A research report submitted to the faculty of Engineering and the built environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering. Johannesburg, August 2016 / There has been much interest in using the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect cameras for visual servo control applications. It is a relatively cheap device with expected shortcomings. This work contributes to the practical considerations of using the Kinect for visual servo control applications. A comprehensive characterisation of the Kinect is synthesised from existing literature and results from a nonlinear calibration procedure. The Kinect reduces computational overhead on image processing stages, such as pose estimation or depth estimation. It is limited by its 0.8m to 3.5m practical depth range and quadratic depth resolution of 1.8mm to 35mm, respectively. Since the Kinect uses an infra-red (IR) projector, a class one laser, it should not be used outdoors, due to IR saturation, and objects belonging to classes of non- IR-friendly surfaces should be avoided, due to IR refraction, absorption, or specular reflection. Problems of task stability due to invalid depth measurements in Kinect depth maps and practical depth range limitations can be reduced by using depth map preprocessing and activating classical visual servoing techniques when Kinect-based approaches are near task failure. / MT2017

There is a growing interest in bringing online and streaming content to the television. Gaming platforms such as the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii are at the center of this digital convergence; platforms for accessing new media services. This presents a number of interface challenges, as controllers designed for gaming have to be adapted to accessing online content. We conducted a user study examining the limitations and affordances of novel game controllers in an interactive TV (iTV) context and compared them to "second display" approaches using tablets. We looked at task completion times, accuracy and user satisfaction across a number of tasks and found that the Wiimote is most liked and performed best in almost all tasks. Participants found the Kinect difficult to use, which led to slow performance and high error rates. We discuss challenges and opportunities for the future convergence of game consoles and iTV. We also analyzed the usability of the interfaces themselves with respect to each device. Accuracy ratings and context of task type were used to determine ideal component attributes such as button size and spacing. Additional strategies like snapping cursor to buttons in the case of small targets were also suggested. Paying attention to the strengths and weaknesses of each input method, we put forth a set of design recommendations for future iTV interfaces that leverage novel input devices. / Graduation date: 2012