OpenNI Cookbook

• Retrieve and use depth, vision, and audio from compatible devices
• Get basic information about environment
• Recognize hands, humans, and their skeleton and track their moves
• Recognize basic gestures like pushing or swapping
• Select between devices or use more than one device to read data from
• Use .Net (C#, VB.net, and so on) and Java wrappers
• Use third party middlewares along with OpenNI to write feature-rich applications
• Learn how to expand OpenNI by writing new modules for it

The release of Microsoft Kinect, previously known as PrimeSense Sensor, and Asus Xtion opened new doors for developers to interact with users, re-design their application’s UI, and make them environment (context) aware. For this purpose, developers need a good framework which provides a complete application programming interface (API), and OpenNI is the first choice in this field. This book introduces the new version of OpenNI.

"OpenNI Cookbook" will show you how to start developing the Natural Interaction UI for your applications or games with high level APIs, and at the same time access RAW data from different sensors of different hardwares supported by OpenNI using low level APIs. It also deals with expanding OpenNI by writing new modules and expanding applications using different OpenNI compatible middlewares, including NITE.

Examples form the basis of the Open NI Cookbook so that you can put theory into practice to get the most out of working with the framework. OpenNI Cookbook starts with information about installing devices and retrieving RAW data from them, and then shows you how to use this data in applications. You will learn how to access a device and how to read data from it and show this data using OpenGL, or use middlewares (especially NITE) to track and recognize users, hands, and recognize the  person standing in front of the device by his or her skeleton, all through examples.

You will also learn about more advanced aspects, such as how to write a simple module or middleware for OpenNI itself.

"OpenNI Cookbook" shows you how to start and experiment with both NIUI designs and OpenNI itself using examples.

This is a Cookbook with plenty of practical recipes enriched with explained code and relevant  screenshots to ease your learning curve.

If you are a beginner or a professional in NIUI and want to write serious applications or games, then this book is for you. Even OpenNI 1 and OpenNI 1.x programmers who want to move to new versions of OpenNI can use this book as a starting point.

This book uses C++ as the primary language but there are some examples in C# and Java too, so you need to have about a basic working knowledge of C or C++ for most cases.