What does it mean that it is DK? DK stands for Developer Kit and it is a combination of 4 different sensors?
(1MP Time-of-Flight, depth camera, 7-microphone array, 12MP RGB camera, and IMU). This device is meant for developers not consumers. It is meant for use in an ambient temperature range of 10-25 degrees Celsius. Azure Kinect DK is not a replacement for Xbox Kinect.
No. Azure Kinect DK was designed to make it easy for developers to work with Azure, but you can use it with or without any cloud provider.
Hardware specifications are available at https://aka.ms/kinectdocs.
Azure Kinect does not have onboard compute so you can pair it with your choice of PC from screenless to desktop workstation. The system requirements are Windows® 10 PC or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with 7th Generation Intel® CoreTM i3 Processor (Dual Core 2.4 GHz with HD620 GPU or faster), USB 3.0 Port, 4 GB RAM. Not available on Windows 10 in S mode. Skeletal/body tracking and other experiences may require more advanced PC hardware.
It depends on your use case and the service that you are running. Check out aka.ms/Kinectdocs for more info.
No sensors are detachable from the device.
Yes, performance depends use case and PC configuration.
The CPU and GPU requirements are variable depending on the framerate and resolution of the device. The minimum spec for a PC ensures that one device running at its maximum framerate will function well. If devices are connected to separate USB root ports, and you have sufficient resources, you should be able to connect any number devices.
This won't be part of the SDK, but we hope to provide examples on some techniques to do this.
Your limit will depend on your use case but we have tested up to 10.
Is there a limit to the number of cameras that can be used in a single location with overlapping fields of view?
There is no limit to the number of cameras in a single location.
There is no theoretical reason why this wouldn’t be possible. However, this exact scenario has not been tested.
Will Azure Kinect ship with calibration software that enables a multi-sensor configuration to determine the relative positions and orientations of the connected cameras?
No calibration software is included for multi-sensor set-ups.
Body tracking works with a single sensor.
The Speech SDK supports multiple languages, for details see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/.The Sensor SDK supports low level C API. Additional language wrappers starting with C++ and C# will be rolled out in the future.
Not at this time.
We are planning on providing hand position and orientation (relative to wrist).
The performance of the body tracking algorithm is limited by available compute. The number of skeletons that can be tracked depends on the available compute and desired frame rate of your application. The sensor field of view imposes a practical limit of around 15 people.
Azure Kinect DK is designed for indoor use. For complete details of operating environments, visit aka.ms/kinectdocs.
Azure Kinect DK is designed for indoor use. With any time of flight sensor, there is sensitivity to sunlight and other reflectivity.
The spatial location is currently not exposed via an API.
Not at this time with the Speech SDK. Developers can implement this based on the raw audio capture.
Does the Azure Kinect necessarily need a connected PC or in the future you will release something to connect it automatically to the cloud?
Azure Kinect does not have onboard compute so you can pair it with your choice of PC from screenless to desktop workstation, either of which can be cloud connected. We look forward to seeing what developers build, listening, and determining our roadmap accordingly.
We are always striving to improve our sensor technology. We look forward to learning more about the solutions our customers want to create to inform our roadmap of sensor capabilities.
We hope to announce additional markets later this year.
Details are available here https://aka.ms/kinectdocs.
Watch https://azure.com/kinect for updates on this topic.
Right now we're focused on Windows and Linux, but the Sensor SDK will be open source enabling contributions to this effort if desired by the community.
For questions and issues pertaining to the SDK, please check our GitHub issues and create a new ones if you have more questions. To voice your support for new features, capabilities, or scenarios for the Azure Kinect SDK or the Azure Kinect DK device, please tell us on our Customer Voice page.