Kinect alternatives?

#1

With Microsoft killing Kinect, I realized that it had always been in the back of my mind that it could be used with Poser and iClone for markerless motion capture. Well, at least one version of it could be used for this, the other(s?) only worked with the console.
Personally, I have no idea why they didn’t just hand this off to the PC division and continue to refine it as a mo-cap device. Anyway, with Kinect being discontinued, is there any other option for markerless mo-cap anywhere close to Kinect’s price range?

#2

If I’m not mistaken Intel also produces a camera that can see Z-depth. That’s basically all Kinect could do - create a so-so quality depthmap of what it is pointed at.

Ah, found the Intel camera: (Its only 149 Dollars to buy)

https://click.intel.com/intelr-realsensetm-depth-camera-d415.html

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/realsense-overview.html

This one uses stereo optics to do pretty much the same thing as Kinect - see Z-depth - so it too could probably be used for markerless motion capture.

Its just that Kinect was advertised far more widely due to it being an XBox accessory.

#3

how good is your hacking skills, if you look on YouTube you can find out how to buy a power supply and a A_B usb cable to run a kinect. Kinect for the xbox one can be gotten for $20 at Gamestop used if you hurry. The bad part is the kinect cable (it’s own usb-cable) that use to go for $39 in stores are all gone now, with a few showing up on line with people selling them for $250-$400. If anyone knows some one at Microsoft Dev maybe you could get one cheaper (and kindly remember old Mr D as I’m liking for one as well). But if you can handle some dismantling and soldering you maybe able to hack together a Kinect you can use.
Good luck - Mr D

#4

You really don’t want to base a long term project on a computer vision camera that is not being manufactured or sold anymore.

Cameras that can see Z-depth are very much in demand right now because everybody designing robots or self-driving vehicles that can “see the real world in 3D” needs depth-imaging to pull the design off.

The Intel camera I linked (and probably some others) are aimed at that market. You’ll probably also get a much better depth-map out of these than the badly ageing Kinect can produce.

Kinect was more of a depth-seeing toy camera for the XBox. Microsoft never did much with it beyond that because it didn’t make as much money as they expected.

#5

Possibly. All the hardware alternatives mean little without the requisite software support.

#6

There’s also the ZED (and the exciting ZED Mini).
Lots of different use cases for it.

Stereolabs ZED website:
https://www.stereolabs.com/

#7

Tara - stereo camera from e-con Systems.

Compared to the Kinect or the RealSense, Tara’s SDK is very lightweight, providing functions to get the disparity map between the left and right eyes, estimate depth at a given point, and set camera parameters such as auto exposure.

reference: https://stimulant.com/depth-sensor-shootout-2/#device12