Basic Kinect questions: Which one should I buy?

General TouchDesigner Discussion
1

Hi there everybody!

I was watching a tutorial today and at certain point, they incorporated Kinect and it was pretty interesting. Nowadays, I think that it should be pretty easy to get one, specially given the fact that there are a lot of them on second hand market, even in packs like Xbox + Kinect + Games, but I’m sure that they will sell only the kinect for sure.

I want to know what kind of Kinect should I buy and how difficult it is to begin using it with Touchdesigner. I know there are some specifics operators, but what worry me the most is the drivers issue. I’ve also heard that only certain types of Kinect are working on Windows (Kinect 2, maybe?).

Could you please throw some light on this thing? Which one should I buy? Does it worth it? How much would be a reasonable price to get one of this?

Thank you very much, everybody! :slight_smile:

2

All the kinects are working on windows, quickly some difference:
Kinect 1 : need a connector to wire it to computer (easy to find around 15$) and the 1.8 MS SDK
Kinect 2 : need a connector to wire it to computer (easy to find around 50$) and the 2.0 MS SDK
Kinect Azure : no connector, no SDK but more expansive.
All are very easy to use with TD on Windows. There is many informations on forums.

3

Thanks a lot, Jacques. It’s not the first time that you solve a question from me, so thanks once again.

I’ve finally found a frined of mine who has the Kinetic for PC. The one which doesn’t have the XBOX logo on the front. I assume that’s the one that is called Azure (please, correct me if I’m wrong). I’ve seen that there’s an specific operator for that precise Kinect model, so I guess that’s the operator that I should use when I get this camera, and not the other Kinetic operators. I hope they have the same specifications, and as you said, that I don’t need to install any driver for this model.

Thanks again, Jacques. Cheers!

EDIT: I’ve just seen that Azure Kinect is a completely different camera. This is the one that I will get:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/computerhoy.com/noticias/hardware/asi-es-kinect-20-windows-pc-10937%3Famp

Could you please tell me what do I need to install in order to use this one?

4

Hello,
This one is the Kinect 2. You need the developer connector (you can find some copies on internet for 50$).
You need the Microsoft Kinect 2.0 SDK
Youu will fing a Kinect Top (with color, depth and point cloud image) and a Kinect Chop (with skeleton data)
You will find many tutorial on how to use it in TD. You can only use one for each computer and you need a relible USB3 connection, normaly with a maximum of 10m with very good cables.