Exploring the Kinect Drivers

If you've been following the news on the Kinect or seen some of the different systems available, you've probably heard about a few of the drivers we're going to discuss. While most would do a fine job at teaching you how to use a depth sensor in your code, we're more interested in the best option.

OpenNI

OpenNI is the “industry-led, not-for-profit organization” that publishes the middleware for the Kinect, as well as a basic driver. Of the organizations involved, the two key players are Willow Garage and PrimeSense. OpenNI works seamlessly with PCL and even has a workable middleware that handles things like skeletonization. So why not use OpenNI? Sadly, the code is not open source, and the lack of support is worrying.