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South Korea's Live Park uses Kinect sensors and RFID to create an interactive 3D fantasy world

South Korea's Live Park uses Kinect sensors and RFID to create an interactive 3D fantasy world

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Microsoft's Kinect is being used to power Live Park, an interactive theme park in South Korea that allows visitors to use their expressions and gestures to control virtual avatars in a series of interactive 3D exhibits and installations.

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Live Park 4D Theme Park
Live Park 4D Theme Park

We've seen Microsoft's Kinect show up in a number of unexpected places, and now it's being used to power a 3D theme park in South Korea. Created by interactive company D'strict, Live Park consists of 65 attractions spread out over 7 stages; RFID-enabled bracelets track users as they move from exhibit to exhibit, while Kinect sensors allow their motion and expressions to control virtual avatars within the park's wall installations, holograms and panoramic 3D projection screens. Even better, at night the entire park turns into a dance club.

Built at a cost of $13 million — and able to house 3,000 visitors at any given time — Live Park is more of a free-roaming exhibit than a theme park in the traditional sense, but it's proven so successful since its December debut that D'strict is extending its run at South Korea's Kintex exhibition center. This isn't a one-off, either: D'strict will be licensing Live Park to additional partners, with plans for permanent facilities in China and Singapore already in the planning stages. As for those of us in the US, the company has partnered with a "Hollywood entertainment powerhouse," and in March is expected to announce plans to bring a version of Live Park to Los Angeles and Las Vegas.