The ofxOpenNI addon was originally developed by Matthew Gingold. The addon wraps the basic OpenNI capabilities, including the following:
- Getting a depth image
- Getting a color image if the web camera is included in your depth camera model
- Tracking the hands (namely, the wrist position) for use in gesture applications
- Tracking human bodies, getting their silhouettes and skeleton point positions
Also, it supports several depth cameras simultaneously.
Currently, ofxOpenNI is a non-core addon, so you need to download and install it yourself. To do it, perform the following steps:
- Download the ofxOpenNI addon from the site http://ofxaddons.com.
Tip
Currently, the addon's page with the download button Download ZIP is located at https://github.com/gameoverhack/ofxOpenNI.
- Unzip the file, rename the folder to
ofxOpenNI, and move it to theaddonsfolder of your openFrameworks installation. - Read the Drivers & getting the examples to work section of the
READMEfile included in the addon's folder. It contains detailed step-by-step information on installing required components, including OpenNI and camera drivers for your operating system (Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux). It also contains information on running the examples.Tip
Current version of addon is written for openFrameworks 0.7.4. It works with openFrameworks 0.8.0 in Mac OS X seamlessly, but does not work in Windows, and probably has issues with Linux. So if at the time of reading this, the addon is still not updated for using with openFrameworks 0.8.0, you need to use it with the older version of openFrameworks, 0.7.4. Download it from the older releases page at http://www.openframeworks.cc/download/older.html.
Currently, the addon is not supported by the Project Generator wizard, which is used for creating new openFrameworks projects. So the simplest way of creating your project with ofxOpenNI is by using its examples as starting sketches. If you need to use another core or non-core addon in the project, then add it manually. See Appendix A, Working with Addons for details.
Let's consider ofxOpenNI's capabilities by looking at examples included in it.