Kinect Open Source Driver Released for PC

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Another Kinect driver has appeared, this time as open source and available to the public.

Earlier this week, a video appeared showing that AlexP of the NUI Group had "hacked" Microsoft's Kinect, granting full control of the motion-sensing device on the PC. Microsoft followed-up with an explanation that it wasn't necessarily a "hack," but rather merely someone had developed unsupported drivers for the Windows-based platform.

Now there are additional drivers developed for Kinect, this time from Hector Martin of Marconsoft. However unlike AlexP--who supposedly has no intention of making his drivers open source--Martin has released his Kinect drivers (Linux?) as open source and are now available for public use, located here.

"Horribly hacky first take at a Kinect Camera driver," says the README file. "Does RGB and Depth. Main.c implements a simple OpenGL driver. Hopefully it should be mostly self-explanatory... You pretty much just open the USB device, call cams_init(dev, depthimg, rgbimg), and your depthimg and rgbimg callbacks get called as libusb processes events."

The drivers are (possibly) the result of a lucrative $2000 bounty set by Adafruit for anyone who can provide open source drivers for Microsoft Kinect. Although AlexP of the NUI Group was considered as the first, the drivers weren't made public, so the reward may land in Martin's lap.

UPDATE: Engadget reports that the NUI Group will release an SDK and Windows driver as open source once they achieve $10K in donations.

Kevin Parrish
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tommysch
    In the PC community those are called drivers. If it was a iKinect it would be considered a hack and punishable by death.
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    Engadget reports that the NUI Group will release an SDK and Windows driver as open source once they achieve $10K in donations.

    How greedy of them to ask for donations like that. If they won't release the drivers, someone else will, and they'll do it for free
    Reply
  • jskilnyk
    I see a lot of possibilities with this device on the PC. However, Microsoft may release their own official drivers if it becomes popular enough.

    I'm wondering why the first guy didn't release the drivers. Maybe Microsoft got to him first. lol
    Reply
  • hellwig
    Engadget reports that the NUI Group will release an SDK and Windows driver as open source once they achieve $10K in donations.
    Ah, so blackmail is the game, eh?

    Question, how many people are going to be able to take advantage of these drivers? All they do is provide an interface to interpret the output of the kinect device. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that still leaves the biggest part of the problem, decoding that output into human gestures and turning those gestures into control actions. Microsoft spent millions developing the software to run Kinect, they probably spent nothing developing the actual hardware and XBox drivers. At this point, we still have that same nothing. We still need the human recognition software before we'll be controlling our computers with our bodies.
    Reply
  • abswindows7
    With all the equipment he's go it means he has money, he could hire a cleaner at least before posting online ...
    Reply
  • killerclick
    I don't know what would be the point of this device on the PC. Seriously, I can't think of one use for it.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    ''A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.''
    Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 12
    Reply
  • @killerclick I'd imagine the HTPC developers and media center mods would be all over having a kinect added to their system.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    true_magician@killerclick I'd imagine the HTPC developers and media center mods would be all over having a kinect added to their system.
    To do what? :)
    Reply
  • zak_mckraken
    Forced donation in order for a job to be done is called a wage. Or blackmail! ;)
    Reply