CONSTRUCTION OF A SOMATOSENSORY INTERACTIVE SYSTEM BASED ON COMPUTER VISION AND AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNIQUES USING THE KINECT DEVICE FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Abstract

A somatosensory interactive system based on computer vision and augmented reality (AR) techniques using the Kinect device is proposed, on which a game of harvesting three kinds of fruit can be played for food and agricultural education. The Kinect is used to capture users’ motion images, the Unity3D is used as the game engine, and the Kinect SDK is used for developing programs, to implement the tasks of face detection and tracking, hand-gesture recognition, and body-model matching and tracking involved in fruit-harvesting activities. AR-based photos of the harvest result can be taken and downloaded as souvenirs. The system was exhibited and observations of the users’ performances as well as interviews with experts and the users were conducted. The collected opinions were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the system, reaching the following conclusions: 1) the interactive experience of using this system is simple and intuitive; 2) the use of body movements for man-machine interaction is given positive reviews; 3) the introduction of somatosensory interactive education can arouse participants’ interest, achieving the effect of edutainment; and 4) the experience of taking commemorative photos can achieve the publicity and promotion effect of food and agricultural education through sharing on social media.