Kinect for Windows SDK ready for Download – Microsoft Research
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 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).This SDK is designed for non-commercial purposes only; a commercial version
is expected to be available at a later date.