🐬🐬 "Killer whale" is a misnomer. Orcas are actually dolphins! [*] 🐬🐬

This is a quick app to support an interactive art piece based on: https://codepen.io/diegoleme/details/rIokB

The installation was a parent orca shown on a large TV that followed a child orca, which was a stuffed animal that participants could move around. It was installed in a box truck for Marché Noir 2017.

My original plans were way more ambitious: I was going to have a dolphin and a couple of whales you could interact with, based on the 3D models in the "atlantis" screensaver. Unfortunately porting these models over to WebGL was not something I could do in the time available, and luckily I found the orca on codepen. It's still a marine mammal!

Requirements:

• Kinect 360, libfreenect, freenect Python libraries

Architecture:

Raw architecture PlantUML - can be ignored

rectangle laptop {
  rectangle webbrowser as "web browser"
  rectangle backend [
    backend
    (Python)
  ]
  rectangle budo [
    budo
    (builds and serves frontend)
  ]

}
rectangle kinect
rectangle TV
rectangle speaker

backend <--> kinect
webbrowser --> budo     : port 9966
webbrowser --> backend  : port 8888
laptop --> TV
laptop --> speaker

actor participant
hexagon orca
participant ..> orca     : manipulates
kinect ..> orca   : detects

Build:

# Kinect libraries for backend:
brew unpack libfreenect
mkdir build
ccmake ..
cd ../wrappers/python
sudo python setup.py install

# Frontend:
yarn

Run:

# Terminal 1:
./depth

# Terminal 2:
budo index.js --live

# To stop "depth":
killall python

Default Budo URL is http://172.16.49.1:9966/ - connect to this from a browser and maximize the browser window.

Footnote

Also I've worked on a tool called orca professionally, so I didn't want to use that name here!