Introduction
For my research at the Spatial Intelligence Lab, I have been exploring the capabilities of the Kinect V2. This IR sensor surpassed the game industry and is used in the academy. But as the device was launched in 2014, the tutorials that one can find on the Internet are outdated and are based on early technologies. There are some questions on the Internet about how to make them work nowadays.
During the Summer Semester of 2021, I had the opportunity to update the tutorials from the Kinect 2 for Windows Demo App as part of the exploration of depth cameras such as the Kinect V2, Azure Kinect, and Zed 2i to track bodies in closed environments.
I would like to take this chance to share with everyone this series of tutorials. They are based on the methodology of the mentioned Windows App developed for Windows 8.1. We will create a WPF application using Visual Studio 2019 and the Microsoft Kinect V2 libraries. I will drive you from the configuration of your development environment to the final applications.
All the pictures and tutorial texts are generated by myself, so if you use them, please give the credits to this work.
Goal
The goal of these tutorials are to make you familiar with the Kinect V2 code in 2021 by creating a WPF application. WPF means Windows Presentation Foundation, “a UI framework that is resolution-independent and uses a vector-based rendering engine”. The programming language for the exercises will be C#. Don’t worry too much if you are not familiar. If you know the basics of programming you should be able to understand the logic behind.
Requisites
To use these tutorials, you need:
- A Kinect V2 sensor
- A computer with the minimun requirements:
The recommended requirements to use the device connected to a computer are as follow:
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operative system | Windows 8.1 or higher |
| Processor | Intel Core I7 3.1 GHz or higher x64 |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Graphics driver | Graphics driver support for OpenGL 4.4 or DirectX 11.0 |
| Graphics card | NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 or equivalent |
| USB connector | USB 3.0 port this is very important |
| Additional | Along with the device, you should use an adapter for connecting the device directly to the PC |
- Follow the Installation and Configuration tutorial
- An understanding of object oriented programming
List of tutorials
- Installation and Configuration
- Opening the camera
- Infrared stream application
- Color stream application
- Multiframe Source: Infrared + Color + Depth streams application
- Skeleton tracking
- Body tracking application: showing trajectories
Links
- Microsoft 2015 tutorial series: the methodology follows this series of tutorials
- Github repository: my Github repository with the tutorials, Wiki and the complete code.
- Kinect V2 directory link repository: useful reference links
- Microsoft Kinect V2 SDK
Questions?
If you are interested in the same series for the Azure Kinect or the Zed 2i, let me know! :) Also, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact me on Twitter or LinkedIn as @violetasdev.
