What is the difference between OpenNI and OpenKinect?

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Hossein picture Hossein · May 22, 2011 · Viewed 20.2k times · Source

I am considering using Kinect in one my projects, but I am totally lost between all the libraries. Don't know what is what exactly. Most importantly I am reading stuff about OpenNI and OpenKinect. But don't know their relation/differences. PS. I am using Ubuntu or Mac.

Answer

David Scherba picture David Scherba · May 24, 2011

OpenKinect is a community of people, not a library. The OpenKinect community releases the libfreenect Kinect driver. libfreenect and OpenNI+SensorKinect are two competing, opensource libraries/drivers. libfreenect (Apache 2.0 or GPLv2) derives from the initial, reverse-engineered/hacked Kinect driver whereas OpenNI+SensorKinect is derived from open sourced (LGPL) PrimeSense code.

Both projects work on Windows, Linux (Ubuntu), and Mac OS X. Both projects allow you to access color and depth images from the camera. The projects are not compatible and they can not be used simultaneously.

Differences between the libraries are motor control (libfreenect has it, OpenNI+SensorKinect doesn't), and integration with the NITE middleware for higher-level NUI support (OpenNI+SensorKinect only). These differences tend to drive projects towards one of the libraries.

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