Xboxist

Inside Natal: 3D Sensor Details Revealed

When Microsoft's new motion sensing device launches during the 2010 Christmas holiday season, it will contain technology from a British engineering firm. The groundbreaking optical recognition technology that will be used to identify user input has been developed in partnership with PrimeSense. The company, which specializes in 3D sensing and recognition technologies, announced today that PrimeSense will be providing its components for use in Project Natal for the Xbox 360. Microsoft just announced the news of the collaboration today, which is somewhat surprising considering that the finished product is due later this year.

But PrimeSense already has some impressive innovation under its belt. The company's basic technology can not only sense motion in from side to side in 2-dimensions, but it can also sense depth as well.

The PrimeSensor Design is billed as a low-cost, camera device that can either sit on top of or next to a television screen or a monitor, or be integrated into them. The system generates realtime depth, color and audio data of the living room scene. It works in all room lighting conditions (whether in complete darkness or in a fully lit room). According tot he company, it does not require the user to wear or hold anything, does not require calibration and does not require computational resources from the host's processor.

This seems to answer some of our earlier concerns about the true performance of Microsoft's Natal.

"We've seen tremendous excitement and anticipation for the arrival of 'Project Natal' this year," said Ian Spillinger, Vice President of Xbox 360 hardware. "PrimeSense has delivered an important component to the technology, helping us deliver revolutionary controller-free entertainment experiences in the living room."

We're sure that the leadership from both companies are anxious to see how the technology performs when the system is ready to go live. We are certainly curious to try it ourselves!

The PrimeSensor device takes a series of images to establish the 3D depth in a living room scene.