How can I get an approximate upper body volume from the Kinect skeleton?

Question

I want to do a fitting room app using the Kinect. Since I need to measure the player clothing size (S, M, L, XL) I must get the player's upper body "approximation" mass only using its skeleton (not using depth data). I don't need a very precise calculation.

Answer 1

Examine the length of the bones by calculating the distance between the relevant upper-body joints:

• SHOULDER_LEFT
• SHOULDER_CENTER
• SHOULDER_RIGHT
• SPINE
• HIP_LEFT
• HIP_CENTER
• HIP_RIGHT

For example, two of the most relevant features to calculate are likely related to the user's height - the distance between SHOULDER_CENTER and SPINE joints, and the distance between SPINE and HIP_CENTER joints.

I suggest using Kinect Studio to store recordings of users and classify each recording according to the user's clothing size. With this data, you should be able to iterate on an algorithm (assuming it's feasible to approximate this accurately enough using only the skeleton data).

(As a side note, to do this more accurately, you'll probably need the depth data and 3D scanning. For example, there is an existing company called Styku that has a related Kinect product that does 3D body scanning.)