Microsoft Kinect SDK Released
The much rumoured SDK for Microsoft’s Kinect camera peripheral has been released today. The SDK allows developers to create applications using different codes; C++, C# and Visual Basic which runs on Microsoft Visual Studio. The SDK is currently not designed to create commercial products, however there is expected to be a future commercial release soon. The SDK can be downloaded from here and is only a relatively small file of 20MB. This is arguably just the first step for user generated content for Kinect, much of which could be more inspiring to gamers than the casual Kinect titles being pushed currently on the Xbox-360.
The About section from the download site has this to say about the SDK’s offerings:
- Raw sensor streamsAccess to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.
- Skeletal trackingThe capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.
- Advanced audio capabilitiesAudio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.
- Sample code and documentationThe SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.
- Easy installationThe SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets).
For more information on the Kinect SDK, head over to the official Microsoft Research site.
