The IR projector is the device that Kinect uses for projecting the IR rays that are used for computing the depth data. The IR projector, which from the outside looks like a common camera, is a laser emitter that constantly projects a pattern of structured IR dots at a wavelength around of 830 nm (patent US20100118123, Prime Sense Ltd.). This light beam is invisible to human eyes (that typically respond to wavelengths from about 390 nm to 750 nm) except for a red bright dot in the center of emitter.

The pattern is composed by 3 x 3 subpatterns of 211 x 165 dots (for a total of 633 x 495 dots). In each subpattern, one spot is much brighter than all the others.

As the dotted light (spot) hits an object, the pattern becomes distorted, and this distortion is analyzed by the depth camera in order to estimate the distance between the sensor and the object itself.

Infrared pattern

The depth camera is a (traditional) monochrome CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) camera that is fitted with an IR-pass filter (which is blocking the visible light). The depth camera is the device that Kinect uses for capturing the depth data.

The depth camera is the sensor returning the 3D coordinates (x, y, z) of the scene as a stream. The sensor captures the structured light emitted by the IR projector and the light reflected from the objects inside the scene. All this data is converted in to a stream of frames. Every single frame is processed by the PrimeSense chip that produces an output stream of frames. The output resolution is upto 640 x 480 pixels. Each pixel, based on 11 bits, can represent 2048 levels of depth.

The following table lists the distance ranges:

The following figure is composed of two frames extracted from the depth image stream: the one on the left represents a scene without any interference. The one on the right is stressing how interference can reduce the quality of the scene. In this frame, we introduced an infrared source that is overlapping the Kinect's infrared pattern.

Depth images

The RGB camera is similar to a common color webcam, but unlike a common webcam, the RGB camera hasn't got an IR-cut filter. Therefore in the RGB camera, the IR is reaching the CMOS. The camera allows a resolution upto 1280 x 960 pixels with 12 images per second speed. We can reach a frame rate of 30 images per second at a resolution of 640 x 480 with 8 bits per channel producing a Bayer filter output with a RGGBD pattern. This camera is also able to perform color flicker avoidance, color saturation operations, and automatic white balancing. This data is utilized to obtain the details of people and objects inside the scene.

The following monochromatic figure shows the infrared frame captured by the RGB camera:

IR frame from the RGB camera

The Kinect cameras have a horizontal field of view of 57.5 degrees and a vertical field of view of 43.5 degrees. It is possible to increase the interaction space by adjusting the vertical tilt of the sensor by +27 and -27 degrees. The tilt motor can shift the Kinect head's angle upwards or downwards.

The Kinect also contains a three-axis accelerometer configured for a 2g range (g is the acceleration value due to gravity) with a 1 to 3 degree accuracy. It is possible to know the orientation of the device with respect to gravity reading the accelerometer data.

The following figure shows how the field of view angle can be changed when the motor is tilted:

Field of view angle

The microphone array consists of four microphones that are located in a linear pattern in the bottom part of the device with a 24-bit Analog to Digital Converter (ADC). The captured audio is encoded using Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) with a sampling rate of 16 KHz and a 16-bit depth. The main advantages of this multi-microphones configuration is an enhanced Noise Suppression, an Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), and the capability to determine the location and the direction of an audio source through a beam-forming technique.

In this paragraph we review the software architecture defining the SDK. The SDK is a composite set of software libraries and tools that can help us to use the Kinect-based natural input. The Kinect senses and reacts to real-world events such as audio and visual tracking. The Kinect and its software libraries interact with our application via the NUI libraries, as detailed in the following figure:

Interaction diagram

Here, we define the software architecture diagram where we encompass the structural elements and the interfaces by which the Kinect for Windows SDK 1.6 is composed, as well as the behavior as specified in collaboration with those elements:

Kinect for Windows SDK 1.6 software architecture diagram

The following list provides the details for the information shown in the preceding figure:

The stream of color image data is handled by the Microsoft.Kinect.ColorImageFrame. A single frame is then composed of color image data. This data is available in different resolutions and formats. You may use only one resolution and one format at a time.

The following table lists all the available resolutions and formats managed by the Microsoft.Kinect.ColorImageFormat struct:

The X8R8G8B8 format is a 32-bit RGB pixel format, in which 8 bits are reserved for each color.

Raw YUV is a 16-bit pixel format. While using this format, we can notice the video data has a constant bit rate, because each frame is exactly the same size in bytes.

In case we need to increase the quality of the default conversion done by the SDK from Bayer to RGB, we can utilize the Bayer data provided by the Kinect and apply a customized conversion optimized for our central processing units (CPUs) or graphics processing units (GPUs).

In the SDK 1.6 we can customize the camera settings for optimizing and adapting the color camera for our environment (when we need to work in a low light or a brightly lit scenario, adapt contrast, and so on). To manage the code the Microsoft.Kinect.ColorCameraSettings class exposes all the settings we want to adjust and customize.

In order to improve the external camera calibration we can use the IR stream to test the pattern observed from both the RGB and IR camera. This enables us to have a more accurate mapping of coordinates from one camera space to another.

The data provided by the depth stream is useful in motion control computing for tracking a person's motion as well as identifying background objects to ignore.

The depth stream is a stream of data where in each single frame the single pixel contains the distance (in millimeters) from the camera itself to the nearest object.

The depth data stream Microsoft.Kinect.DepthImageStream by the Microsoft.Kinect.DepthImageFrame exposes two distinct types of data:

The following table defines the characteristics of the depth image frame:

The Kinect runtime processes depth data to identify up to six human figures in a segmentation map. The segmentation map is a bitmap of Microsoft.Kinect.DepthImagePixel, where the PlayerIndex property identifies the closest person to the camera in the field-of-view. In order to obtain player segmentation data, we need to enable the skeletal stream tracking.

Microsoft.Kinect.DepthImagePixel has been introduced in the SDK 1.6 and defines what is called the "Extended Depth Data", or full depth information: each single pixel is represented by a 16-bit depth and a 16-bit player index.

Thanks to the microphone array, the Kinect provides an audio stream that we can control and manage in our application for audio tracking, voice recognition, high-quality audio capturing, and other interesting scenarios.

By default, Kinect tracks the loudest audio input. Having said that, we can certainly direct programmatically the microphone arrays (towards a given location, or following a tracked skeleton, and so on).

DirectX Media Object (DMO) is the building block used by Kinect for processing audio streams.

In managed applications, the Microsoft.Kinect.KinectAudioSource class (exposed in the KinectSensor.AudioSource property) is the key software architecture component concerning the audio stream. Using the Microsoft.Kinect.INativeAudioWrapper class wraps the DirectX Media Object (DMO), which is a common Windows component for a single-channel microphone.

The KinectAudioSource class is not limited to wrap the DMO, but it introduces additional abilities such as:

Audio input range

In addition to the data provided by the depth stream, we can use those provided by the skeleton tracking to enhance the motion control computing capabilities of our applications in regards to recognizing people and following their actions.

We define the skeleton as a set of positioned key points. A detailed skeleton contains 20 points in normal mode and 10 points in seated mode, as shown in the following figure. Every single point of the skeleton highlights a joint of the human body.

Thanks to the depth (IR) camera, Kinect can recognize up to six people in the field of view. Of these, up to two can be tracked in detail.

The stream of skeleton data is maintained by the Microsoft.Kinect.SkeletonStream class and the Microsoft.Kinect.SkeletonFrame class. The skeleton data is exposed for each single point in the 3D space by the Microsoft.Kinect.SkeletonPoint struct. In any single frame handled by the skeleton stream we can manage up to six skeletons using an array of the Microsoft.Kinect.Skeleton class.

Skeleton in normal and seated mode