Towards Tattoo Previewing and Other Augmented/Mixed Reality Applications with Microsoft Kinect

As tattooing becomes more popular, so too does tattoo removal. Removal is painful, expensive, and not always effective. To avoid tattooing that customers will later regret, potential customers could use augmented/mixed reality to preview tattoo designs. This paper explores technical tools and methods using computer vision to overlay a digital image, like a tattoo design, on top of frames from a live video feed of the user’s body. Using an RGB camera and depth camera, in this case the Microsoft Kinect, body position and volumetric data are captured. Two methods are presented for using this data for tattoo preview along with the methods’ pros, cons, and state of development. This project was developed by and for high school students and educators to bridge the gap between secondary students and interesting new technology previously reserved for university-level studies.