Kinect hacked to build 3D maps of reality

By Brenna Hillier

Kinect hacker extraordinaire Martin Szarski has built a homebrew analogue of Google Maps’ street view in full 3D, using a Kinect and a mobile phone. What did you do this weekend?

Kinect Hacks writes that Szarski popped a Kinect on his car to capture images and depth, while his Nexus One tracked GPS co-ordinates in order to put the data back together.

The result is an admittedly fuzzy but recognisable 3D re-creation of a local street. Amazing.

If you’re the deeply techy type you can replicate this at home – Szarski’s made the code he used freely available, and you can find details on his blog. Now, if we can just find some way to hook it into Minecraft…

Thanks, Joystiq.