Kinect hack allows for 'intelligent healing' massage
NYU interactive tech designer Jason Stephens uses a video projector, a Kinect, and the OpenKinect Libraries programming tools to trace the motions of a massage therapist for a light display "force field."
Calling all massage therapists who want to help clients connect to their "energy fields," or who simply need a little stimulation to stay inspired in the middle of a long work day: The Flow Field 2 is here.
New York University grad student Jason Stephens has combined a video projector, Kinect, and OpenKinect Libraries programming tools to follow the massage therapist's "flow field" (aka movements), beaming the output onto the client's body in a colorful guide.
The project, called Intelligent Healing Spaces, points on its home page to a recent Oxford Journal of Rheumatology study excerpt:
There is increasing evidence that drug-free illusion therapies can be beneficial for the amelioration of chronic pain, particularly so for conditions in which some of the pain is thought to have a cortical origin...If cortical misrepresentation of body parts contributes to pain, then manipulating the appearance of those body parts might be a useful tool in the reduction of pain.
Actual therapeutic value has yet to be proven, and the client would require some kind of mirror to be able to see what is going on back there, but either way, at least the massage therapist should be having a good show.