Kinect Available to Developers
Microsoft has just released the Kinect API for developers to
get their hands on the device development. The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a
programming toolkit for application developers. It enables the academic and
enthusiast communities easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft
Kinect device connected to computers running the Windows 7 operating system.
The Kinect for Windows SDK beta includes drivers, rich APIs
for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking, installation documents, and
resource materials. It provides Kinect capabilities to developers who build
applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio
2010.
This SDK includes the following features:
Raw sensor streams
Access 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 tracking
The 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 capabilities
Audio 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 documentation
The 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 installation
The 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).
This SDK is designed for non-commercial purposes only; a
commercial version is expected to be available at a later date.
Download
Kinect here