Kinect for Windows SDK beta arrives

Stephen Withers
Friday, 17 June 2011 08:00

Your IT - Entertainment

Microsoft has released a Kinect for Windows software development kit - but it's only for non-commercial use at this stage.

Almost as soon as Microsoft's Kinect controller for the Xbox 360 appeared, people started working out how they could use it as an input device for general purpose computers. Part of the problem was that the hardware isn't especially sophisticated - instead the 'smarts' are implemented in software.

Now academics, enthusiasts and other developers of non-commercial software running under Windows can use Microsoft's free beta release of the Kinect for Windows SDK.

The SDK provides skeletal tracking for one or two people (allowing applications to be controlled through gestures), audio functions (including noise suppression, echo cancellation and sound source identification, plus integration with Windows' speech recognition API), and access to the raw data streams from the Kinect's depth sensor, colour camera, and microphone array.

The SDK requires Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010, and is available here.

"The Kinect for Windows SDK opens up a world of possibilities to developers who want to unleash the power of Kinect technology on Windows," said Anoop Gupta, distinguished scientist, Microsoft Research. "We can't wait to see what this community will create as we work together to build more natural, intuitive computing experiences."

The release of a commercial version of the SDK is planned for an unspecified date.