Kinect v1 sdk questions for use

frankr2994 · September 26, 2020

Just brainstorming here anyone that's played with Kinect for windows may be able to answer. I'm going to be setting up another automotive alignment machine. The cameras are on a motorized post so you raise the car on the rack and then raise the cameras to the correct height. I would like to use a first gen Kinect to look at my camera targets on the vehicle wheels and have software written to automatically press the hot keys to raise and lower the cameras based on where the targets are in the kinects field of view. Is this something achievable? It will have to work with win 7 32bit. Like I said just thinking out loud. I have not bought a Kinect or downloaded the sdk.

October 2, 2020

The Kinect V1 is less accurate than the XBox one kinect & is very rare. I think it's more expensive than an xbox 1 kinect & windows adapter.

It might be smarter to use image analysis with a normal camera.

frankr2994 · October 3, 2020

Any software recommendations for setting up what I need then? I don't have a problem buying a camera I did find my old 360 Kinect down in my basement lol.

GoodBytes · October 3, 2020

I think using Kinect (although I would go with the v2 (XBox One) Kinect, as is vastly superior), for a proof or concept.

However, for production use, you'll need to switch that with actual, certified equipment. When I worked with Kinect 3-4 years ago, I recall reading up on similar systems, of course, much more expensive. Worth a look again.

frankr2994 · October 4, 2020

No production use here. Anything I deal with will get done twice at the most. I'm always setting up equipment for the shop I'm at or a friend's shop be it automotive or machine shop. I set up random stuff and usually just don't leave well enough alone. Helps me learn different things. And if it matters the quality of the camera is almost irrelevant. It needs to see a large target with reflective dots from approx 10 feet. I think even the worst camera would be able to pick that up without issue and be able to distinguish it from it's surrounding. So either the Kinect I have with the PC usb cable adapter or just some tiny usb cmos camera board I don't really care it really comes down to writing a program that I can use to recognize the target and press ctrl + alt + up or down arrow to move the actual alignment cameras up and down to follow the car on the lift. This was actually a real feature on this machine it just wasn't optioned as such. You could originally buy it with a 3rd camera and place a standalone target attached to the lift vs on the car so the camera system would follow the car up and down in the lift. I'm just trying to replicate this cheaply due to adding a snap on camera and different usb motor control board will run about 1600 dollars. That's more than what we paid for the used system.