Researchers at the The Korea National University of Arts in South Korea have been doing research in to digital puppetry and developed a simple digital puppetry system using a Mac, Macromedia’s Director and a webcam. The system allows a user to control an onscreen puppet by wearing either special gloves or placing color chips on their fingers and placing their hands inside a small box with curtains. The movement of the user’s hands is tracked by a webcam and converted in to data used to control a digital puppet in Director.

So far the results from the system are limited and crude, but it’s inspiring to see someone designing a system like this using off-the-shelf hardware and software. You can see two samples movies the research team has created here and here.

Links via titereblog.