Kinect SDK for Windows Released

With Xbox Kinect having unleashed a new community of developers working on homebrew applications utilizing the motion-controller, Microsoft has finally released the software development kit for Windows. This will allow enthusiasts to develop non-commercial applications, without having to resort to hacks and workarounds that enable to sensor for Windows PCs. More information about the SDK is included after the jump.

According to Microsoft, the SDK contains the following features:

• Raw sensor streams – Access to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.
• Skeletal tracking – The capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.
• Advanced audio capabilities – Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.
• Sample code and documentation – The SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.
• Easy installation – The SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets).

At this time, a software development kit aimed at developers of commercial titles for the PC is not available. Microsoft has not made a statement whether such a SDK would be made available at a later point in time.