Looks like Microsoft wants to make it a seamless experience for developers to create titles for its motion sensing device. Microsoft has released the Kinect for Windows SDK which allows users to exploit the device’s depth sensing, human motion tracking as well as its voice recognition and object recognition features on Windows 7.
The Kinect which can be used along with C++, C# or Visual Basic, accesses raw data streams from depth sensor, color camera sensor and four-element microphone array to take advantage of low-level streams coming from the Kinect sensor. The skeletal tracking feature of the device will proffer developers opportunities to develop gesture-driven applications.
Anoop Gupta, distinguished scientist, Microsoft Research, revealed, “The Kinect for Windows SDK opens up a world of possibilities to developers who want to unleash the power of Kinect technology on Windows. We can’t wait to see what this community will create as we work together to build more natural, intuitive computing experiences.”
Audio processing attributes of the SDK suppress noise, annul echoes, form beams to identify current sound source and incorporate themselves with Windows speech recognition API. The SDK occupies less than 100MB of space on the system. A documentation of built-in help files and detailed walkthroughs for samples is available along with the SDK.
A definite release date of the Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK has not yet been announced but its beta version is available for free download on the Microsoft website.