This tech could have slashed 'Robot' budget

BANGALORE, INDIA: Here's something that might revolutionize the animation film industry. A Microsoft employee has come out with a cost-effective technology that can be used to picturize the motion tracking part in sci-fi movies much easier.

With this technology in place, movie makers no longer need to use 'image processing technology' to create animations in sci-fi movies.

Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu has developed a new technology — which is yet to be named — that works on Microsoft's 'Kinect' and Xbox 360 devices. “I feel that had the Kinect device been discovered two years ago, Tamil director Shankar's movie 'Robot' could have been made with a much lower budget. 

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Kinect, which plays a vital role in the working of my device, has advanced skeletal algorithms capable of creating animations like walking, dancing and jumping.” he said.

An evangelist at Microsoft, Ramaprasanna has developed and installed many devices, including 'Buddy Home'. Also, he had launched 'Ram Motion' to outsmart Google, which played a prank on the entire world with its 'Google Motion' on the 'April fool day'.

“Motion tracking is nothing but a technology that coverts human movements to a translated version of skeleton models. The very same technology was used in a dance scene in 'Jeans', a Tamil flick. In this movie, released around 10 years ago, the director used sensor technology to create animations, which must have meant enormous cost and time. But now, with this solution, visualization of skeleton models have become very easy,” he explained.

How it works

All you need is a PC and Xbox 360, besides Kinect, to develop this technology. “I used an animation software called miku-miku. With Kinect integration, the gestures that you make in front of Kinect will be captured by the device and it then feeds data back into miku-miku installed in the PC.”

He continued, “Miku-miku has a 3D skeleton model and the captured information is merged with the footage of the person who played the animated role. Post processing, any basic animation tools can be used to do the integrating of the videos.

“For instance,” he said, “ a live TV program hosted by an anchor can be simulated and made into a feature in which an animated figure replaces the person.”

Nowadays, Kinect is used in robotics too. “Before the invention of Kinect, an equivalent mechanism was used in robotics, based on image processing, image recognition and object recognition technology so as to give vision to robots. But the invention of Kinect has changed the entire concept. In next 2-3 years, we will witness a huge revolution in the usage of Kinect, which is the fastest selling game peripheral in the universe."

The Tamil Nadu-based geek had also developed a tablet on the lines of 'Aakash' and presented it before HRD minister Kapil Sibal. “When we showed him the tablet, which cost around $85, he showered praise on us. Later, we submitted the bid that lost out to 'Aakash', the $35 tablet developed by DataWind.”

“No doubt about the fact that 'Aakash' is going to be a huge hit in India, and I have great regards to those who developed it. But there are some shortcomings for the low-cost device. It has just 400 Mhz microprocessor, which means the speed of the device is too low. Ours is 800 Mhz, and is much faster than 'Aakash',” he said.

Ramaprasanna nurses a huge ambition deep in his mind. “I want to be an entrepreneur in future and have some plans in my mind. I would like to use my software skills to develop something for the common man.”