Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK beta is now available

Microsoft Research has released Kinect for Windows SDK Beta, to encourage academic researchers and enthusiasts to visit http://research.microsoft.com to download the free SDK and access community resources and general information. The combined creativity of Microsoft with the academic research and enthusiast communities will lead to new experiences that will revolutionize our relationship with computers.

The SDK is designed to empower a growing community of developers, academic researchers and enthusiasts to create new experiences that include depth sensing, human motion tracking, and voice and object recognition using Kinect technology on Windows 7.

The Kinect for Windows SDK, which works with Windows 7, includes drivers, rich APIs for Raw Sensor Streams, natural user interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. The SDK provides Kinect capabilities to developers building applications with C++, C# or Visual Basic using Microsoft®Visual Studio 2010.

Features of the SDK include the following:

• Raw Sensor Streams – Developers have access to raw data streams from depth sensor, color camera sensor and the four-element microphone array. These will allow them to build upon the low-level streams generated by the Kinect sensor.
• Skeletal Tracking – The SDK has the capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view, making it possible to create gesture-driven applications.
• Advanced Audio Capabilities – Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.
• Ease of installation – The SDK quickly installs in a standard way for Windows 7 with no complex configuration required and a complete installer size of 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.
• Extensive documentation – The SDK includes more than 100 pages of high-quality technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.

Microsoft intends to release a commercial version of the SDK at a later date; we will keep you informed on the availability of that version. The Kinect for Windows SDK can be downloaded today at no cost for development of noncommercial applications at http://research.microsoft.com/kinectsdk.