Microsoft's Kinect is a motion sensing input device for the Xbox 360 and PCs. Combining video and depth cameras, the Kinect allows developers to create a touchless and immersive user experience through voice, movement and gesture control. In addition to an official Microsoft SDK for Windows PCs, OpenKinect's libfreenect SDK offers compatability with multiple operating systems and software languages.
Microsoft's Kinect is a motion sensing input device for the Xbox 360 and PCs. Originally developed for use with the Xbox 360 the Kinect has been opened up for use with Windows PCs by Microsoft's official Kinect for Windows SDK, and for additional platforms though OpenKinect's libfreenect SDK. Using a combination of video and depth cameras, as well as a microphone array, the Kinect hardware provides developers the means for creating a touchless and immersive user experience through voice, movement and gesture control.
The Kinect hardware does not inherently perform any tracking or recognition operations, leaving all such processing to software. Skeleton tracking is generally handled by the SDK (as with Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK and the OpenKinect SDK) with gesture recognition left to the developer, though multiple libraries exist to aid in recognition of gestures. In addition, speech recognition is performed by external SDKs such as the Microsoft Speech Platform.
