Programming the Kinect

Once the Kinects have been properly configured to plug into a laptop, they can be used to write programs. The first time a Kinect is plugged into a computer with the Kinect SDK installed, the laptop will attempt to install drivers for the Kinect, which may take a few minutes. This is confusing for anyone trying to use the Kinect - as it will look like it is not working until the drivers are finished installing. Indeed the team thought many of the Kinects to be broken for this exact reason.

In the Kinect Browser downloaded with the Kinect SDK is a Configuration Verifier tool. Running this will verify that your laptop has the necessary requirements to use Kinect, and that the Kinect is connected to and recognised by the laptop, and that information is being received from the Kinect. Once all of the checks of the verifier are green, the Kinect can be used in programs.

Kinect SDK

Red Removal-Microsoft Visual Studio
The Kinects can be programmed using C# or C++. We decided to use C# due to its similarities to Java, a language we all knew well. In addition we also knew there was an equality of scope for Kinect programming through either language. In order to learn about how to program the Kinect we studied the example code which is supplied with the Kinect SDK. These formed the basis for being able to develop algorithms to manipulate the data which is supplied by the Kinect. We used Visual Studio as an environment to develop the prototype due to its testing and deployment ease as well as it being the suggested environment by the Kinect producers.