Scan Space Now, Print it Later // Meet Kyle McDonald before the MakerBot Make-A-Thon

Kyle McDonald reaches into 3D virtual space, represented by a massive point cloud, through his Kinect code.If you've read our event listing for the MakerBot Make-A-Thon, you might wonder what MakerBot's hacker/artist-in-residence, Kyle McDonald, is actually doing: "turning the Xbox Kinect into a 3D Scanner."

The XBox Kinect is essentially a depth-sensing camera, and has been an incredible, game-changing tool for hackers and developers.

As Kyle says in this Create Digital Motion interview, 3D scanning and printing has the power to change sculpture, sound, photography experience design...basically the very way we live.

Some people are most interested in the raw data, the inherent glitches, the aesthetic of 3D scanning. Sculptors will record and build unusual models of spaces informed by 3D scanning, spatial mash-ups will be standard fare.

Sound artists and musicians will use the device to control standard audio parameters, or use the values as input parameters to complex synthesis environments and for controlling spatialized sound with large speaker arrays.

Photographers will work with long exposures in combination with 3D-reactive projection to augment layers of the space over time.

Interaction designers will invent new gestures and modes of interaction specifically targeted at the strengths of the sensor.

Interactive art will experience a minor renaissance as a variety of tasks that were previously very difficult become very simple (e.g., tracking someone against a background that is the same color, or even tracking someone against a moving background).

Intrigued? This is all in the very near future, but you can experience it first at 3rd Ward. Come get 3D-scanned yourself on May 14th. Kyle will be there to scan you in his 3D Photo Booth, then print you using the MakerBot. RSVP and learn more about MakerBot here.