Today, Microsoft has released the first beta of Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit. The SDK, also described as the “starter kit” is available for download in both 32-bit an 64-bit versions and includes Kinect drivers for Windows, sample codes and APIs. Microsoft wants to encourage development and creation of new academic and entertainment experiences by researchers and enthusiasts using the Xbox 360‘s motion sensor on the Windows platform. A commercial Kinect for Windows SDK is also in the pipeline, says a Microsoft representative.
Anoop Gupta, Microsoft Research Scientist said:
”This is our first step in providing you access. We’re excited about it.“
“This is a non-commercial SDK, I think although our intent is to release a commercial SDK, we’re not making any announcements about it today.”
The starter kit supports the following:
- Robust Skeletal Tracking for high-performance capabilities that track the skeleton image of one or two persons moving within the Kinect field of view
- Advanced Audio Capabilities, including four-element microphone array with sophisticated acoustic noise and echo cancellation for great audio; beam formation to identify the current sound source and integration with the Windows speech recognition API also included
- XYZ depth camera for standard color camera stream access and depth data that indicates the distance of the object from the Kinect camera
Download Kinect for Windows SDK (32-bit)
Download Kinect for Windows SDK (64-bit)
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[via Winrumors]
