Modified Kinect sensor lets wheelchair-bound people play motion games

Soon, wheelchair-bound people need not be left out of motion games, after researchers modified a Microsoft Kinect motion-sensing accessory and demonstrated it at a recent conference.

 

Kathrin Greling, a Ph.D. student at the University of Saskatchewan, said the modification she made would take into account the wheelchair's position and movement.

 

"If we were using the Kinect SDK in the traditional way then people would be sitting in one fixed location and using their hands and arms as input," she said at the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference, according to an article on PC World.

 

During the conference, one of the researchers sat in a wheelchair and swiveled it to the left and right to control a race car on screen, the PC World report said.

 

Greling said the research can potentially benefit not only children but adults who wish to use motion gaming as exercise.

 

In particular, she said this could benefit wheelchair-bound patients at nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

 

Wheelchair gestures?

 

Greling said she and her colleagues have so far "mapped the wheelchair movements onto commercially available games,” but they could go further.

 

She said she and her team want to see how a wheelchair can be used in games designed for people in wheelchairs.

 

“We think there is also a lot of design opportunity related to specific wheelchair gestures,” she added. — VC, GMA News