabling units to visualize the exact terrain they'll be covering for exercises or operations. Eventually, they hope to add visual cues to help troops shape the sandbox to match the topography of a specified map. Eventually, the designers of the sandbox hope to involve remote bases or even international partners in conducting joint training and operations exercises. Future possibilities include large-scale models that could project over a gymnasium floor for a battalion briefing, and a smartphone version that could use a pocket-sized projector to turn any patch of dirt into an operational 3-D map.
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Marines Put Microsoft Kinect To Work For 3D Mapping More

Marines Put Microsoft Kinect To Work For 3D Mapping

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  • If you really had piles of $, ie the DOD.... (Score:4)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday September 29, 2014 @01:22PM (#48020631) Journal

    ...you'd build a situation room on the scale of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org] EXCEPT the floor is made of pushrods, each representing a pixel of the minimum terrain-definition reachable by satellite tools at whatever scale you want.
    Each pushrod, of course, has an actuator under the floor that would allow it to raise up, allowing you in moments to download a satellite heightmap, and voila- have the floor of the room immediately show the terrain represented in actual 3d.
    Make the rods white, of course, so overhead projectors can at flood areas with color - blue for water, green for vegetation, built-up areas in yellow, or to allow highlighting certain areas visually with lighting during a presentation.

    Of course, as higher-resolution maps become available, the scale of what you can display at full resolution grows smaller as the tech improves, but then again you can always have varying-scale presentations, showing the whole area at one scale, and zooming into another (resetting the pushrods) for detail view.

    A smart contractor, of course, would just lobby for bigger facilities.

    That's what I would do, anyway.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by oodaloop ( 1229816 )
      The Marines deploy to austere environments, so their requirements are typically a little different. Large rooms like the one you linked might work for the General's briefing in the rear (though I can't imagine a single Marine facility that would pay for something like that), but battalions downrange need something a little smaller. IAAFM (former Marine).

      • The Marines deploy to austere environments, so their requirements are typically a little different. Large rooms like the one you linked might work for the General's briefing in the rear (though I can't imagine a single Marine facility that would pay for something like that), but battalions downrange need something a little smaller. IAAFM (former Marine).

        Judging by the former Marines I've known, the last thing a Marine wants is yet another electronic gadget that doesn't work with yet another battery that always needs charging. I suspect this little toy has a long way to go before it convinces a Marine there's something better than a plastic film topo map.

      • What's a former Marine?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Do you mean like the inForm [mit.edu] system from MIT?

      While I'll agree with the "IAAFM" reply that simpler can be better, I'm sure these sorts of systems are the way of the future*

      * for some value of future greater than today.

  • The local museum has one of these - it uses a combo of XBox and that poly-sand stuff that sticks together. Kids can make mountains, rivers, and lakes with their hands. The kinect detects the depth and then the XBox animates the terrain.

    Rather than having people stack sand - they need a bendable floor that changes shape. Kind of like those toys with 1000's of nails/pins in them that conform to the shape of an object. Place a solenoid on each one and raise/lower to the necessary shape - covered with a pla

  • Military Grade LEGO, of course.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 )

      Military Grade LEGO

      They' called caltrops.
      Of course, if we're buying them on a military contract, they cost 20x as much as the civilian version.

    • Military Grade LEGO, of course.

      A 2x2 LEGO brick can stand up to 950 pounds of pressure. They're already military grade.

  • Better link (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29, 2014 @01:48PM (#48020861)
    The link in the summary goes to NetworkWorld's pictureless, short rehash of Marine Corps Times' better article [marinecorpstimes.com] . Go there for the details and some actual pictures.
  • find a way to get game consoles into military bases... Oh, wait. Never mind. http://goo.gl/vXyxO [goo.gl]
  • Maybe with all these non gaming uses something can finally be done with the thousands of kinect's sitting gathering dust.

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