SKILL BUILDER KINECT HACKING
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DRIVERS + SDK
libfreenect
Open source drivers
developed by the
OpenKinect community. First drivers
published for Kinect.
OpenNI, NITE, & SensorKinect
Natural interaction framework and
drivers published by PrimeSense,
manufacturer of the chips inside
Kinect.
Kinect for
Windows SDK
Official Microsoft
drivers for Kinect.
Pros: Many language
wrappers and support
for Windows, Linux,
and Mac.
Pros: Support for Windows, Linux,
and Mac. Open source except for
skeleton tracking and gestures, which
are provided by NITE, a closed source
component.
Pros: Robust
skeleton tracking.
Cons: Requires
Windows 7.
Cons: Does not have
skeleton tracking
built in.
Cons: Multiple components to install
from different sources. No microphone
array or tilt motor support.
recently. Their pros and cons are summarized
in the table above.
For this article, I’m using Kinect for
Windows SDK, which requires a PC running
Windows 7. (You can do everything described
below with other Kinect drivers, but you’ll
need to translate the sample code into your
own language and SDK of choice.) The Kinect
SDK has a non-commercial use license during
the beta, and a commercially licensed version
is currently under development for release
in early 2012.
If you already have libfreenect or OpenNI
installed and you want to install the Kinect
SDK, you must first plug in Kinect and un-install the previous drivers. To do this, open
Windows Device Manager, right-click the
Kinect Camera, Audio, and Motor devices, and
then check the “Delete the driver software”
checkbox, and confirm by clicking OK. Then
launch Add or Remove Programs, and un-install any other driver installation packages
listed that have Kinect in the name.
We’ll write an application in 2 languages:
XAML and C#. The visuals and controls are
designed in XAML, a markup language for
Windows interfaces that’s based on the XML
To create this application, we’ll use
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express, which
is the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio
2010, a development environment that supports C#, XAML, Visual Basic .NET, and other
languages. (If you have the full Visual Studio,
you can also develop in that, of course.)
To get set up, download and install
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express from
microsoft.com/express/downloads and the
Kinect SDK Beta 2 from
kinectforwindows.org.
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the
SDK depending on your edition of Windows
7; if you’re unsure, open the Start menu and
right-click on Computer, click Properties, and
check whether the System Type line says
“64-bit.” If you want to do voice-recognition
applications, then there are a few additional
components you also need to install, but
for now this is all we need.
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