Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK

Abstract

It is customary to preface a work with an explanation of the authors aim, why he wrote the book, and the relationship in which he believes it to stand to other earlier or contemporary treatises on the same subject. In the case of a technical work, however, such an explanation seems not only superfluous but, in view of the nature of the subject-matter, even inappropriate and misleading. In this sense, a technica book is similar to a book about anatomy. We are quite sure that we do not as yet possess the subject- matter itself, the content of the science, simply by reading around it, but must in addition exert ourselves to know the particulars by examining real cadavers and by performing real experiments. Technical knowledge requires a similar exertion in order to achieve any level of competence. Besides the readers desire to be hands-on rather than heads-down, a book about Kinect development offers some additional challenges due to its novelty. The Kinect seemed to arrive exnihilo in November of 2010 and attempts to interface with the Kinect technology, originally intended only to be used with the XBOX gaming system, began almost immediately. The populari ty of these efforts to hack the Kinect appears to have taken even Microsoft unawares. Several frameworks for interpreting the raw feeds from the Kinect sensor have been released.